My Sister's Old Laptop

[alpha_hazard]

So I was helping my sister with her 6 year old laptop the other day and discovered that she doesn't have the capability to run windows XP. But she needs a different OS, because windows 98 is absolutely terrible, it's very susceptable to attack and she gets a blue screen about every time she uses it. Is there a low power version of linux or perhaps an old version of windows NT that could help remedy her problems until she can upgrade?

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Unless she wants to take the time to learn linux, I would put windows 2000 on it.

[kilgoretrout]

What are the specs and what does she do with the laptop?

[alpha_hazard]

It's a gateway Pentium 2...I think it's probably a low hertz, 250 at the most...is that's even a number they used... with 64mb or ram and 2 gb hdd space...I know it's not much, but she only uses it for word processing and the internet. It has a USB port, so she uses that with her flash drive to download files. Her boyfriend bought a wireless adaptor for it, but they can't use it on campus because windows 98 has virtually no networking or security features, and the campus software only works with windows xp...I'm not even sure if linux is the answer, since she mainly wants to get it working on campus...

It's not imperative, since she has a desktop at home and uses her flash drive for most everything...I was just trying to see if it would help.

[_shep]

Would Slackware Linux be a good option? I would suggest Xandros but I beleive the requirements would be too high, unless you found an older version maybe. Not too sure, I am just getting into the Linux scene myself.

[kilgoretrout]

The biggest problem is your low ram; 64MB isn't enough for the heavy duty guis like kde or gnome which are the standard linux desktop environments for most linux distros. You'll have to use a lighterweight window manager like icewm or fluxbox and your sis might find that environment too foreign for her tastes. The best thing I would try is vector linux:

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

It's based on slackware which is one of the fastest linux distros but it is specifically tailored for older hardware. Vector use icewm but it has been modified to give it a more windows like feel, i.e. standard icewm doesn't have desktop icons but the vector version does. Getting wireless to work will probably be a problem but may be doable depending on the card.

[mc2phat]

Are you sure the university requires XP? Windows 2000 would run well, provided you seriously bump the amount of RAM up in the machine. My university supposedly requires XP, but I use a w2k machine all the time. w2k is still a powerful OS, and compared to XP is every bit as stable (same kernel pretty much) and much, much less bloated. The CPU in your sister's computer may be a 200,233, 266, 300, 350, etc... You willget a more definitive answer here if you can figure out exactly what processor she has. To find out, get cpu-z here:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

[alpha_hazard]

thanks a lot, that was really helpful. I had looked at several different variations and the requirements were all too high, hopefully this one will proove useful.

[mc2phat]

I forgot to ask the brand & model of the laptop. That would help too. You can go to www.crucial.com and punch in the model # and see what RAM would cost, & usually how much the laptop would accept.