Nlite XP or Nlite 2000 on CF-25?

Anyone try either of them yet? I've got the 233MMX and 160mb RAM.

Technically that's more than the specs for the original XP (233/64mb)... so I'm guessing it would work?

 

Well, I used to run Windows XP and Windows 2000 on my P1 166 desktop, technically, it works. You must turn off the XP eyecandy, but it will struggle for almost every task, including word processing

 

Hmm... honestly just trying to get this thing wireless... and interested in seeing if I can get it to work.

Maybe Ubuntu? lol

 

I think that you will run out of HDD first for the GUI install of Umbutu, but maybe, I am learning that OS. Check my answer to your post on putting Wi-Fi in the CF-25.

 

Well I'd be putting a 20gb in there with an overlay. Largest I think the CF-25 can support natively is what, 4gb?

 

8.3GB, I think, but skip the overlay if you can and just partition.

I hate overlays and find them to be overly problematic!

 

I'd go for one of the ultralite distros, like xubuntu or something smaller. regular ubuntu is not made for such low power systems, however xubuntu is more lightweight and can run the same packages.

 

W2k nlited or not will work fine.I would definitely stay away from XP for a cf25 even while a bare xp without any service pack will be useable...a little slow but still useable.If you upgrade the service packs them it will painfully .....crawl.

 

If you try XP, stick to sp1 if you can
Updating to sp-3 will end up even slower



Alex

 

I second the motion on avoiding XP for less then 300 MHz. I have installed in on several machines, and 300 MHz seems the lower realistic level.

And that is very slow and for effective performance you will need to cut off some services!

Now, with a AMD K6 400+ installed on an Intel 233MMX machine...

 

The easiest way to get your CF-25 running wirelessly is to use Windows 98SE and a Belkin F5D7011 ("High Speed Mode Wireless G Notebook Network Card"). All the older Belkin cards come with drivers and a wireless configuration utility for Windows 98SE so you can use WEP and WPA on them. Plus they are dirt cheap. I use them in all my old laptops so I can recommend them. They even work with Linux but you'll never get Ubuntu in any flavour working on a CF-25 unless you go right back to version 6.06 and change all the repositories.

I'll also second (or third) everbody's comments about Windows XP. I had it running on a Pentium II 266 with 128mb RAM but it wasn't good. On a 366, SP1 was great but that would be my cut off point for older laptops running XP.

 

Good advice, and I forgot to add, plan on cutting off System Restore, Indexing and Fast User Switching for any old marginal CPU XP installation.

These three are cycle hogs!

...and I ought to know!

 

If you disable active desktop (Win2000 classic mode) and disable ALL the services you don't NEED as Az has suggested, you can have the benefit of XP's much broader driver base and STILL keep your commit charge to less than 50MB. This should be MORE than small enough kernel size to run on your 233mhz.

Remember that you'll have a hard time finding apps nowadays that will run with such a small memory footprint; even the most frugal Web Browsers have grown quite large to be able to access all the active content out there. This was why I finally gave up on my beloved Dell L400s; they just don't have the memory or the power for the bare minimum I NEED them to do.

Of course if you just want to run OpenOffice and Hyperterminal, you should be fine.

This is a good place to learn about which services are critical and which you can safely axe:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

Hope that helps,

mnem
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