04042009

I used to like Xandros. It was an easy install, and seemed to to be pretty good at correctly identifying, and configuring most hardware. I think there was something about it I didn't like, but I can't remember what it was.
The chief problem with it now is that it will not recognise newer hardware (I guess Xandros 3 is at least 5 years old now).

If that box has at least 128 Mb of ram, and preferably 512 MB, I would recommend you try the latest versions of Linux Mint and/or PClinuxOS 2009. If you have one, try them on a different hard disk so you can leave the Xandros disk intact if they don't work on your hardware.

Your 700 Mhz processor will make a heavy desktop like KDE (the most Windows like desktop) a bit sluggish, but I think the default for both suggested distros is a rather carefully configured Gnome desktop that is still slightly Windows like. That should run just fine. My bedroom PC was only a 700 MHz machine and I did run the KDE desktop on that fairly well. I was about to upgrade it to (probably) Linux Mint 5 when the power supply in the monitor died. (I am now using an ancient 133MHz laptop running Windows 98 to play mp3s up there).

For the next bit I'll assume you are trying Linux Mint 5. I installed that onto a small spare hard drive on my laptop, and I liked it so much that I couldn't be bothered to swap the hard disk back again.

For linux mp3 playing I now recommend audacious. It is available through the package manager. (For some reason it won't play mp3s directly across the network, but VLC player will.) Once you have audacious working you will need a copy of Winamp_2_Classic.wsz . It is, if I have the filename correct, a skin used to give Winamp 5 the classic Winamp look (or so I believe). The next bit is slightly tricky, but fairly straightforward. Open a terminal and type su. It will ask you for the root password, and once it is accepted you will have root access to the file system. Now type thunar, and after a short pause the Thunar file manager will open. Now find the winamp skin. Right click on it and select copy. Now drill down through the file system to something like /usr/share/audacious/skins and right click to paste the file there. Close thunar, and you will be back at the terminal. It will be probably be displaying an error message. Ignore that and type exit to exit root, and then exit again to close the terminal. Audacious will now look like, and act like, Winamp once you have selected that skin in the preferences.

Linux Mint 5 has a sort of "network neighbourhood" icon on the default desktop, and you will probably be able to find your other PC via that. It doesn't work for me because I don't (usually) have a Windows PC running to provide the Wins (or something) server. Instead I have to use the "Go/Open location" option and manually type in the ip address (possibly preceded by smb:// - I have it bookmarked now so I can't remember if it adds the smb bit automatically)(no it doesn't - just checked ! You have to overtype network:///).