Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me. I have just got a Dell Inspiron 910 mini and its currently running XP Home, I'm thinking about changing it to Linux but don't know anything at all about it, I know there are a few to choose from so im kind of hoping some of you out there might be able to help me on my way. I have no idea what information you need in order to help me out so i'll give you what i can think of and you can ask your questions  .

So, the laptop is a 1.6 Intel Atom with 1gb ram and an 8GB SSD (hence wanting to change the software), it has no cd drive and has built in webcam. I will be using it for windows live including the webcam and surfing the web so I will need to know about compatible antivirus, web browsers and also very importantly drivers and where to get them from. It is wireless and has built in bluetooth although the driver for that is not necessary. I might also play the odd hidden object game or card game on it too if it has the capabilities. It is mainly a leisure notebook, it won't do burning or downloading or anything like that.

Ive seen a lot about dual booting Linux, is that necessary? As you can imagine, with only having an 8GB hard drive thats not going to be easy, it only has the necessary programs on it at the moment and only has 1.7GB free as it is!!!

Thank you in advance guys, I know i'm at the right place for good advice 

I've never tried one of these SSD things myself, but I would imagine that XP has gobbled up nearly all your "disk" storage.

With only 1.7GB available your linux would be a very lightweight distro.
You won't need antivirus and all drivers usually come built-in.

If you could get your hands on a bootable CD drive, you could try Linux out, without affecting your XP stuff.

Believe it or not, they are nice, despite its only having such a small amount of space left its still nice and smooth and quite quick too 

I have a spare CD ROM of some kind lying around, that'd do the job, right?

When you say all the drivers would install, im guessing wireless would too? Thats the vital one  , sound, graphics usb, the lot? If so thats really good.

This may be a silly question but if i'm using the internet why would i not need antivirus?

Most importantly, which would be the best to use or would it be best to download some and try them out? And if so, which would you recommend?

Thank you for your reply 

Have a look at Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Its current release is 9.04 but 9.10 is in beta and will be released on 29th Oct. You can download from here http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/9.10/. As Axis says , if you've got a USB CD you can boot from the just run the Live CD to check it out.
If not you can make a bootable USB key and try it from that ( see here https://help.ubuntu.com/c...Installation/FromImgFiles )
I believe 9.10 should support the Inspiron 910 'out of the box'.
I've been running 9.04 on my Acer Aspire One for a while now and its great.
Once you're happy that your hardware works with Ubuntu then you can install it to your disc, but with your limited SSD size I guess your going to have to throw away the XP as there wont be enough space to dual boot.

As regards Antivirus, no need, there aren't any known viruses out there that can infect Linux systems.

 

However if you want to use Windows Live then I don't think any Linux distro will work for you. Not 100% sure but doesn't it require IE to access it?

I think OP means Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger) - I believe there are clients available for Linux, not too sure on webcam support however...

You can set up Live messenger account using Pidgin, it comes with the Linux software package (well it did with Ubuntu).
You can add multiple messenger accounts and run run them all through the one programme.
On mine I have Live Messenger Yahoo and Google Talk

I believe the latest version does support webcam, but I haven't tried it yet

Pidgin

Ok well if it is only a chat client then no issue. Check out as wel  http://www.eeebuntu.org I use the NBR mix on my EEE 702 and it works great on the SSD.

Dell offered (a slightly customised) Ubuntu (9.04?) as an option on the Inspiron 910 so everything ought to work.

They even have an Ubuntu® Quick Reference Guide