Seconded on the image restore thing. Clonezilla works for this as well. Saves a ton of time on Windows 98 installs, which I find are extremely tedious to do from scratch.

Yeah - for any OS really.

smeezekitty wrote:

Linux works fine for web browsing. It can be a pain to set up though

Pain to set up? What pain?
It is just a different way of using a computer. That is all what it is.
It takes under an hour to create a nas server, using ubuntu server, from os install to working nas.

On topic.
Go for Win7 or continue using Linux. Just get some slightly faster hardware.

brostenen wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Linux works fine for web browsing. It can be a pain to set up though

Pain to set up? What pain?

Oh come on, anyone who's ever used Linux knows what a pain it can be. Case in point: I tried to connect a Bluetooth speaker to my Xubuntu machine the other day. It took me about an hour of digging through forum posts and editing config files to get it working.

Try using Linux with an off-brand internal wireless adapter, or a USB wireless adapter of any kind... yikes.

Nope. Still do not feel any difficulty using Linux.
I had difficulty and felt "pain", when I tried AmigaOS from 2002 to 2006.
And when I tried Unix on consoles on a vax system in 1995.
Just not using Linux on pc's. Have learned and used it from 1996/98 to now.
Windows is still my main choice. Though Os/2 and BeOS is dear to me too.
C-64's are great and funn too by the way. 😁

Here is an example of random Linux issues. I had a Acer Netbook with a garbage oem install of 7 Starter. When I decided to give Linux Mint a spin on it I got it installed and updated, tracked down all the random drivers and programs like Open Office that I wanted to use. After rebooting I could never get it to boot into the OS again, nor could I get any response from the touchpad or keyboard. Just stuck at the login screen. Same problem after reinstalling the OS again from a flash drive. Later on after giving up and just reinstalling 7 Starter I found out that on this ONE specific model of netbook and ONLY the particular distro/version of Mint that I had used that for whatever reason it would disable a hidden option in the bios to disable the keyboard and touchpad. Not saying that Linux is bad, just that It can be a pain. :end of rant:

DosFreak wrote:

I've had 7 32bit running on my Athlon XP 2800+ for years. 2GB of memory. […]
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I've had 7 32bit running on my Athlon XP 2800+ for years. 2GB of memory.

Haven't been able to put a SSD in there since my brother took it to college.

Only issue I noticed when I first upgraded it to 7 was if you use a shitty AGP video card with shitty drivers then Aero was slow as hell. Switching to XP drivers or using a decent video card with decent drivers fixes that.

Security and speed wise you'd be better off sticking with Linux but issue with Athlon XP is no SSE2 which alot of software is requiring. (Firefox doesn't require SSE2)

No risks are being overplayed and people should be pushed to newer versions of Windows.

You can run Windows as long as you want but once support ends then you are screwed (XP can still get some updates by using the POS updates).

Extended support for 7 ends in 2020 so you'd be good for quite a few years.

the current legacy drives for ati/AMD AGP cards is decent. i was running an HD2600 pro and it runs fine!

brostenen wrote:

Pain to set up? What pain? It is just a different way of using a computer. That is all what it is. It takes under an hour to cre […]
Show full quote

smeezekitty wrote:

Linux works fine for web browsing. It can be a pain to set up though

Pain to set up? What pain?
It is just a different way of using a computer. That is all what it is.
It takes under an hour to create a nas server, using ubuntu server, from os install to working nas.

On topic.
Go for Win7 or continue using Linux. Just get some slightly faster hardware.

If you are an experienced Linux user, you might find the "pain" enjoyable, but sometimes, for more novice users like myself, it is still a pain.

I have an XP box, (my older main rig between 2006-2009). I decided to make it a multiboot system with XP, Fedora and Mint. Originally, it had a RAID 1 array for XP, Another RAID 1 array for data, and a RAID 10 array video capture. Boot and data RAID arrays was managed by nforce3 chipset, the RAID 10 array was managed by onboard Slicon Image 3114 controller. I separated RAID 1 arrays as individual disks (XP, Fedora, Mint, data) and left the RAID 10 array intact. This is what happened:

- Both distros could not see the RAID 10 array after hours of trials, so I just gave up. Silicon Image 3114 is a very common and old enough controller.

- Both distros consistently see the two disks from the separated array as a RAID 1 array, In spite of the fact that they definitely were not, and RAID option for them and RAID controller itself were disabled from the BIOS. They continue to configure them as mirror RAID arrays using some software method. I don't need to mention that XP on the same computer was working perfectly and correctly. As I understood later, after hours of forum search, any HDD used in an RAID array at a time in their life, had some sort of code written in their normally inaccessible area by the RAID controller, which is not cleaned by formatting or fdisk command.

- Multiboot, and specifically GRUB, is a pain in itself.

Not that I'm saying Linux is not enjoyable (well, its impressive from most aspects), what I'm saying is just that they are sometimes a pain in unexpected ways.

As I said. Linux is just as difficult to manage than Windows.
Just a different way of managing the os.

