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LINUX: Linux Lite - viable 1st Linux alternative for XP and Vista users

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bobc4012:
What will be the killer for XP users is it won't run on non-PAE processors (Intel M series - including Celerons which were popular on many laptops). Depending upon the particular "M" series processor, "ForcePAE" may or may not work, but an XP (or Vista) user won't know about that option during boot! Most likely scenario is they try it, the system hangs (no explanation), they go to some Linux forum, be told they had a bad download (or to "F" off with their ID 10T error), get discouraged and end up buying a new Windows 8 machine (Win. 8 does not support non-PAE either)!!!

Unfortunately, too many are spouting off that Linux will run better on old H/W that Windows - until one encounters an older non-PAE H/W. BTW, Linux Mint DE (Debian Edition) does handle non-PAE H/W and also has "rolling updates" so there is no requirement to re-install every time one wants to update to the next release.

40hz:
^The single biggest challenge I've seen Mint Debian users run into is wifi support. Not so much on modern laptops. But on older ones (especially with non-builtin wireless) it's an absolute showstopper for the new user.

Now that Mint's main releases will all use LTS versions of Ubu as their base going forward, the rolling update feature of the Debian edition becomes less a factor. Especially for users who prefer rock solid stability over getting the "latest & greatest" - most of which is just stability and bug fixes anyway..

bobc4012:
I agree wi-fi can be a problem. However, I have yet to find  a distro that can handle my Broadcom wi-fi card successfully. I have an old Acer laptop and it has the Broadcom IN2220. Going back to Ubuntu 6.4 and all the following releases, none will support that card. As I mentioned, other distros I have tried also fail. Fortunately, it has a PCI slot and I have found a Netgear adapter that works. But even trying a Netgear USB WG111 adapter, I had a problems. NDISwrapper will install it and it may work once or twice and then fail. I also picked up a couple of Linksys adapters (PCI slot) and have yet to get the "500 to work and the "300" is hit and miss. Interestingly, I have an even older Toshiba that had no wi-fi but does have a PCI slot too. All the adapters work in it without using NDISwrapper, including the USB adapter.

I have done a lot of googling on that Broadcom card and it seems to be a major problem for others too. There have been "fixes" posted, but they are also "hit and miss".  A lot of success seems to depend on who makes the PC/laptop.

As for the rolling releases, it is no different than running updates on other distros. The point is that there is no need to re-install and spend time re-installing and reconfiguring a lot of applications. I even had my home directory in another partition and a couple of times running Ubuntu (back around 8 or 9) and it didn't pan out. I ended up having to re-install everything again, which is a royal PITA!

My Acer has a Celeron "M" series chip (non-PAE). Linux Mint 14 and later plus later releases of Ubuntu and other current distros won't run on it. As I posted previously, "forcepae" didn't work either.

Tuxman:
Oh, neat, another Linux whose devs misunderstood that Linux is not meant to replace anything.

40hz:
I have yet to find  a distro that can handle my Broadcom wi-fi card successfully. I have an old Acer laptop and it has the Broadcom IN2220. Going back to Ubuntu 6.4 and all the following releases, none will support that card. As I mentioned, other distros I have tried also fail.
-bobc4012 (May 28, 2014, 02:56 AM)
--- End quote ---

Had similar problems in the past - and also had the best luck with Netgear CardBus cards. In my case the laptop I was using had a weird problem where the card wouldn't be recognized if it was plugged in when I booted up. If I waited until I had a desktop and then plugged it in, it would work just fine - except it would sometimes unexpectedly quit on large downloads. If I logged out and back in, it (usually) started up again. If it didn't (maybe one time out of ten or so) I'd need to shutdown, remove the card and do the "restart and wait for the desktop before inserting" bit again. ifup/ifdown (even with the --force option) wouldn't work at all once the card quit. And modprobe was no help either to fix or identify what the real problem was. But...if the card was running, the ifup/ifdown commands did work as often as you'd care to toggle it. Definitely some oddball combination of hardware, timing, and (probably) driver issues.

Never did get to the bottom of that one. ;D

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