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End of Win 98 Support May Boost Desktop Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and ZDNet is reporting that the move will boost demand for Linux on the desktop. Unlike two years ago — when support for Win98 was extended because Linux was seen as a serious competitor — this time it seems there is no turning back."
seriously, my PIII laptop has 'Designed for Windows 98' on it, and can run Windows 2000 and Windows XP just fine [linuxvirus.net], but the mainstream Linux distros are too bloaty to even install: the Ubuntu and Fedora installers literally hang, and SUSE and Mandriva are too slow even on my other machine in the +2GHz range.
that is the biggest pile of FUD I have ever heard. I am running Ubuntu on machines ranging from P-III Celeron 700 to AMD 3000+ with 128-512 meg of ram. it ALWAYS runs faster than XP hands down. Finally Mandriva also works well on those machines, although mandriva still has the bug that you need to reboot after the first login to get rid of an installer service that sit's in the background eating cycles. Just like XPMCE 2005 does right now on new installs. (BTW, you want to try a dog? XP tablet edition with SP2 installed is incredibly slow on a P-III 866.)
Ubuntu live-install CD is broken for most hardware It hates legacy Nvidia video cards, the alternative install CD works on everything perfectly. It even worked on a high end workstation I was messing with that XP refused to install on because of the SCSI raid card, linux was happy with it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Or just install ubuntu without a bloated desktop environment.
There are plenty of good options around, some are even end-user friendly.
factor 966971: 966971
Well, XUbuntu (a new xfce desktop for Ubuntu) should solve the problem of high processor needs, but RAM is still a worry for getting a legacy box into Linux world. XUbuntu still needs 128 megs just to install using the default (n00b-friendly) installer. A lot of these old win98 boxes have only 32 or 64 megs of RAM in them. Yes, old PC100 ram is cheap on eBay, but that's a substantial difference from just downloading and running a piece of software.
I ran Linux in a much more constrained environment back in 1993 (4MB RAM with ample swap, 40MB Disk, 386, laptop) and it ran at a decent speed with a decent set of applications (yes, even back then).
i d=1
I'd be *really* surprised if Linux today couldn't fit in your environment. But you'll likely have to forget KDE/GNOME. They're *nice* but not necessary. My old system used FVWM which is still perfectly capable (I was used it last year on Solaris -- there's even a Win95-like config), although now there are slicker alternatives like XFCE and IceWM which are also available and better supported by default on many distros.
Here are a few alternatives to consider which are more targetted to your needs. You might want to them all out and see which one you like best:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_
http://www.vectorlinux.com/
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/