Slow Crappy Laptop

[DrFaroohk]

So a tech saavy friend of mine put ubuntu on one of those tiny little storage devices that plugs into a usb port (a flash drive?) and told me to boot from that to install linux.

Unfortunately, the laptop will not boot from a flash drive. It will boot from the hard drive, CD drive, floppy disk, or network boot.

So I burned everything onto a CD and tried to boot from the cd. But when I select boot from CD, it still goes right into windows just like nothing changed. I figured maybe I had to format first, and then install ubuntu, but it won't let me format. all the format options are just blanked out.

What am I doing wrong?

[Geek King]

So I burned everything onto a CD and tried to boot from the cd. But when I select boot from CD, it still goes right into windows just like nothing changed. I figured maybe I had to format first, and then install ubuntu, but it won't let me format. all the format options are just blanked out.

What am I doing wrong?

First, check the BIOS setup to make sure the laptop has the boot order so the CD is listed before the HDD. You may also have to keep an eye on the boot process, as some PCs/laptops, especially HPs, require you press a button to boot from CD, or else it goes to the Normal boot process.

[DrFaroohk]

Hmmm, I didn't see anything about a special button, and I changed it in two areas - once from the bios thingie, and then there was a seperate option when it was booting up for just the boot order, and i changed it there too.

The "help" section on the laptop says that's all you have to do to boot from CD. Just hit escape when its booting up, takes you to the boot menu, and select CD.

[DrFaroohk]

Is it possible that the files I have for ubuntu are corrupted or missing or something, and so when the laptop tries to boot from the CD it doesn't read anything bootable so it just defaults to windows?

[Broomjockey]

Is it possible that the files I have for ubuntu are corrupted or missing or something, and so when the laptop tries to boot from the CD it doesn't read anything bootable so it just defaults to windows?

Actually, that's quite possible. I've coastered a couple burns of Ubuntu before. =\

[DrFaroohk]

Ahahahahahahaha I'm such an idiot.

This computer has only 248 megs of ram. That's just great. ubuntu runs even worse than win xp. And win xp is just awful.

Still, this thing IS running slower and slower than it used to. A lot of it is a certain 5 year old who claims he's going to just play with the paint brush program likes to get into the system settings and click on everything he can possibly find.

It runs pretty well when I boot it up in safemode though, except the screen is this tiny mini-screen right in the middle. If I could fix that I'd run it in safemode all the time.

[lordlundar]

Well, at this stage I would have to ascribe to the 3 B's on this one:

1) Break it (preferably with a sledgehammer)
2) Bury it (recycling, etc)
3) Buy a new one


In all seriousness though, considering how much effort you're going through trying to get it up to anything resembling operational (256MB? Are you serious? My old 486 had that amount) You have to step back, look at the price range for a new laptop and ask yourself:

"Is all this work I'm putting into it REALLY worth the effort as opposed to buying a new one?"

[Blade_Raver]

OP:

Did you try that msconfig trick I posted earlier in the thread?

What service pack of WinXP is installed on it? If it's post service pack 2, try rolling it back to SP2.... or if it's really not getting any real internet access or wireless network access... try to roll it back to SP1.

The later service packs are what cause the beefy requirements.

[DrFaroohk]

Yeah, it's Service pack 2, I think...except I can't uninstall them, tried that. The thing is just a monumental piece of crap.

Unfortunately, we only have the laptop and a crappy dell that we got for christmas....I appreciated the gesture immensely, especially because the in-laws were at least partially responsible for destroying my last computer, but really...a gift like a computer is not something you just pick blindly out of a catalogue. If you have no fucking clue what you're doing, ask for help!!!!!!!!!

So anyway, yeah. We have two crappy computers. We don't NEED both, but it's nice having too, especially in dealing with the extreme boredom that comes from the youtube videos that get watched on a regular basis around here.

[Blade_Raver]

Hmm.. a RAM upgrade might be your best bet to get some functionality out of it.

What model of laptop is it? I might be able to find decent pricing.

[EricKei]

If you wanna try upgrading the RAM, try the (free) system scanner on www.crucial.com -- it should be able to ID exactly what types and size of RAM will work in the system. Then, go to newegg.com or somewhere like that to buy it for cheap.

I second...er, third, er...whatever on the need for more RAM. 1gb should show a marked improvement.

Also -- How full is your main hard drive (the C:\ drive in My Computer? If it's below 30% "free space", things will start to get slow. Below 20% and the whole comp will slow to a CRAWL. Cleaning junk off may help, in the short term. YOu may just want a new hard drive (that one is probably small), but that, too, would require a fresh install disk, regardless of operating system.

If you want to go to an earlier Windows, and you can choose between Win2000 and Media Center, choose 2000 Pro. MC might as well be Windows Me, it's a train wreck. (imho) -- if you end up with 2000, www.ntcompatible.com could come in handy for getting programs to behave.