That's exactly why Linux is such a pleasure to use! Even when something goes wrong, you learn how to fix it and then you know more than you did before. If something goes wrong in Windows, either you have to reinstall the system or you find some registry hack in a magazine that fixes the problem but doesn't tell you what caused it or how the fix works. In either case you've learned nothing. You've just had to put up with a lot of aggro.

hazel,

You win today's star prize!

I could not agree more with your sentiments.

On LQ forums we all help and learn.

Hazel - exactly! What really has got to me more than anything is what beachboy2 describes - just how much people want to help. I don't miss Windows at all. I do love the very sleek, elegant Gnome 3 desktop but what I love about it most is that it is a tool that isn't constantly jumping up and down for my attention. It lets me get on with what I want to do.

Thanks very much - that seems to have worked. And I even found out the problem with the cordless mouse - I'd taken the battery out!

I've managed to install AntiX without major trauma and it all seems to be working. And I can even boot into my old Windows XP as well should I ever need to.

Now I have to work out how to use Linux...

A Happy New Year (and Linux) to you.

Great!!! Many congrats... You'll enjoy Linux - I'm sure. I'm totally in love with Ubuntu and Gnome; and Mint and Cinnamon. However, my laptop is still many, many, many miles away and I'm not convinced the builders are ever going to finish with my house... I have no idea when I'll see laptop (or house) again...

Happy New Year to you and anyone else who passes by this thread!

The first install will always be special.. the exhilaration you get when realizing the potential for both catastrophic failures and epic success...

Welcome to the world of FOSS/Linux/GNU! So cool seeing posts like this happy new year to you (all)!

Well, I can't say I'm in love with any OS... I've installed it because I may be doing some development work which is easier under Linux than Windows.

Having a few problems: it sometimes hangs at the earliest stages of booting in after Grub (I've kept the old Windows install as well) with a blank screen. Switching off and on again is a bit of pain but one can live with it.

Good luck with the builders.

Just an update - finally I was united with my house and with the laptop. However, having tried and failed to get TomTom to update via Linux I had to reinstall Windows XP (if anyone cares to remember it) then ALL the service packs, updates etc etc which my husband had to download via the 5.2Mbps link as my browser couldn't see very much of the Web at all. Then I had to fiddle around with the TomTom resources (and the browser) in order - eventually - to get TomTom to update very shakily. It was all so time consuming (browsers that didn't etc) that I've decided not to remove XP but to keep the elderly Dell D400(!) as it is. Anyway, my husband has taken pity on me and promises me yet another ancient laptop to play Linux OS on so I will still be having a shot at this...

Don't even ask about the building work as *that* is even worse than Windows XP - more like DOS...

What's TomTom? What's it got to do with the original problem of this thread?

Everything, I was explaining why I couldn't do what I wanted to do with this laptop actually out of politeness as people were so helpful. I started this thread for that purpose.

TomTom's a satellite navigation system, probably the best known one in this country. But there are others. Maybe one of them would be more Linux-compatible.

I define “really old” as computers with 1 GB RAM or less.
I have a dozen year old Acer AOA150 8.9” netbook sporting a 1.6 GHz single core Atom chip and 1 GB RAM with a 160 GB HDD.
It runs Linux Mint v19.3 XFCE 32 bit at a respectable speed.
Definitely NOT a gamer but will do emailing, surfing, YouTube, movies, word processing (LibreOffice) all day long without a jerk or stutter.
Will hate to see this little netbook go to the curb when all the major Linux distros abandon 32 bit.

Interaction with the modern web browser is the acid test of the real world functionality of legacy computers.
Another bumper block facing these older computers in the next 5 years is a cross distro discontinuation of 32 bit support.

I don't think AntiX will abandon 32-bit even if everyone else does.