Dell optiplex sx280

[crouse]

I have a Dell optiplex sx280, that I purchased from a Library sail. When I turn it on it goes to DOS. with  C:\>. I don't know what to do. I was told I need to install an Operating System. It has a 3.5 floppy and a place to plug in a thumb drive (not sure the correct title). I was thinking of installing like Linux or some sort of Free  operating system. It did not come with any disks.  Any suggestions.

[JJ 3000]

Does it have a CD drive?

[crouse]

No it does not, just the 3.5 floppy and thumb drive.

[JJ 3000]

Check out Unebootin
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

It will allow you to create a bootable flash drive for a linux distro.

According to your manual that computer shipped with a variety of configurations. Can you tell us which processor and how much RAM you have? Some of the newer Linux distros don't perform very well on machines with older processors or small amounts of RAM. If you can tell us this info, we can make recommendations as to which particular flavor of Linux would run well on that machine.

You can also take this quiz to help you choose a Linux distro.
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true

[crouse]

Its a pentium 4 processor. I am not sure how to find out the ram, at least since it loads right in to DOS. I will checkout your recommended links. Thank you for your time and knowlege.

[rthompson80819]

It's been a long time since I used this command but at the c:\ type "mem" without the quotes and it will tell you about your memory.

This link will give you more information and the switches (or options) available with the mem command.

http://www.computerhope.com/memhlp.htm

Also, at the c:\ type "ver" and it will give you some information of what version of DOS you have.

[JJ 3000]

Your computer's BIOS will give us the info we need to know.
Look here under System Setup:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opsx280/en/ug/advfeat.htm#1052715

Under system setup options on that page it will tell you how to find cpu info and memory info.

[crouse]

Hope this is what information that is needed.

Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.8 GHz

Memory 512 MB

[crouse]

Sorry I forgot the version of DOS is "FreeCom version 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap"

[Salmon Trout]

That's FreeDOS.

[JJ 3000]

I'd recommend trying openSUSE. It should run well on that machine and it's a good choice for a first time Linux user. There are a variety of different flavors of Linux to choose from but whichever one you do ultimately end up choosing you should do a bit a research on it first. Make sure that it will be compatible with your hardware. Pay particular attention to the minimum system requirements. A lot of Linux distributions recommend a minimum of 512MB Ram. You have 512, but keep in mind that that's the minimum that you will need for operating systems like Ubuntu or Mint. They may function with that much memory but will be slowish. I'd warn against a new user installing an older version of a particular distribution that has lower system requirements because you'll be leaving yourself open to security vulnerabilities.

You can check out all of the Linux distros here.

OpenSUSE has a support forum if you have any questions about installing/using it. There's a video here that goes through an install of openSUSE. Don't be intimidated by that video. It goes through several different options but it's not that hard if you go with the default options. Here's another video that goes through the "live CD" install process. The live CD option may be the best for you since this is your first time. Even though it's called a live CD, don't let that confuse you- your gonna be booting the ISO file from a thumb drive, so no CD needed.

Did you look at UNebootin? Do you have any questions about it? You can also learn how to create a bootable thumb drive for openSUSE here.
Do you have any questions about installing or using Linux?

If you have any more Linux questions you may want to visit computerhope's Linux board. There are people there that know more about this stuff than I do.

Also, welcome to the Linux community. Linux might seem strange or hard to use if you've never tried it before, but once you've used it for a couple of weeks you'll begin to love it. Linux is a community effort, so if you have any problems or concerns you can turn to your fellow Linux users for assistance.

[crouse]

I did look and UNebootin, and I do not have any questions right now, I Really Really do appreciate you time and knowledge. Also the thumbnail picture of Regan is Aw-some.

Thanks, Mr. Crouse

[patio]

You can get a DVD burner for about 30Bucks and install it yourself in 15 minutes...
Then you won't be so limited with OS choices...

[Computer_Commando]

Go to Dell Support:  http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Enter the Service Tag and see if it shipped with Windows installed.  If it did, you can get a replacement copy for a nominal charge.  Since this was a library computer, you may be out of luck with this.