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Toshiba10 started burning on me. I had to unplug her for good. I'm currently updating to SP3 on my super old XP laptop. It's slow as hell and bloated with malware, but it works. I'm going to put Kaspersky IS on it after I'm finished updating it. That might take all night, and I can't monitor the CPU or RAM with Task Manager. Would it just be easier to put Linux Mint on this old thing?

I just want to use a computer without having to fix it! Is that too much to ask?!?

Edit: I am getting a computer for my birthday on Thursday, so all is not lost.

good luck

If it's that old, skip Mint, and go for Crunchbang. It'll run much better, though you may have to brush up on your Linux skills.

I've never used Linux of any kind before, so it would be a challenge for me either way. I'm currently thinking I'm happy with Windows, but I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

My oldest laptop is an idiot. It date and/or time wrong four times today since I first started it! Lol

If you want to keep using it, and just want to stick with Windows, I'd recommend using nLite to make a customized reinstall disk. http://www.nliteos.com/ Be sure to have your XP CD on hand, as you'll need it. Basically, what nLite does is it takes the files from your install CD, and allows you to add in drivers and updates, as well as tweaking the out of box settings.

BlackViper's configuration guide for XP's services is a great place to look if you want to disable some unnecessary cruft to speed up your OS, and you can use it in conjunction with nLite to make an install disc with those services disabled right out. http://www.blackviper.com/service-confi ... gurations/

Trust me, nLite is pretty much the main reason why I kept using XP for years when everyone else moved onto Vista/7/8, as there's no decent equivalent available for those OSes.

You don't want to use XP, they're not gonna update it anymore.

It's better than nothing on low-spec hardware, and the lack of updates isn't that bad if you run a good antivirus and firewall, and use some common sense when you're browsing the web. Browser addons like NoScript and AdBlock help too. I ran XP 32-bit for years without having updates enabled, and aside from a minor rootkit, and a drive-by download that was really easy to remove, both of which I got before I learned to tighten up my security I'll add, I never had any real malware problems. Now, whenever I'd reinstall, I'd use nLite to make a disk with all the latest updates applied, but I never had the Automatic Updates service enabled.

Of course, for someone who isn't as committed to maintaining a decent security setup, or isn't willing to be, Linux is probably a better option. Actually, it's a better option anyway since you don't have to have an antivirus running in the background taking up resources.

As a recent migrant from XP to Linux, I can't recommend Linux enough.

For an old laptop, I'd recommend keeping XP offline for all your legacy software and then use live versions of Puppy or other low-spec distros to go-online. Or, if your XP is completely unusable anyway, wipe it and install a low-spec distro like LXLE or MX-14.

Honestly, as soon as you start using Linux you'll kick yourself for wasting so much time on XP.

I don't have the install CD for the XP. I never made one. Might have to steal a blank DVD-R from Mom... What do you think?

I've been looking at Cinnamon for Linux distorts and I kind of like it. It looks user friendly. I probably should still stick with Crunchbang because it won't kill my computer, right? It's a Todhiba Satellite A105-S4244 with 1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, 1.66Ghz Centrino Duo Processor, dead as a door nail battery.

Assuming your CPU has PAE (Physical Address Extension), your laptop should be able to handle Mint or Ubuntu with those specs but you might get a bit more mileage out of Lubuntu. My advice is to try as many live distros as possible to find out what works for you and what works for your laptop.

Linux Mint is good, but it doesn't work that well with slow hardware. You might want to check out Antergos, which is based on Arch Linux instead. You can configure this to do anything Mint does, but not vice versa.

If I use a live CD, my computer will overwork itself. The CD drive overheats the computer and might kill it. This one runs with a crappy fan. It gets pretty hot on its own without running a CD.

Edit: my iPod's autocorrect bit me in the a??. Distorts instead of distros

You could try booting from a USB stick. From the specs you gave, it sounds like your laptop is recent enough for the BIOS to recognise a USB stick; if not, there is a program called PLOP that will enable you to boot from USB:
http://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/

The only downside is that the software is quite prone to crashing because it's effectively trying to make a computer do something it wasn't designed to do, but it does work after a fashion. If you can't load the software from CD, you can run it on a floppy disk or from the hard drive.

Hard drive sounds best, since I'm not sure I want to put up with more crashing (Toshiba10 did a bit of that) and this one doesn't take floppy disks. It's also just young enough that it could probably handle Windows Vista. It says right on the sticker Vista capable. I might have to expand the RAM, though. It already gets eaten pretty badly.