is NT 4.0 SP6 worthwhile for a notebook?

[saabman]

Just got a used 6GB HDD for my old Hitachi Pentium 150MHz notebook (known at the time as a multimedia model):
- 128MB RAM
- 3COM 10/100 PCMCIA card
- came with w95 and I'm thinking NT 4.0 SP6 might be the best OS solution (vs 98SE) for using this notebook as a portable internet browser.
- I've already installed 98SE on it.

What do you think about NT 4.0 SP6 on this notebook?
Will it be quicker than 98SE?

 

[jlbenedict]

I'd go with an older version of a Linux based operating system. (but that would be what I would do)

 

[networkman]

Depends on your needs. If you need PnP capability or current drivers for newer hardware that you might want to attach to the notebook, I'd stick with 98SE.

If it's a question of legality.. say, having a legal copy of NT Workstation versus an illegal copy of 98SE (I'm not saying this is the case) then sticking with the legal OS would be best.

 

[saabman]

I already tried loading and running FC4, it was way too slow. Any advice for another linux disty?

The USB ports don't work on this notebook anyway, so all I want is a portable ie6 or firefox internet browser box with an ethernet connection for DSL and network storage.

No need for PNP.

I have legal copies of both 98SE and NT4.0 SP6. The question will be which is better. I'm about to find out, and just wondered about other's experience/opinions.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

you wouldnt happen by chance to have a copy of win2k lying around??? I founs that on an old laptop that vintage putting stripped down windows 2k worked great for it. It was more stable than 98 and allowed you to use newer software without bogging the machine down terribly.

 

[saabman]

Nope never owned a copy of win2k. Went from 98SE directly to XP.

I was pretty surprised at how fast NT4.0 SP6 was on an old HP with only 64k (wrong I meant to say 64MB) of RAM. It made a good internet browser, so I thought maybe NT might work well on my notebook.

Has nobody actually run NT on a notebook?

 

[jlbenedict]

I think an older Red Hat would work.. such as Red Hat 6.2

They started bloating it down after that point with versions 7 & 8

ftp://archive.download.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/6.2/en/iso/i386/

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: saabman
I was pretty surprised at how fast NT4.0 SP6 was on an old HP with only 64k of RAM.

Are you sure about that? This page, including images, is on the order of 64k

 

[saabman]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: saabman
I was pretty surprised at how fast NT4.0 SP6 was on an old HP with only 64k of RAM.

Are you sure about that? This page, including images, is on the order of 64k

Sorry, I meant to say 64MB of memory, and I was browsing anandtech forums with 4+ different ie6 windows open before I ran out of memory (using 200MB of virtual memory).

I'll also look into older versions of FC/RH linux.

 

[Nothinman]

Has nobody actually run NT on a notebook?

Yes, but with the lack of hotplug and power management it's borderline useless.

I think an older Red Hat would work.. such as Red Hat 6.2

Going back that far is stupid, that's the equivalent of running NT4.

Personally I would install Debian with a lightweight window manager, but if all it has is 128M I would be looking to buy more memory for it no matter what.

 

[Link19]

I would go with Windows NT 4 any day over POS Windows 98!! The best choice would be a light weight Linux distro.

 

[John]

Forget WinNT and load 2K for several reasons.

1) PNP & true USB support
2) a real device manager
3) current DirectX support
4) NTFS 5.0 w/ support for Fat32

 

[drag]

I think the more correct question is:

"In NT 4 with service pack whatever good for _anything_?"

The answer is no. It's a worthless operating system unless you have to support legacy applications. You would be better served with W2k.

My personal preference for a Linux distro (which I would prefer) would be to use Damn Small Linux.

It's default install is 50 megs and it's designed to be.. (with slightly different versions for each purpose)
1. Installed onto low-resource machines like yours.
2. Run inside qemu (VM program and scripts are included in zip file)
3. Be used in conjuction with vmware player.
4. Ran from cdrom.
5. Ran from USB flash drive.

For a system like yours it may even be to old to even boot off of a normal cdrom installer. DSL provides syslinux boot cdroms for just this purpose.

