Linux newbie, planning to try zorin on a T41p runnning XP

[acz]

My wife's laptop is a sturdy T41p with Pentium M CPU and 1.5 GB of RAM; she has been happy with Windows XP and MS Office up to now.
With XP's demise, going to Linux seems appealing.

One idea is to put Zorin-OS on that laptop. I have read that Zorin is a linux version which would look very close to XP and make things easy for her. I thought perhaps I should start by putting it on a bootable USB stick and we could experiment with it.

Zorin is offered in 32-bit and 64-bit versions – would one of them be better or faster?

I have a T61 running Windows 7 64-bit on a Core 2 Duo T9300 CPU and 4 GB of RAM.
Could the same Linux USB stick be used on my T61?

In other words, would the bootable USB stick be a truly portable completely self-contained operating environment while we are learning?

Thank you for any pointers on these questions, and for any pointers to newbie guides or how-tos; I am just getting started.

A

[dr_st]

You can only run the 32-bit version on your T41, as it has a 32-bit CPU.

While it's possible to have a Linux distro that will run off the bat on any hardware (this is what LiveCD does), a USB stick is writable, so you will undoubtedly be making modifications to the OS, and as the T41 and T61 hardware is very different, at some point the modifications made by one system might make it incompatible with the other. I'm just theorizing here as I haven't actually done something similar myself.

Also, I see no reason to just stick with XP on the T41, unless your wife specifically wants to learn other operating systems.

[acz]

Thank you, that makes sense. I was not sure if the Pentium M was 32 or 64 bits.
So I will do my experiment with the 32-bit OS on the USB stick.
If that seems to work, I can make a separate 64-bit OS on a stick for the T61,

My wife is hearing all the security concerns about XP, and the appeal of Zorin is that it would pretty much look like XP (or optionally Win 7) and shorten her learning curve. Mostly, it seems that going to Linux would require way fewer patches and updates, and be "safer" online.

[jronald]

I have Zorin on a Z60t, and its a decent machine. For something to set and forget, its hard to beat.

Ron

[acz]

So, since my wife is getting a Thinkpad L540 for Christmas, the old T41p will be available in January for me to play around with Zorin or another Linux. Thanks for the advice so far, I am sure I'll be back to ask for more in the New Year.