I have older 128ram xp computer, should I downgrade to 98 or mandrake linux9?
Monday, January 17th, 2011 at
12:14
I don’t really want to buy another computer, in a year it will be obsolete, and with windows its always something else. Liked win98 but have ntf whatever file system. any suggestions?
Tagged with: ntf
Filed under: Mandrake
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If you can add more RAM, do that. RAM is cheap. Especially small amount of it. You may be able to upgrade to 512mb or 1GB. That would cost you maybe $20.
As for the OS, give Mandrake a shot. It will perform better than Windows 98, but it may take a bit of getting used to and you decide you don’t like it.
Add more RAM, thats your only option, I work with slow and old computers all the time.
your better off getting something like a netbook for 250$ than to keep that
What you use this computer for and whether you want the information to be stored safely should be two primary concerns! Windows 98 is certainly VERY outdated at this point and no longer supported in any way by Microsoft. Also, it is likely to be lacking in security fixes that would make it a reliable and safe system for protecting your personal information.
As others wrote, if you are set on NOT upgrading this system but continuing to use it, one of the lightweight distributions of Linux would be an improvement over Windows 98 (and potentially even better than Windows XP in some regards).
There is also your hard drive to consider. Older systems will have racked up many hours of use on the hard drive and ALL of these devices have an MBTF (or "Mean Time Before Failure") rated in thousands of hours. Replacements for the hard drive may be a bit limited by the chipset and firmware of the system’s motherboard — I do not have all of the specifics on this, but I know there were limitations throughout the history of PCs.
128 MB of RAM is a minimal amount of system memory by the majority of today’s standards. It will undoubtedly also effect your ability to run certain programs, so unless you already own a vast collection of Shareware and Freeware and are perfectly fine continuing to use them, the software issue alone could "force" you to upgrade.
You certainly do not need to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. Keep the old system, put some flavor of Linux on it and use it as a "media PC" for MP3 files or other non-critical tasks! Then hit one of the major U.S. retailers and snag yourself a new computer on "After-the-Holidays" clearance price! The new smell and peace of mind alone will be worth the $399 to $499 price of a modest desktop system!
Why would you "not" want to upgrade from that ancient dinosaur of a computer? It should be in an antique shop. Windows 98? Are you joking???
128mb ram would lend itself to one of the lightweight linux distros really.
I’d put Arch+Openbox on. You might have to use the command line to do much else