Recommend Me An O/s

[clarky2o2o]

im looking for an O/S (that can be installed from cd or dos) it doesnt have to be anything special. just somehting that plays mp3s and photos and works with the crappy specs below.

80gb hd
128mb ram
pentium 2 550 (i think, i cant remember)
sound card and raphics cards installed.

additional: HAS TO BE SIMPLE TO USE(OR EASY TO LEARN.)

 

[J201605]

puppy linux or damnsmalllinux... whichever one you can get to work

 

[Alex.]

I recommend Microsoft's Windows XP Professional. It runs great on my 700mhz (350mhz when on batteries) P3 with 128Mb of RAM. It runs faster than Ubuntu Linux. It does everything I need it to do, and fast, and unless you really overwork it, it is stable and reliable.

With Vista becoming mainstream, prices for XP are sure to drop

- Alex

 

[Ravnos]

It's tough to recommend something other than Windows unless you're fairly technical. Most of the user-friendly Linux distros don't run very well on such old hardware. If you're going to go with Windows, Win2K will run on that hardware better than WinXP, just make sure you lock it down properly. Otherwise, Puppy Linux is ok. Also, Slackware, Debian or ArchLinux can do well on older hardware if you're smart about setting it up.

 

[Vimacs]

well, there are some great distros for lowest end boxes, im using deli linux on my 133mhz 32mhz edo ram notebook, runs smooth as butter, however it can be a bit tricky to set up.
If i go for linux make sure to not go for bloated wm like kde or gnome, those are the real performance killers on lowend machines, I guess xubuntu may be a choice its very easy to install, however i cant tell you how good it would perform in your case.
Damn small linux also runs quite well on older machines, it uses fluxbox and is very easy to install, however it boots quite slow from my experience.

If you realy want to go for windows you could use w98 or 2k lite, its also quite good on recources.

http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/
http://www.xubuntu.org/
http://www.litepc.com/

Make sure to not use a recource intensive browser like firefox, opera is a good compromise, use dillo if you are all for speed.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

To be honest, Windows 98 would be okay for viewing pictures and listening to MP3s. 98 will run happily on anything from a 486DX and upwards. 128Mb RAM is perfectly adequate for 98, anything above 256mb causes slowdown problems. Unless you're running 98SE and then you can use up to 512mb, but above that you get the slowdown again.

And as a bonus, you will be able to play all the old Legacy games that won't run smoothly on DOSBOX or VMware

Edit: I have a 98 boot on my PC specifically for those older games.

 

[evol]

Vectorlinux is the fastest non-source distro i have tried. it,s very easy to administrate because it,s based on Slackware. and it,s designed to run on fast on "Old/Obsolete" hardware.

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

 

[moz]

beos the multimeda os

 

[LordFu]

BFX 2006.2

It's an Ubuntu/Knoppix/Debian based distro that runs great on older hardware. I've got it installed on my PII 366 Mhz , 96 MB ram, laptop, and it's great. It has all the great features of a Debian based distro, and it's low on system requirements.

http://bea.cabarel.com/index.php?page=BeaFanatIX

 

[Yorper]

puppy linux or damnsmalllinux... whichever one you can get to work

Totally agree, either of those would work beautifully on that system.

 

[mrben]

If you are looking for a user friendly Linux without the overheads of GNOME/KDE, then it might also be worth giving Xubuntu a look, which uses XFce as it's window manager. Runs at a decent speed on a machine I have of that spec.

Bear in mind that with most Linux variants that you get from commercial companies, you won't get MP3 support out of the box, because of IP issues, although it will be easily installable.

 

[Nova]

Don't listen to any of the above

Use Slax Linux, it is perfect for your needs.

 

[nickspoon]

Oh, and KDE is the completely ideal Desktop Environment on a low-spec PC. Not some crappy fast or non-resource-intensive one like Xfce or Fluxbox. How silly of me.

 

[Nova]

Sarcastic bitch.

Read the system requirements.

 

[Blah]

Well maybe not KDE, but Gnome runs okay on old machines.

 

[Nova]

This runs fine on old computers, I have tried it on a very old machine, and it gave it a new lease of life.

 

[nickspoon]

144 MB to run Xwindow with KDE

He wouldn't be able to run the Standard Slax according to the system requirements. KDE is probably the most resource-hungry Desktop Environment out there. It simply isn't wise to use it on a low-spec machine when you can get much better performance from Fluxbox (which Slax also seems to offer), Xfce and other window managers designed to be speedy.

And although I can't speak for Slax, in my experience Linux distros designed to be portable aren't usually the best options for full installations. Saying that, I've tried but a few portable distros.

I would recommend Xubuntu here, but it doesn't come with MP3 support as standard - a lot of distros don't. You can still install MP3 support though, you just need to enable the Universe repository (which you can do in Synaptic) and install gstreamer0.8-mad.

 

[clarky2o2o]

ok just to clarify the reason WHY i want a new os is

my computer runs once after installation then has

VXD errors in 98
AGP440/mup sys errors in 2000/xp. If they even install.

all os's install and run succesfull on the same hard drive in other computers.

Updated BIOS.
swapped the ram

incidently its a compaq(so that alone might be the problem) lol.

all software that runs from a cd (gnome partition editor/ windows setup's/ western digital life tools etc)

 

[sand_man]

probably a hardware problem. by the look of it your agp slot is fucked. get a new mobo