Hi. I have been looking to learn Linux and several people have suggested antiX as a good place to start especially with a 13 year old laptop with a non-PAE Pentium M 1.4 GHz processor . So, yes, I am a newbie (always disliked that word but nevertheless descriptive) so I hope this a wise first-time Distro choice for me. __{{emoticon}}__

Any advice/suggestions will be most welcomed.

Thanks and look forward to learning.

Welcome aboard.

Welcome! How much memory does you machine have? Are you comfortable using Windows-XP? If you have a Gig of RAM (maybe even 512 Meg) and you are comfortable with Windows-XP then it might be easier for you to start with MX-14.4. MX is more GUI oriented and some people say it reminds them of XP to some extent.

Wow! You guys are quick in response! Thanks; much appreciated.

Yes, very comfortable with XP. This is a Toshiba Tecra S1 that my sister gave me back in 2008 that she received from her place of employment. I believe it dates to either 2002 or 2003. Tried to get it to work but I think the XP Pro that it came loaded with and/or the newer security software slowed it down for boot-up and internet connections. Sometimes it would just freeze for awhile. Anyway here is the hardware:

1. Pentium M 1.4 GHz non-PAE
2. Two gigs of PC 2100 memory @ 133 MHz -- I updated from the 512 megs it came with
3. Samsung 5400 rpm 120 gig hard drive -- I installed; currently running XP Pro that I migrated off the original Hitache 40 gig hard drive
4. ATI Radeon 9000 4x AGP
5. Latest and last BIOS from 2005 -- I updated this when I had it up and running
6. Atheros a/b wifi - Will this be a main problem?


* I just finished doing a diagnosis on the hard drive and it is in great shape. In fact, both memory and hard drive have been barely used; like new.

Again, thanks.

If you are comfortable with XP then I definitely recommend you try starting with MX first on that machine. You have plenty of RAM. If you can boot from usb then it would be easy for you to try MX and/or antiX live with a LiveUSB and see how you like it. Since you have enough RAM, the Live system might actually run faster than an installed system. This might depend on if the laptop has usb-2.0 or not. If it only has usb-1.1 then you can still get good speed from the Live system with the"toram" option (in the F4-Options menu of the bootloader) but this will eat up about 700 Meg of RAM.

Howdy and Welcome. I dropped out of high school in Vineland.

Browntrout 57 wrote: 6. Atheros a/b wifi - Will this be a main problem?

Usually atheros chipsets do pretty well in linux. However, I could not find reference for just an wifi a/b part. the ath5k driver supports wifi a/b/g.

You will know right away if it works though, as wifi networking is supported of the live media.

After further research my system is telling me it is an Atheros b. This seems to confirm what other documentation has been listing.

Welcome and Howdy! You came to the right spot to learn more. There are several members here who are definitely willing to help you out.

Just ask! Dumb answers, no charge. __{{emoticon}}__