Recommend an OS for crap-old computer.

[hijodeltiger]

My brother is going to Ecuador this winter break and he's planning on taking a computer he was donated with him to give away to a community in the Amazon (no kidding). OK, I didn't bother too much with it but I know it's got an AMD K6 and 60MB? of RAM. It has Windows 98 installed. Would Windows 2000 be too much for the little comp? Also I'm planning to give it a fresh install. Any tips regarding that manner (I've never installed anything but XP).
Thanks a lot.

 

[Guest]

Windows 2000 would be better but you really need at least 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB would be better. I would stick with Windows 98 if you can't increase the amount of RAM.

Grumpy

 

[fattony]

i'd suggest 2000 pro with sp4
xp's minimum requirement is 64mb ram, if it shows 60mb, possibly 4mb is being used by the onboard shared memory video controller

 

[warthog]

Windows 2000 would be better but you really need at least 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB would be better. I would stick with Windows 98 if you can't increase the amount of RAM.

Grumpy

Agreed. Though W2K will run in small amounts of RAM it's hopelessly slow. Add in an old processor like the K6 and it would be almost unusable unless you can increase the RAM.

I'd also check the hard disk space. My W2K installation uses 1.7GB apart from the applications. I'd stick with W98 unless it's got at least a 5GB disk.

 

[TehChozenTwo]

Unless you can't upgrade the ram, I'd just reinstall windows 98.

 

[Zoron]

Linux.

 

[TehChozenTwo]

Linux.

That's a good idea.

Does he have any experience with *nix?