OT- computer question

Got an old dell computer with windows xp and a computer technician told me you can put linnux operating system on it & will work fine. It now is super slow and there is no updates anymore. Any opinions on this?

rkh, I have been running Linux for years now and although there is some learning curve, the linux systems i have tried are superior to windows IMHO. They are free and stable. I run MX-15 but, there are so many to choose from that you could spend years trying them all. The link is to Mepis and MX if you want to try their version but, you can do a search that will lead to many others.Good luck.
Try here and ask questions

If you know what your're doing linux works great. If you don't it's a disaster.

First some questions for you. What do you use the computer for. Are there programs on there that you cannot do without? Have you downloaded and run Ccleaner and Malwarebytes to clean up the junk that Windows computers seem to collect? Doing those two things can speed up your computer quite a bit.

Yes you can use Linux on your computer and it will work better than Windows XP but there is a learning curve to changing the OS. Linux will come with a suite of programs that will work well on your computer but they will be different from what you are used to. With a litte work you would be able to run many Windows programs on the Linux computer too but not all are compatible.

If you want to give Linux a try, it can be run entirely from a DVD without installing it. It will be slower because it will have to access the DVD which is much slower than from a hard drive but unless you tell it to, it will not make any changes to you Windows XP installation. Ask your computer technician if he can get you a DVD. If you have sufficient room on your hard drive, you can install Linux in parallel with Windows XP and choose at boot up which one to run.

I would agree with WGM, Linux is great if you know what you are doing.

At the moment I'm loading linuxCNC onto an old Windows XP box and configuring it to run a 3-axis desktop CNC.

Download uBuntu ISO image for a 32bit PC. Burn to a DVD or USB. Run from there to see if you like it. No reason to mess with your XP hard drive.
If you like it and the your PC happens to have SATA connectors spring for SSD (solid state drive) and go that route. It'll be plenty fast.
At home we use uBuntu Studio on a lot of old PC's. The kids use Gimp,Inkscape,OpenOffice and the sound recording video packages quite a bit.
I use CAELinux on my old hardware.

For a new user ,this might not be such a shock .

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2947

I use Ubuntu for a few years and you do need to learn new terms.
By and large it works flawlessly for me.

If you are comfortable with XP, linux mint cinnamon I have been told is a good transition.

They are selling chromebooks for$130. They are way faster than that old technology. That is what they use in schools.

I just put Ubuntu on an old laptop and I am
going to install it on a Dell tower next week.
The link is from 1/23/16.
Linux discussion

(quoted from post at 04:36:45 02/19/16) Got an old dell computer with windows xp and a computer technician told me you can put linux operating system on it & will work fine. It now is super slow and there is no updates anymore. Any opinions on this?

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I recently installed linux LXLE on an older computer and so far it is working great. If you take time to learn the little 'quirks" of Linux it works very well. LXLE is a "lighter" version of other versions such as Linux Mint and Ubuntu. Of course linux is free to use and this one includes Libreoffice comparable to MS Office. Since you have an older computer consider getting an SSD drive to replace the hard drive you have. It will speed up the response time considerably and make your old computer come back to life. Of course YMMV on this subject. A good websight is Distrowatch.com for all versions of linux.