Hallelujah!! Goodbye XP!

For those who are inexperienced and have come here for help and for those to gave me help when I first came here a few months ago--it CAN be done!!

I have a netbook (Samsung N148) with XP and an added complication of NO multi-language pack with the original language being Chinese which I do not read. I bought it in China in an emergency about 6 years ago, and I use it only when traveling (which I do for up to half a year each year). Furthermore, it has no DVD drive. Although I've used computers since the days of unix (before Windows), I am not proficient at the technical aspects. After reading the responses I got here, researching online, and following the step-by-step directions of at least 3 websites, I now have a dual-boot (Linux XLXE/Windows XP) computer.

Although Mint was recommended here, I decided to go with XLXE because it has so many recommendations for installation on older computers. I had never downloaded via a torrent, so I first ran into problems when I tried to download a torrent program. At three different sites, I got warnings from McAfee and worried about using their programs. Eventually, I found a recommendation for utorrent and installed it with no warnings. Using a 4 GB memory stick, I downloaded the files for installing LXLE 12.04.4 to the stick.

I went into the bios of my netbook and moved the location of my memory stick up to the top so that the computer would go there to start rather than to windows on the hard drive. That's when I had my second complication. Nothing happened related to XLXE; the computer booted to Windows XP. Not knowing the technicalities, I wondered if that was because what I downloaded was in a folder on the memory stick. Somewhere, I came up with the idea of trying to put only the ISO file on a memory stick, so, wanting to save what I downloaded before, I copied the ISO file to a second memory stick and tried starting the computer with it. It didn't work.

To get over this third complication, I went to the free publication related to setting up and running Linux from a memory stick (which I had received by e-mail from this forum). I inserted a second memory stick to be the location of the new bootable program into a second USB port and downloaded the Universal USB Installer on it. Following the directions in the publication using the other memory stick as the drive that had my ISO file for LXLE, the process then went smoothly except at one point where it stalled and I had to start the installation process again. On that second try I decided just to install it directly to my computer hard drive rather than to the flash drive. I knew I wanted the program, so why "try" it via the USB stick? It installed within a few minutes and I now have Linux XLXE on my computer ready to use!! And a wonderful side benefit is that I don't see the Chinese language anywhere as long as I stay out of XP!

The only problem I still have is that I need to follow up on is that I am not sure if I have XLXE 12.04.4 installed. The Universal USB Installer for Linux only listed Desktop XLXE, and I believe I saw another number associated with the installation I have. Therefore, I need to see if I can upgrade it to 12.04.4, since that seems to be the most recommended version for a small, older computer. It was too late in the evening (early in the morning) to deal with that last night. I was just happy to have a working version of Linux.

THANK YOU to those of you on this forum who help newbies like me. I hope you have read this post this far and realize how much we newbies appreciate the fact that you take the time write without getting frustrated by our questions which must seem quite naive to you and how much your initial help to me was critical to this process I completed yesterday.

And to those newbies who came to this thread because you want to leave Microsoft behind during this period when they are trying to force you to pay for an upgrade, I hope my explanation for my process will help guide you from XP to the world of Linux.

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