Windows or Linux for old w98 notebook for my girlfriend

My girlfriend and her sister just got this laptop because their parents bought a new one. They are going to use it to do homework, messenger and look up the internet. They gave it to me so that I can fix it because it has windows 98 and it is really slow. If I would like to install windows xp on it I would have to get another 64 megs of ram, otherwise it would be running on lower than recommended but still accepted by xp.

I then thought about using Linux, but right now there are so many distributions that I dont know which one I should try, and even if I should try it. I dont know if there is some sort of program that can work like messenger for linux. I know there is open office though. I dont know if there will be the drivers for it either.

Do you think I should buy ram for it and install windows xp? Or should I try Linux and just give them a guide on the basic programs they would use?

Another plus for installing linux would be that it would sort of be free of more viruses compared to windows. Ive already told them not to open suspicious mail or files, but sometimes a virus ends up in the pc when I check it.


The specifications of the laptop:

amd k6 500 mhz
64 mb of ram
4 gb of disc space


Thanks in advance for any advice given.

 

ram might be really expensive and or hard to find, depending on the age of the notebook. I would say go for a barebones install of debian, and build it up from there with a light weight windows manager/desktop environment like fluxbox or icewm. You might also try Arch Linux, I have read that it works well on old/low-end hardware. Basically, you want to go to distrowatch and search for lightweight distributions of linux- one is called D(a)mn Small Linux, another is called feather linux. Those two are based on debian, but there are others, too.
http://featherlinux.berlios.de/
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
http://www.archlinux.org/
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?c...an&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active


Programs- yeah, there's openoffice and others for reports. Something lighter like abiword or Koffice might be better. For messaging there are a ton of options, such as Kopete and Gaim, that can handle almost any message service you can think of. I would suggest firefox for internet.

 

Cool, thanks, I am going to go an investigate that. I am also going to open the notebook to see what kind of ram it uses and see if it is expensive or hard to find. Thanks again.

Oh by the way, if it is of any help, the model is, compaq notebook 100.

 

if you can get at least 160MB of ram into that laptop you can install Win2k on it.

I really don't think that non-computer savyy can use linux (esp debian) without major trouble here and there. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

As long as they don't need to administer the machine, just using it is easy enough once it's set up.

Getting the machine set up will take some work though. Gnome and KDE (the two major linux desktops) is going to struggle on that CPU and RAM. If you can double to 128MB RAM, then a lighter desktop such as XFce would work fine.

 

I converted an old desktop to Linux several weeks ago--wish I had done it a long time ago! I, too, sing the praises of OpenOffice.

But I joined "the man" and kept Windows and Office on my new laptop.

 

I suggest Vector with Xfce for a newer user and an old system. It's very fast, yet does a lot of configuration for you. What you do have to configure manually, most of it is covered by rather easy text tools. Zenwalk would be another good choice, but it operates more on the premise of things just working, but it doesn't do the best job. You do need some patience to get it up and running when things don't work quite right.

Most everything should work unless the ACPI is really horribly broken, but you might have suspend issues. But I'd look at it more as a portable desktop anyway, seeing that the battery is probably pretty well toast by now.

I use Arch, but I've only seen one person use it successfully as their first distribution, and he's a graduate student in informatics. Debian is a little easier, it was my first distro, but it's still rather complex to get going if you've never done nix before.

 

Yeah. Just don't put XP on it. I'd go with what the guys are saying above, but if you aren't Linux savvy (and notebook hardware is notoriously touchy) then perhaps just reloading Windows 98 would be a good option?

 

Judging by the CPU, I'd say this machine predates ACPI...

 

The K6-2+ and K6-III+ were released as notebook oriented chips including speeds of 500mhz in April 2000. ACPI 2.0 was first released in July of 2000. It's very possible they use this spec, and if not an earlier ACPI 1.x spec which was released as early as December of 1996. I don't think ACPI 1.x is relevant for the Linux kernel, though I'm not at all sure of that.

 

There are quite a number of desktop Linux distros these days: Ubuntu, Mepis. Some of them run from a live cd which you don't have to install on your HDD. Give it a try. On my lappy some tweaking is necessary and these distros don't work out-of-the box, but maybe on yours they do.

Whatever your choice will be,
Good luck.

 

I would say linux only if your good at installing the drivers and get wifi/lan to work. Otherwise linux will only give you a headache.

 

The popular distros of Linux all come with drivers for most hardware these days. Even more likely they would have them for his older notebook (with the caveats mentioned in previous posts). The only exception being old wireless. Any wireless card built in the last couple years will have drivers in the distro. But if you have a built in ethernet, it should be no problem at all.

You'd have to reinstall the drivers if you put windows on it. No less of a headache there. Last time I installed Ubuntu on a laptop, I had all hardware up and running in LESS time than installing Windows + drivers.

If you don't have something constructive to offer, or arguments that are less than 3 years old, don't bother posting.