[headdie]

Ok so I am now settled with my Frankenstein system.  As a result of the rebuilds and salvaging I now have 3 hard drives which are perhaps a third to half full in overall capacity.

This gives me an opportunity to explore other operating systems on a dual boot, so any suggestions on what to try?

things to take into account:-
 
1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

2) my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard

3) needs to play nice with Windows XP as a dual boot

4) Command line dosnt phase me but a readily available command list is a must

[Grizzly]

my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard

Install Windows 98 and play the old mechwarriors.

[Ghostavo]

1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

Ubuntu.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

Ubuntu.

I think I'd go with Mint. It's very WinXP-like.

[Nuke]

my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard

Install Windows 98 and play the old mechwarriors.

i had mechwarrior 2 working on win7 at one point, with acceleration, joysticks, and even trackir. i cant for the life of me remember how i pulled it off. some 3rd party patch and i had to hack something to make my ch gear work.  ppjoy and tir2joy for trackir.

[Bobboau]

I used to be a Ubuntu fan, recommending it to newcomers without a second thought, but now I would recommend Mint, this one though if you can hold out until the end of the month they are going to be releasing their new version

[karajorma]

One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.

[ssmit132]

I know that Linux Mint does that too (or at the very least 13 Cinnamon does that). In that case I wanted it to be the default anyway, but if I wanted to change it I would just edit the grub config.

[Kopachris]

One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.

Yes, most (if not all) other distros have the same annoyance.  IIRC, a lot of them don't even bother installing themselves in addition to Windows by default, forcing you to manually partition if you don't want to wipe Windows out.  And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.  I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader), but I do agree that the information on how to change it could be more accessible (it wouldn't be difficult for the developers to provide an option in the installer, either).

[karajorma]

And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.

I said unnecessarily complex. And it it. Any sensible operating system would give you the option to permanently change the boot order in the boot loader itself. Why the **** should I have to load the operating system I don't particularly want to use in order to make it not load?

I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader).

Quite frankly, I do. If I'm installing a program on Windows, I get all kind of annoyed when it decides "Hey, you're installing a media player so I'm going to grab all the media associations for myself." I doubt I'm the only one. But when an OS does that, well it's okay.

[Kopachris]

And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.

I said unnecessarily complex. And it it. Any sensible operating system would give you the option to permanently change the boot order in the boot loader itself. Why the **** should I have to load the operating system I don't particularly want to use in order to make it not load?

I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader).

Quite frankly, I do. If I'm installing a program on Windows, I get all kind of annoyed when it decides "Hey, you're installing a media player so I'm going to grab all the media associations for myself." I doubt I'm the only one. But when an OS does that, well it's okay.

Well, you're dealing with problems common to pretty much every operating system, then.  Doesn't matter if it's Mac, Windows, or Linux, when you install it, it will install a new bootloader with itself as the default operating system (except when installing Windows using BootCamp from a Mac host, or installing Ubuntu using WUBI (now officially deprecated) from a Windows host).  Also, I'm not aware of any bootloader that will let you set the default operating system from the bootloader itself.  GRUB probably comes closest, since you can set it up to boot into whatever was last booted.

[Fury]

Linux prides itself as promoting choice. As such it could be expected they would also let user to choose what his or her default operating system should be. Letting user to pick that when GRUB is being set up wouldn't be all that hard and I'm actually surprised if that isn't the case.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Getting back to the topic...

1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

2) my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard

Linux Mint would be a good choice, as mentioned before; considering your system specs, I'd recommend the MATE or Xfce flavours. Alternatively (or while waiting for the new Mints), you can try out Lubuntu and/or Xubuntu for a (slightly) different take on the desktop environment.

[headdie]

Lubuntu and Xubuntu are certainly interesting as builds designed to be lightweight on system load, So i might look into them first then move onto Mint a little down the line if i feel like it.

while i look into the builds above has anyone got any experience with the other free/opensource OSs?

[Nuke]

ive already decided that debian will be the distro i use somewhere between the end of win7 support and the release of a reactos beta.

[Phantom Hoover]

Strongly recommend you use Mint rather than an Ubuntu variant. Canonical are trying to turn Ubuntu into an Apple-style walled garden, you don't want to end up inside that.

[jr2]

One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.

Find app called Startup in the Synaptic package manager.

Install

Open

Configure

Profit!!

EDIT:

Strongly recommend you use Mint rather than an Ubuntu variant. Canonical are trying to turn Ubuntu into an Apple-style walled garden, you don't want to end up inside that.

... you do realize why that statement is hilarious, right?  I mean, I know what you're trying to say, but ...

Spoiler:

First, there was the original Linux.  Then, there was a variant called Debian.  Of which there came to be a variant called Ubuntu.  Of which there came to be a variant called... .... ........ Mint!

EDIT2: I meant to also throw in for Mint,

EDIT3: If you want to be able to change your boot preference / rescue Linux from within Windows^TM, install the free (for home use) EasyBCD by NeoSmart.  This will allow you to pretty much do what you want with your startup config - you can insert an option to boot linux from the Windows startup menu, edit the GRUB startup menu, and it's all pretty much automagical.

[Phantom Hoover]

I know Mint is an Ubuntu fork. It's not affiliated with Canonical in any way, though, and it was forked long before Ubuntu started going down the drain; my point stands.

[Luis Dias]

I'm actually starting to hate ubuntu. I have middle fingered Microsoft for decades, but damn their OS is really stable nowadays. Can't say the same for Ubuntu.

[pecenipicek]

I'm actually starting to hate ubuntu. I have middle fingered Microsoft for decades, but damn their OS is really stable nowadays. Can't say the same for Ubuntu.

i've been using kubuntu at work for the past 3 months and had... "mild" annoyances with getting some up to date / out of repo packages (svn post 1.6, google chrome and yes i know there's chromium, but i need to have chrome too)
but other than that, its been rock solid.

at home, funtoo + KDE (screw gnome3 and derivatives), cause i love to screw with my system often. and i found that ubuntu and company are very very not fond of the way i can bend them sideways sometimes, going so far to get unrepairable the moment i stray from their guidelines.

i mean you'd think that setting ****ing locales would be easy, but noooo. had to trawl their stackoverflow clone for the solution to that particular idiocy...