wat0114
April 19th, 2009, 03:55 PM
My kid's machine's specs:
HP, P2 733 MHZ, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB IDE H/drive.
Machine is circa 2000 or 2001 (machine was given to me so not sure)
It had Win XP, and optimized with everything I could possibly think of to get it running as fast and efficient as possible:
Install was fresh
Unneeded services disabled upon startup
Minimal security software: only SandBoxie and NOD 32, 2.7
SP2 with all critical updates
Video set as 1024x768, 70 HZ
No other gimmicky apps running real-time
Even with these spartan measures applied, the machine ran like a snail. The h/drive thrashed violently with just about any simple action such as opening or even closing a program.
Anyways, I have PCLinux 2009 setup on my machine as dual-boot with XP, and as I mention elsewhere in this forum, I love it! The kids have been taking turns test driving it and they also love it simply because their online games run so much faster for them. They also find the different look to be appealing. Figuring out the basics has been little effort for them and, in a nutshell, Linux has everything they need.
So, I decided to simply wipe Windows clean on their drive and installed this version of Linux on it for them. Well, what a difference! Their computer has never run better for them than it does now. The h/drive barely makes any noise and overall performance of their machine is simply snappier than before with Windows. There is no way I could get this close to speed and efficiency with Windows.
They're happy campers :)
This post is not an effort to advertise Linux. I'm simply sharing my pleasant experience in my efforts to get the most out of an old machine, and Linux was the answer.
HP, P2 733 MHZ, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB IDE H/drive.
Machine is circa 2000 or 2001 (machine was given to me so not sure)
It had Win XP, and optimized with everything I could possibly think of to get it running as fast and efficient as possible:
Install was fresh
Unneeded services disabled upon startup
Minimal security software: only SandBoxie and NOD 32, 2.7
SP2 with all critical updates
Video set as 1024x768, 70 HZ
No other gimmicky apps running real-time
Even with these spartan measures applied, the machine ran like a snail. The h/drive thrashed violently with just about any simple action such as opening or even closing a program.
Anyways, I have PCLinux 2009 setup on my machine as dual-boot with XP, and as I mention elsewhere in this forum, I love it! The kids have been taking turns test driving it and they also love it simply because their online games run so much faster for them. They also find the different look to be appealing. Figuring out the basics has been little effort for them and, in a nutshell, Linux has everything they need.
So, I decided to simply wipe Windows clean on their drive and installed this version of Linux on it for them. Well, what a difference! Their computer has never run better for them than it does now. The h/drive barely makes any noise and overall performance of their machine is simply snappier than before with Windows. There is no way I could get this close to speed and efficiency with Windows.
They're happy campers :)
This post is not an effort to advertise Linux. I'm simply sharing my pleasant experience in my efforts to get the most out of an old machine, and Linux was the answer.