I decided to install linux on my wife’s old laptop a few weeks ago. I’ve played around with a few different distributions, some worked and some didn’t. I’d like to be able to connect the laptop to the internet using the cable modem, and I’ve been told that the easiest distribution for a relative newbie to do this in is Red Hat 8.0.
I’ve installed it from the disks that came with a dummies book that came in the library but I have one problem. It keeps hanging on startup. It never gets past “starting sshd” It will just hang there. What can I do? I can’t get into the system so I can’t even try to disable it from there.
First off, if it came on disks, and from a book from the library, are you sure it’s 8.0?
Second off, I presume from what you’ve described that this will be a desktop, running gnome or kde or other.
So, let me cut to the chase… If you get it running, it will be just as slow as the Mandrake installation you just uninstalled. Linux isn’t magically faster then windows. It has many advantages (although I dispute it’s a better desktop), but being faster on an old machine is not one of them.
Also, you were lied to in that other thread when you were told this would be easy on an old laptop for a non-geek. It’s not. Linux has made enormous strides, and for a lot of modern computers, it’ll install without a hitch. But not always, and hardly ever on older computers, and almost never on older laptops. That’s my experience anyway.
Oh, and in case I come across as biased against Linux, I should mention that I’m a very big user (and lover) of Linux, and Redhat 8.0 is my flavor. It’s hugely better then Windows in many ways. But it’s also hugely worse in other ways, and if you’re really into it (beyond playing solitaire and using a word processor as another poster to the first thread says they are), you’ll find it requires a LOT of expertise. If you’re the sort, gaining this expertise through fire can be a lot of fun. But if you’re just looking for something simple, this ain’t it.
Oops. I meant Cd-Roms. I was able to get Red Hat 7.0 running on my laptop for a while but I wanted to hook it up to my cable modem to use when the regular computer is burning Cds.
I’ve been playing around with various different distributions and I can usually find information on Google or other places, but for some reason I can’t seem to find anything on this problem.
With regards to the complexity of installing linux, well, the laptop was just sitting in the closet anyhow gathering dust so this is still a more productive use than it was getting and I’m not without computer while all this goes on. I just want a decent version of linux to run with my ethernet card and have something to play with when I’m bored.