Which OS is better suited for this machine?

[Lepard]

The specs of the machine are the following:

CPU: Pentium III 1GHz
RAM: 128MB PC133
VIDEO: Matrox Millenium II 8MB

Im thinking Windows 2000 instead of WinXP.

This because XP with less than 512MB of RAM is very slow. The machine will be used by an older person and they will only be using it for internet and music.

Thanks in advance.

 

[lxskllr]

How about a light Linux install? The lack of security software will be an added bonus for extra pep. To directly answer your question... I think Win2k would be the better choice.

 

[VinDSL]

You could go either way...

I run mostly W2K machines, however, I installed XP on my boss'es ancient computer - AMD Athlon 600, 128MB RAM, Voodoo something-or-another video card, and it worked great - shocked everyone how fast it booted up, actually!

 

[Griswold]

Win2k will be faster than XP. But some flavour of linux would be even better.

 

[nerp]

For an older person, win2k might be the way to go just for the familiarity of windows. A light linux install might be nice, too, but you might have to sit there with the user for a bit and make sure they are able to get around it OK.

Any chance of finding some cheap PC133 chips on the FS/FT forum to boost that machine to 512mb or at least 256mb? Might be worth the investment so the machine isn't so much of a dog.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Lepard
CPU: Pentium III 1GHz
RAM: 128MB PC133
VIDEO: Matrox Millenium II 8MB

You might as well throw it in the garbage. Right now, with 3 tabs open, my Opera web browser is using 175mb of RAM. About half a year ago I worked on a computer that only had 512mb RAM with Windows XP, and that thing was slow to the point of being unusable. Trying to start Word or Excel would take forever. Closing Firefox took over a minute.

Any computer with less than 1GB is basically useless, unless you enjoy running only 1 program at a time. Need to open Firefox? Crap, I need to close Word! God help you if you try to open Excel, Word, and Firefox at the same time. The computer practically locks up and the hard drive spins for a few minutes until the computer figures out what it's trying to do.

 

[F1shF4t]

You would be able to get away with XP but thats only without SP2. Service Pack 2 almost doubled the mem requirements of XP on a fresh install.
I would suggest using win 2000 though with some older office software (XP or 2000).

I had XP on an old k6-2 500 with same ammount of ram and it was a dog, ofcource the 1ghz p3 is a lot faster.

 

[Nothinman]

Get more memory, no matter what OS you choose it's going to suck.

 

[us3rnotfound]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Get more memory, no matter what OS you choose it's going to suck.

Yep, and scour Ebay for deals on PC133 SDRAM - I just sold 2x256MB sticks on ebay for only $10 shipped . So I'm sure that there's plenty other opportunities to snag some cheap ram.

 

[waitman]

if its for an older person using internet and music, upgrade the ram to 512 or more and it will be fine for them with xp sp2. I upgrade ram for people like this quite a bit and it works fine. its not like they are going to do anything major with it anyway and they will like the interface of xp better from my experience.

 

[silverpig]

I think I have a couple of sticks of PC133 kicking around...

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
You might as well throw it in the garbage...

Excel, Word, and Firefox... blah, blah, blah...

Any computer with less than 1GB is basically useless, unless you enjoy running only 1 program at a time...

Working on under-spec'ed machines - friends 'puters and so forth - I've noticed the single biggest contributor to slowness is anti-virus software.

If you're willing to fly unprotected, throwing away the parachute (AV software) will generally make a huge difference in speed!

 

[Lepard]

Thank you, everyone. I will go with XP and try to convince the person to the RAM upgrade.

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: waitman
if its for an older person using internet and music, upgrade the ram to 512 or more and it will be fine for them with xp sp2. I upgrade ram for people like this quite a bit and it works fine. its not like they are going to do anything major with it anyway and they will like the interface of xp better from my experience.

:thumbsup:+
You should be able to find the additional memory pretty cheap. If I hadn't already given mine away it would be yours.

 

[alevasseur14]

If you haven't found anything in a week, send me a PM. I'm pretty sure I've got a few sticks of 133 in my parts bin. I'll be back home on Tuesday, Dec. 2nd.

They're yours if you want them and I do indeed have them!

 

[austin316]

I found a laptop with basically identical stats and was wondering what version of Linux I should try.

 

[lxskllr]

I like Puppy Linux a lot for a light distro. Also, TinymeLinux looks interesting. I have it downloaded, but I haven't had a chance to fool with it yet.

 

[nordloewelabs]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I like Puppy Linux a lot for a light distro. Also, TinymeLinux looks interesting. I have it downloaded, but I haven't had a chance to fool with it yet.

i've used the distros below on my old P3 box and they all ran great. Puppy is the fastest.

a) PuppyLinux
b) TinyFlux
c) TinyMe