It's a minimal system designed for fast running in minimal environments. By default it uses Busybox (which is a stripped down Unix environment for embedded machines), but it has a utility to upgrade your system to run GNU utilities (which is what most Linux systems use).

After you upgrade to GNU tools then you can upgrade to Apt-get compatability. From there it is designed to be use Debian 'OldStable' repositories. (which is Debian Woody).

The whole proccess from minimal system running busybox to Debian compatability takes about 4 mouse clicks. It's very easy. They even have a old version of synaptic package manager for installing stuff graphically.

Try out the Qemu version first if you want to see what it will be like. It will run well from inside Windows on a decent machine. (with qemu it does some limited emulation so it won't run at native speeds, but on a decent computer it will give you a idea of what to expect with it.) I suggest that everybody tries this. It's very nice for a 50 meg system image and if you like it then you can get the USB flash key version and carry around your operating system in your pocket.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

The version that includes the qemu VM would be the dsl-2.4-embedded.zip
For installation to the harddrive you'd want to use a different image though. See the documentation on the website for details.

You can probably use it to update to current Debian Stable if you'd like and that would get you access to more modern programs. Just don't try to install KDE or Gnome or anything like that.

(after upgrading to apt compatability then you just edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and change 'oldstable' to 'stable', then run apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade. You won't have enough room in the quemu image by default though. I havent' tried it yet so I don't know how the upgrade itself would go.)

 

[saabman]

Thanks drag for the links and information, very helpful.

For a system like yours it may even be to old to even boot off of a normal cdrom installer. DSL provides syslinux boot cdroms for just this purpose.

You are correct, I used a boot floppy to direct the boot to the CDROM for linux, but it does work , as that is how I installed FC4. The BIOS does have a boot from CDROM entry though.

I'll give Damn Small Linux a try, as it sounds like a worthwhile experiment to further my linux experience. I'm also in the process of using an IDE Compact Flash with a Tyan mATX P3 MB to run a standalone BSD firewall.

I don't have w2k sw and don't want to buy it (too expensive & waste of money) for this obsolete notebook that doesn't even have working usb hw and as Nothinman notes, no ACPI power management.

I am going to see how NT compares though.

Thanks to everybody for their commentary.

I was quite surprised how well (fast) NT4-SP6 worked with zonealarm firewall (v5.5) and avg virus sw installed on a very old HP P3(450MHz) system worked for internet browsing though, and as I said with only 64MB of RAM. This was on a broadband internet connection (comcast cable) through a linksys router and cable modem.

 

[MadRat]

WinNT 4.0 SP6 is highly vulnerable to worms. If you need internet then I recommend you should avoid it for something else.

Originally posted by: Link19
I would go with Windows NT 4 any day over POS Windows 98!! The best choice would be a light weight Linux distro.

Link19 is the biggest dumbass on these forums. He trolls every thread with the mere hint of Win98 in it and always adds in how its a POS. This is so annoying. He even went so far as to recommend an OS that is no longer supported by MS and therefore out of the box the WinNT machine is highly vulnerable to the Blaster worm along with countless knockoffs. WinNT is the least secure Windows version you could recommend!

 

[saabman]

Madrat, thanks for the heads up.

Originally posted by: MadRat
WinNT 4.0 SP6 is highly vulnerable to worms. If you need internet then I recommend you should avoid it for something else.

I would expect installing zonealarm firewall and avg virus protection to NT4 before connecting to the ethernet internet connection (something I always do to every PC) would be good enough to protect it.

Do you think this security protection setup is inadequate?

In the 6 years I've used 98SE with this pair of security apps, I never had a single infection or hack.

As might be obvious, I ignore everything Link19 says, irrational rantings just don't get through to me.

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: Link19
I would go with Windows NT 4 any day over POS Windows 98!! The best choice would be a light weight Linux distro.

Link19, STFU

The OP never even mentioned Windows 98. Nobody that posted in this thread ever mentioned it.

Now, as others have told you, go go some mental help. You seriously need it.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict
Link19, STFU

The OP never even mentioned Windows 98. Nobody that posted in this thread ever mentioned it.

