hardware necromancy...

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:51 pm

Okay, it's not technically dead, but it should be.

My grandparents have an old computer. My old old old computer. It's a Pentium II 450 with 384 MB RAM and a 14 GB HDD. They use dial-up internet (AT&T Yahoo something) It's running Windows 98 SE.

My grandfather is too cheap to upgrade. He doesn't want fast internet or a modern machine. That's fine since all they do is browse the internet (occasionally) and read their email. So the only thing they need is a web browser and something to let them dial into their internet. It might have a winmodem, I'm not sure.

Windows 98 crashes a lot as do many of the support programs that are supposed to make it easier for them.

Is there a recent linux distribution I should consider putting on this machine? I was thinking Xubuntu, but I thought I'd see if anyone has better suggestions.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 11:04 pm

I'd first try a re-install with all updates and Firefox 2 (3 doesn't work in 98 iirc).
I had a similar PC (less powerful, actually) and it didn't crash often.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 11:19 pm

maybe find a windows 2000 disk (and get SP4+all updates) or perhaps Windows XP pro (and of course get SP3+all updates?) (that should run with the specs jdart posted)

as far as linux goes, hate to say this, but Linspire. at least that worked with winmodems (or so 4.5.x did)

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:06 am

use XP or 2k. the graphical managers on linux are waay to heavy for a p3 800, let alone a 450.

use opera tho. its much better than firefox on stuff that slow.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 3:28 am

adventure_of_link wrote:or perhaps Windows XP pro (and of course get SP3+all updates?)

running sp2/sp3 with antivirus that grandparents need on 384MB will make you homicidal.

MajereDB8 · Post by **MajereDB8** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 4:47 am

Linux or FreeBSD with Fluxbox should run just fine on that system. I've had no problems running either operating system with Flux on a 300MHz K6/2 with 128MB RAM and an 8GB hard drive. Linux has pretty good support for Winmodems nowadays, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Puppy Linux and DSL are two pretty decent distros for older systems like that. Keep in mind that with such a small hard drive, you won't be able to build certain really big programs from source.

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 8:56 am

MajereDB8 wrote:Linux or FreeBSD with Fluxbox should run just fine on that system. I've had no problems running either operating system with Flux on a 300MHz K6/2 with 128MB RAM and an 8GB hard drive. Linux has pretty good support for Winmodems nowadays, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Puppy Linux and DSL are two pretty decent distros for older systems like that. Keep in mind that with such a small hard drive, you won't be able to build certain really big programs from source.

PuppyLinux seems ideal here. I think I will give it a try.

Thanks.

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:26 am

jdratlif wrote:
MajereDB8 wrote:Linux or FreeBSD with Fluxbox should run just fine on that system. I've had no problems running either operating system with Flux on a 300MHz K6/2 with 128MB RAM and an 8GB hard drive. Linux has pretty good support for Winmodems nowadays, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Puppy Linux and DSL are two pretty decent distros for older systems like that. Keep in mind that with such a small hard drive, you won't be able to build certain really big programs from source.
PuppyLinux seems ideal here. I think I will give it a try.

Thanks.

I actually just did that. My mother had a laptop she had been using to get online for some time. It was horribly slow. I looked at the problem. It was an intel celeron running at 1.2 GHz, running windows xp, but with only 128MB ram. Anything she wanted to do took forever. I tried DSL (Damn Small Linux), it wouldn't work. (Damn Intel i810), Nor would Ubuntu. Tried puppy, worked good enough on a live boot, so I just flat out installed it to the hd. (Lot of wasted space for a 60 GB drive though). It has never been faster. I'm shocked at the speeds in which it works.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:53 am

MajereDB8 wrote:Linux has pretty good support for Winmodems nowadays, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Care to share which distros have good support? please?

and btw, is there any specific anti-virus you've been using Majere? Anti-vir seemed to run pretty good last time I used it on a machine which had less than 256 MB..

MajereDB8 · Post by **MajereDB8** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 4:49 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:
MajereDB8 wrote:Linux has pretty good support for Winmodems nowadays, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Care to share which distros have good support? please?

and btw, is there any specific anti-virus you've been using Majere? Anti-vir seemed to run pretty good last time I used it on a machine which had less than 256 MB..

Puppy Linux is pretty much the only name in town for mini-distros these days. Other distros like DSL and Fluxbuntu are all but unsupported. There's a good support board on the Puppy website. You have to dig a little bit, but I was surprised at how comprehensive it is.

Edit: re-read and realize that you meant support for Winmodems, not user support. The 2.6 kernel itself works pretty well with them. I'm not going to say that every modem works, but a whole lot of the common types do.

I tend to use Avast! on most systems for AV. It's a bit more CPU intensive than say AVG (not a fan), but I have it running on a P3 laptop with 128MB of RAM, running XP. Given those system specs, the speed hit for putting on Avast was fairly minimal. I haven't tried AntiVir in a few revisions, but I certainly don't have anything against it.

kick · Post by **kick** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 5:39 pm

Puppy Linux comes with F-Prot Antivirus out of the box,and you won't find better winmodem support in any other distro.

If you're looking for the tiniest distro,you might try the newest micro distro - SliTaz
http://www.slitaz.org/
only 25MB and much better than DSL

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:03 am

Thanks for the info, but the point is moot now. I got a new machine and gave them my old one.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:01 am

Awww.

Did you snag the P2 to use as a legacy game box?

jdratlif · Post by **jdratlif** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 2:57 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Awww.

Did you snag the P2 to use as a legacy game box?

No, the hard drive and cdrom are dead. I gave the remainder of the machine to my dad who wants to make use of the case. It's a full ATX tower.