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Quick Question, What OS for this machine?

R

ring.of.steel

Guest
I didnt post this question in the os forum becuase i wanted a sensible answer not a flamewar.

The laptop in question is
Code: 
ibm x31
1.2ghz centrino
512mb ram
40gb 5400rpm ide
12" 1024x768
wifi
just bought this laptop for internet and word processing, basicly i need the most snappy responce i can get while browsing the internet, word processing ect. What operating system do you think would be a good fast choice for this machine. im leaning towards a custom cut down version of windows xp, becuase i dont really fancy using openoffice under linux. If linux was the choice would you reccomend suse redhat or debian for this machine?

thanks
 
I'm not familiar with Linux, so I'm going to say that you should go with what you feel more comfortable with. Having said that, Windows XP will work on that machine (especially if you "cut it down" as you plan to).
 
Windows 2000 would be best for that system. it would run XP, but not as fast.
 
Windows XP will work fine.

I usually disable most effects and visual styles in order for the system to feel more responsive, but even that should not be necessary with that configuration. If you have a spare Windows license, go for it.

If not, Ubuntu Linux would work well too.
 
It comes with a windows coa, so i can install windows xp on there. Do you think windows classic would do the trick?
 
ring.of.steel said:
It comes with a windows coa, so i can install windows xp on there. Do you think windows classic would do the trick?
Click to expand...

It should. Also, make sure that you keep the number of background apps to a minimum. Though if XP with Windows classic doesn't work too well, try out Xubuntu, Damn Small Linux or Vector Linux. Those linux distros are fairly low in resource requirements.

The only real problem with that laptop is the hard drive. Never knew they made hard drives as slow as 2500RPM. That might impact performance a bit.
 
LoL. My thoughts exactly. When I saw 2500RPM, I thought that was a typo.

Danny Bui said:
The only real problem with that laptop is the hard drive. Never knew they made hard drives as slow as 2500RPM. That might impact performance a bit.
Click to expand...
 
yeah you would do fine with xp pro without all the great enhancements and don't update either takes up more space than you think. firefox and msoffice 2003 FTW!
 
Essentially the same specs as my laptop hardware wise, it will run xp home just fine. You won't have to worry about having to turn off anything, it will work just fine.
 
xp pro is what i would be using, not xp home. The problem is i am used to using nothing below a 2.5ghz dual core, so i what i dont want is for the laptop to feel slow. I am going to up the ram to 2gb eventually and maybe the cpu if i can find a cheap upgrade.

So xp pro will do fine for this one?
 
yes, as long as you aren't planning on doing anything really processor intense... which I doubt you will anyways.
 
ring.of.steel said:
I didnt post this question in the os forum becuase i wanted a sensible answer not a flamewar.

The laptop in question is
Code: 
ibm x31
1.2ghz centrino
512mb ram
40gb 5400rpm ide
12" 1024x768
wifi
just bought this laptop for internet and word processing, basicly i need the most snappy responce i can get while browsing the internet, word processing ect. What operating system do you think would be a good fast choice for this machine. im leaning towards a custom cut down version of windows xp, becuase i dont really fancy using openoffice under linux.
Click to expand...

If you have XP Pro COA you can run Win2k legally. Honestly when you slim down XP it will run just as fine as in Win2k.. and I've run Win2k eons ago on stuff like 266mhz P1 laptop with 64mb of RAM... so you should be OK.

You can use nLite to create a slimmed down install, use XPLite (has more options than nLite) to slim (or unslim) an already installed copy of XP.... or .... you can get the Windows XP Embedded Studio and create your own build with very granular control of what components are installed. This is for advanced users and your Windows XP COA would not be valid with XP Embedded if you really care about that sort of stuff.

But normal XP install with the services and startup tweaked should be just fine. Personally I just like to slim down my XP installs and remove the useless features (security center, search assistant, etc) even when there are no constraints on RAM or diskspace.

If linux was the choice would you reccomend suse redhat or debian for this machine?

thanks
Click to expand...


Personally I think SuSE + KDE is the best desktop OS but don't try to run that on 512mb RAM. Maybe a really slimmed down windowmanager but for that just use Windows its going to be a little more lightweight unless you are running an embedded app I really don't like to use a windowmanager like Fvwm, ratpoison, etc unless its going to be an embedded-type system. I'd rather use Windows.
 
For Internet and word processing, 512MB should be enough. 2GB of RAM is slightly overkill for internet and word prcoessing. Also consider that the prices of DDR RAM is pretty high compared to DDR2 RAM prices. So as a cost-saving measure, just shoot for 1GB of DDR RAM.

Also, if you want a faster bootup and load times, upgrade to a 7200RPM drive.

But yes, XP Pro should be fine with your current hardware.
 
thanks for all the responces everyone,

thanks for the reccomendations athlon1.2
 
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