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Question from Marla: I have an older HP desktop PC that got really slow over the years so I bought a new laptop and put the old desktop in a closet. Well, the laptop’s screen just went bad and I don’t have the money to buy a new computer right now.
I took the old desktop out of the closet and hooked it up, and to my great surprise it still works. The problem is it has Windows 7 on it and I know it’s unsafe to use now.
I read your post about replacing Windows with Linux and I’d really like to do that because everything I do on a computer is Internet based.
The thing is this computer only has a 320GB hard drive in it. Is that enough space to hold Linux or will I need to replace the hard drive with a bigger one?
Rick’s answer: Marla, the short answer to your question in no, you won’t need to replace the hard drive in your old computer in order to install Linux on it. A 320GB drive is plenty large enough to hold most any Linux distribution you care to install on it.
Broadly speaking, virtually any version of Linux requires less disk space than Windows 7. That means a hard drive upgrade will most likely never be required in order to replace a Windows installation with Linux on this particular machine.
What’s more, most of the programs that run under Linux also require less disk space than their Windows counterparts.
It sounds like the only thing you’ll be running on this machine is a web browser but I still recommend that you check out this list of Linux replacements for popular Windows programs. You just might see something you can use.
And now, one more quick point…
Even though you don’t need to replace the hard drive in your laptop just so you can install Linux, if your budget allows you still might want to consider replacing it anyway with a much faster Solid State Drive (SSD).
Right now you can buy this highly-rated 256 GB SSD (which is plenty enough space to hold Linux and a bunch of applications) for very reasonable price.
Running Linux off of a solid state drive will likely make this laptop seem a lot faster than it does right now. I really believe you’ll be glad you made the small investment after you see the difference it’ll make. Just something for you to consider…
I hope this helps, Marla. Good luck!