Now, as others have told you, go go some mental help. You seriously need it.

The OP mentioned 98SE; isn't that close enough?

 

[Link19]

Link19 is the biggest dumbass on these forums. He trolls every thread with the mere hint of Win98 in it and always adds in how its a POS. This is so annoying. He even went so far as to recommend an OS that is no longer supported by MS and therefore out of the box the WinNT machine is highly vulnerable to the Blaster worm along with countless knockoffs. WinNT is the least secure Windows version you could recommend!

POS WIndows 98/ME are about to be no longer supported by MS either!! But either way, Windows NT would still be a better choice because at least it is a decent OS.

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: saabman
Madrat, thanks for the heads up.

Originally posted by: MadRat
WinNT 4.0 SP6 is highly vulnerable to worms. If you need internet then I recommend you should avoid it for something else.

I would expect installing zonealarm firewall and avg virus protection to NT4 before connecting to the ethernet internet connection (something I always do to every PC) would be good enough to protect it.

Do you think this security protection setup is inadequate?

In the 6 years I've used 98SE with this pair of security apps, I never had a single infection or hack.

As might be obvious, I ignore everything Link19 says, irrational rantings just don't get through to me.

You've got the right idea. Unfortunately there is no cumulative security patch for NT anymore, so you have to find them and patch them one at a time. Its really alot of hassle to tell you the truth.

Edit: By the way, alot of the NT vulnerabilities are cross port, meaning the firewall is going to be limited in its ability to stop self propogating worms. The avg anti-virus is going to be vulnerable to dcom hacks, so beware that problem, too. You need to get the complete lineup of security patches post-SP6 to be reasonably safe. Use common sense like renaming the administrator account, disable guest, and use 10-14 character passwords wrapped in complexity. Even then they left some vulnerabilities open simply because the support is no longer offered. I wouldn't be surprised if the latest Win98 vulnerabilities affected nt 4.0, too.

 

[saabman]

Madrat,

Thanks for your intelligent security suggestions, I will try to implement that strategy. I'm very appreciative for the experience that is shared in this forum and what I learn from it.

Thanks.

 

[Link19]

I highly doubt vulnerabilities in POS Windows 98/ME would affect NT 4.0 as well. POS operating systems like Windows 98 are likely to have many more vulnerabilities than a decent OS like Windows NT 4 would have.

 

[Nothinman]

I highly doubt vulnerabilities in POS Windows 98/ME would affect NT 4.0 as well. POS operating systems like Windows 98 are likely to have many more vulnerabilities than a decent OS like Windows NT 4 would have.

And in a lot of cases you'd be wrong. Win9X has an implemtation of SMB and the RPC server that NT4 also use, I don't know if there's any code sharing going on but the network side of the protocol is the same so the chances that one network attack on an NT4 SMB server will affect a Win9X one is pretty good IMO.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I highly doubt vulnerabilities in POS Windows 98/ME would affect NT 4.0 as well. POS operating systems like Windows 98 are likely to have many more vulnerabilities than a decent OS like Windows NT 4 would have.

And in a lot of cases you'd be wrong. Win9X has an implemtation of SMB and the RPC server that NT4 also use, I don't know if there's any code sharing going on but the network side of the protocol is the same so the chances that one network attack on an NT4 SMB server will affect a Win9X one is pretty good IMO.

SO they do share code. I thought the code base was mostly different in the kernel.

Plus NT has file and folder permissions and user level security, unlike Win98, so it should be more secure just because of that.

 

[Nothinman]

SO they do share code. I thought the code base was mostly different in the kernel.

In the kernel yes, but the majority of the code, by a huge margin, is in userspace. Think about it, why would they waste their time implementing things like an RPC server in the kernel if they didn't have to? There's no performance benefit, all it would do is make debugging the thing a hundred times harder.

Plus NT has file and folder permissions and user level security, unlike Win98, so it should be more secure just because of that.

Except that everyone, especially in NT, runs as local admin so the NTFS ACLs are pretty much worthless.