How do you install LXDE instead of Windows XP

[NipponMonkey]

As you might guess, I'm new to Linux. I've only used it a bit as a server and have never installed it myself.

I have an old PC running windows XP which I'll to use as a Linux system now as I want to learn more about it.

My PC only has 512mb ram and is running slowly, so I wanted to install a lightweight version of Linux. I Only have 20GB HDD of which 17GB is being used by XP. Ideally I'd like to remove XP and run LXDE only. Having looked at the wiki and installation information, I'm not sure how I go about running LXDE instead of XP.

Can anyone point me in the right direction - cheers

Edit, I looked at ubuntu windows installer, but from it's graphics, it looks like it takes 17GB of space which is too much for my old PC: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/windows-installer

So I looked around and read good things about LXDE, but I'm not sure how to get it running. I don't want to run it from a CD or USB, I want it as the main OS. If someone has alternative Linux version that they think I should use, I'd be interested to hear it. Cheers again

[NipponMonkey]

OK, I manage to remove loads of windows programs to free up 6GB of space and then I installed Ubuntu via the WUBI.exe file. Ubuntu was running really slowly - a lot slower than Windows XP was. I then eventually got LXDE installed, that runs a little faster but it is still very slow.

Sometimes it can take 30 seconds for a program to load and the CPU shoots up to max very easily. I don't think I could use LXDE like this.

Is this how you'd expect it to run or is something wrong? How could speed things up?

Cheers, NM

P.s. here is my system info:
Ubuntu
Release 12.04 (precise) 32-bit
Kernel Linux 3.2.0-18-generic-pae
GNOME 3.3.91

Memory: 495.7 MiB
Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2400+
Available Disk Space: 5.6 GiB

[Rex Bouwense]

If you want to install a light weight Linux OS, I would suggest Lubuntu. If your goal is merely to replace your XP OS with let's say Lubuntu and use it as your only OS on your computer, it is relatively easy.
First: Back up any data, documents, pictures, music that you cannot afford to lose or simply do not want to lose.
Second: Download Lubuntu 11.10 (or if you can wait a month 12.04). It will be released next month. The Beta is out for testing I believe. See:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/GetLubuntu
Third: Check the MD5Sum. See
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubun ... heckISO_CD
Fourth: Burn the ISO to a CD at the slowest possible speed.
Fifth: Pop the CD into your computer and try Lubuntu without actually changing anything. If all of your hardware works and you are satisfied go a head and install or simply play with it for a while until you are comfortable. If you decide that you do not like Lubuntu there are other light weight Operating Systems.
Keep us informed. Another one that you might check out is Bondi Linux. It does not use LXDE but it is super light.

[NipponMonkey]

Hmmm, I downloaded Lubuntu and and the checksum was fine. I made the CD, but I get a strange error - I get: "pyrun.exe No Disk: There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive D:".

Drive D: is my writer (with no disk in) and drive E: is the DVD drive which the Lubuntu disk is in.

After clicking on continue several times I then get another message: "wubi: No CD detected, cannot run CD menu."

The autorun.inf file is:
[autorun]
open=wubi.exe --cdmenu
icon=wubi.exe,0
label=Install Lubuntu

[Content]
MusicFiles=false
PictureFiles=false
VideoFiles=false

If I put the CD into drive D: then I get the same problem but with messages about no disk being in the E: drive.

If I load the wubi.exe directly, I can get to the install screen but it is for installing Ubuntu and there is no option for installing Lubuntu. I assume this is what I want to do as the autorun.inf file has the line: "label=Install Lubuntu"

I also don't have any menu to try Lubuntu from the disk directly - only install Ubuntu is possible.

Any ideas? Should I install Ubuntu anyway? Could I install Lubuntu after? Is there a different way of installing it other than the wubi.exe?

Cheers

[NipponMonkey]

After reading:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1247476

I disabled the other drive and tried again, now when I auto play the CD I only get one message saying:
"No CD detected, cannot run CD menu"

Very strange...

[Rex Bouwense]

The instructions that I gave you do not apply to WUBI. I thought that you wanted to get rid of Microsoft Windows. With only a 10 Gb hard drive in your computer, it is difficult to raun two OS. Do you want to rid your computer of Windows or keep it?
I also hope you are booting from the CD. You have to change your BIOS to do that.

[NipponMonkey]

Hi again,

I didn't realize it was a bootable CD as it doesn't mention that at all on the installation page in the wiki:
http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Installation

Having never installed any linux systems before I didn't realise that was the way to go. I did try rebooting with the CD in but nothing happened (as my BIOS wasn't looking for booting from CD).

I'd assumed I was supposed to run it from Windows as it has auto run info. Anyways, previously I got Ubuntu installed using wubi and it was incredible slow with huge CPU spikes all the time. Now I've done a partition install of Lubuntu from the bootable CD and it runs a lot faster and without strange CPU spikes so all looks good. My PC is one which I bought in 2000 and haven't really used in for years - it has a 20GB HDD so I can run both XP and Lubuntu while testing. If I get on with it I'll remove XP totally later.

It was great to see Windows XP uninstaller in the options when installing Lubuntu, but I didn't to do it without trying it first.

One more thing, when it boots up now, it's loading to Lubuntu without the option of selecting Windows. How do I boot in XP now?

Also, my monitor loses its signal as it is booting too, which I don't think should happen - but I can live with that for now.

[Rex Bouwense]

OK. I'm not sure where you are. Did you uninstalled the WUBI installation? After the installation of a second OS, you have what is called a dual boot system. Since you installed your Linux system after the XP, you shouldn't have a problem but obviously you do. Could you please post a screen shot of your hard drive using GParted. It would also help if you described in detail what you have already done. I was not aware that you wanted to keep XP.

[NipponMonkey]

It's OK, don't worry about the partition problem, I think I'll just install again removing XP.

I've got an old laptop too that kept crashing because of a memory problem. Since the Ubuntu CD comes with a memory test I was able to find out which RAM stick wasn't working (stopped it after finding 2,000,000+ errors!). I tried loading in windows after doing the memory test (and confirmed the RAM was good) but it was still crashing in Windows. So I've done a full install of Lubuntu on that laptop - typing on it now! The laptop has 80GB HDD so it's a bit more useful for playing around on.

Lubuntu is working fine after having a little trouble connecting to the internet - it was accepting the password. After rebooting and setting up the connection in LXDE rather than Lubuntu, it worked great.

The laptop has 512MB RAM now as I had to take out the other 512MB RAM. Can you fix RAM? Or is it just dead? I'm not sure if I want to test it again as I don't want to cause any problems with the laptop again.

Anyway, it looks like I've fixed my old laptop thanks to Lubuntu!

I use a lot of Open Source software on Windows 7, so I'm seeing how they run on Lubuntu now - such as: GIMP, Inkscape, Eclipse, vlc, Audacity...

Would be great to have all this available on a second laptop.

Thanks for your help.

[Rex Bouwense]

Glad to hear that everything worked out. I have revived an old Dell Inspiron 1000 with Lubuntu. All I did was add another 256Mb of Ram and it runs smoking fast right out of the box. It too had Microsoft Widows XP which I deleted when I installed Lubuntu. Good luck.