Everybody is talking abour fedora, Linux mint and such.
How about just installing debian? Wich is by far the most versatile.
Actually. Learning Linux is as steep a curve as learning Dos and mastering 90's hardware.

fwiw I usually install debian when i want linux, after using debian on and off since potato i can't say i really warm to ubuntu or linuxmint; debian gets you closer to the metal in a good way. for me the strength of debian is often the already-packaged software - all free and with dependencies handled by the os, with a menu-driven front-end for selecting it. never tried debian with raid [never tried raid] but in my latest ventures debian has been trouble-free, detected all my hardware, gives me access to windows disks, and grub installation and update was completely smooth too.

With PC hardware so cheap, often free, not sure why you're using such an old machine. Wouldn't be hard to get something much better donated if you ask around.

Or ubuntu server as a base install. Just apt-get install xubuntu-desktop.
Even works great on an 99 Apple G4. I experimented on such a machine, trying out as a nas and a minecraft server using this approach.

reagarding windows xp security:
oh my, so many people are crapping their pants because of that. it is ridiculous.

every windows (and every other OS) has and will have security related bugs. absolutely nothing can replace common sense when using computers.

as it has been stated earlier:
- watch out for suspicious offerings, don't surf and click around like an idiot
- don't install every crap, use commonly used, trustworthy software
- if you're looking for illegal things of whatever kind (cracks, serials, passwords for websites, free software downloads of paid software, ...) you WILL eventually catch some malware

if you are behind any (ok well, maybe not any) NAT device which is not vulnerable to 100 security issues and if its webinterface is not accessible from the internet and if you changed the administrative password, NO malware will get on your pc by itself out of nowhere.
again: NO malware pops out of nowehere. malware always has a source where it comes from. avoid the sources.

You get malware from:
- infected media (CD-ROM, USB Stick, Floppy, ZIP disk, ...)
- malicious downloads from non-trustworthy sites
- attachements from malicious senders
- OS exploits when a PC is exposed directly to the internet without any NAT Router
- OS exploits when an infected PC gets connected to your network locally (within broadcast range) and the infected pc has malware on it which spreads over network and OS exploits
- and last but not least: by infected websites or websites which carry out malware intentionally to exploitable browsers or browser plugins. in that case surfing to the website would be enough to get infected.

the MOST dangerous possibility is the last one but to avoid that, the most important rules to follow is (as -again- stated earlier):
- watch out for suspicious offerings, don't surf and click around like an idiot
- don't install every crap, use commonly used, trustworthy software
- if you're looking for illegal things of whatever kind (cracks, serials, passwords for websites, free software downloads of paid software, ...) you WILL eventually catch some malware

if you get on a normally trustworthy site which got infected by malware by hackers (shit happens), you'd be probably screwed even with the most recent OS and patches because mostly it will be brand-new zero day exploits which are being spread that way.
Very unlike scenario, however.

So - conclusion: be smart, don't crap your pants using any OS. just be smart and you'll be good even without any slowing down antivirus software bunch of crap.

whoa had to get rid of that 😁

^ Agreed. Just be careful what you do and you'll be fine on XP, I used it for quite a while now and only recently switched to Windows 7. Only noticed vulnerabilities on 7's side so far after installed Daemon Tools and it pushed crap into the system with their crap offerings in the installer (the things that happen when you're not paying attention...).

Hope the DT developer(s)/idiot who came with the idea of placing malware in the installer, rot(s) in hell with a rusty dildo in his/her/their ass(es).

Other than that I recommend to use CrunchBang Linux, it's what I use as well, it's lightning fast and it's a Debian-based distro instead of being Ubuntu-based (like Lubuntu or Xubuntu mentioned earlier).

To be clear, I am not bashing Linux. I love open source software and use it as much as possible.
I have several machines running Linux. And it is quite usable if you don't need Windows specific software.

BUT it IS a pain to install, setup and tune.

- watch out for suspicious offerings, don't surf and click around like an idiot
- don't install every crap, use commonly used, trustworthy software
- if you're looking for illegal things of whatever kind (cracks, serials, passwords for websites, free software downloads of paid software, ...) you WILL eventually catch some malware

+1

My recollection is that Internet-connected XP installs usually die a violent death from malware, or a slow, painful death from registry rot. The nice thing about Linux is that neither of these things is ever an issue.

I'll concede that it may be possible to keep XP healthy through hyper-vigilance. If so, I was never successful. 😒

Im the kind of person that hits ctrl+alt+delete every hour anyhow too see whats hogging memory and what processes are running.

Even on my main Windows 7 system in my signature I only have 38 processes running at the moment and the system has been running 15 hours.
Out of that 38 processes 6 or so has to do with the video card and some others with Microsofts anti malware, anti virus and firewall.

I like to know what the stuff running has for purpose.

or a slow, painful death from registry rot.

All windows systems do that

kill that with ssd pooowaaaaarrrrr

Thanks for all the replies.... you guys have given me a lot to think about

I think I had it right to begin with... end of the road.... for this system. I was looking at graphics cards.... I am restricted to AGP on this board.... so I think that any CPU upgrade would be marginal at best (and not long before back to the same problem)

I guess this computer does not feel that "old" to me. And I have a hard time getting my mind around the fact that a 2 gigahertz cpu, 2 gigabytes of ram, and a video card with 128 megabytes of RAM is not good enough to surf the web 🙁