Popular Science laptop resurrection

[caviterruptor]

I'm trying to ressurect my Panasonic Toughbook CF-47 by following steps in this month's Popular Science HOW 2.0, page 80, (www.popsci.com).  

I don't understand how to use the Knoppix Live CD.  *censored*, I don't know what a Live CD is!  I'm more than happy to ditch Windows for Linux, if it will do the trick, but  Knoppix, eMule, Donkey, et. al.,  are Greek to me. :-?

As far as file sharing goes, I've used Limewire, but the others are a whole nother animal (pun intended).

I'm using WinXP on my desktop to get Linux for my laptop.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

C    

[Rob Pomeroy]

I don't understand how to use the Knoppix Live CD.

In that case, why not visit the Knoppix web site and read the documentation there?

There is a bit of a learning curve with Linux, but it can be particularly good at getting more out of old or obsolete laptops.

[GX1_Man]

I don't understand how to use the Knoppix Live CD.

There is a bit of a learning curve with Linux, but it can be particularly good at getting more out of old or obsolete laptops.

UNLESS you are expecting to run some sort of graphical windowed environment. If that is the case (and unfortunately it usually is) get more RAM or a faster processor!

[Rob Pomeroy]

UNLESS you are expecting to run some sort of graphical windowed environment. If that is the case (and unfortunately it usually is) get more RAM or a faster processor!

Have you ever tried fvwm95?  That ran beautifully for me on an old P133 laptop with 48MB RAM.  :-)

[GX1_Man]

True, but many newbies expect to load up some P-I brick with 16 meg RAM and then complain because Gnome doesn't work as fast as Win98. That's the danger of some of these "save your old hardware - use linux" articles. False expectations