On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 9:58 PM, <mcelha...@usnetizen.com> wrote: > Just last week I took an old hard drive and installed Windows XP SP3 > on this machine, and was surprised to find that it works just fine. > My box currently has 384MB of DIMM ram, I would suspect that would be > the minimum to try such a thing. As an experiment, I also tried > running the latest version of the Firefox browser on this setup, and > it did not run so well. So, while the OS seems to do just fine, I am > not claiming that this will enable you to effectively run any major > current software on this machine. But, I'm sure you could run Windows > 2000 on your computer, especially if you shut down all the unnecessary > services.
I have an old Fujitsu Lifebook p2110 with an 867mhz Transmeta Crusoe CPU and 256MB RAM (of which the Crusoe grabs 16MB off the top for code morphing.) It came to me with WinXP SP2 installed, and was frozen snail slow, taking 8 minutes to just boot, even after stripping StartUp, turning off services, etc. It was doing a good imitation of mainframe "death by thrashing", where the machine spent more time swapping than actually running programs. 512MB is really the minimum I recommend for XP, and I'm pleasantly surprised XP ran as well as you report in 384MB. I repartitioned, reformatted, and installed Win2K SP4 on NTFS, Puppy and Ubuntu Linux on ext4, and FreeDOS on FAT32. Pruning what was loaded on StartUp to the minimum required and turning off unneeded services let me get Window's usage down to about 180MB. It's actually a bit more sprightly than either Linux install, for just the OS. Once you go beyond that, things change. The big issue on the Lifebook is a slow IDE4 HD with an anemic transfer rate. IDE4 is a BIOS limitation, so a faster drive isn't an option. Big apps just load slow, aside from RAM requirements once up. I don't even try to run a current Firefox, as it's really sluggish on Linux or Windows. To the extent I browse from the box (seldom), I use Midori, Opera, SeaMonkey 1.X, or (if in Windows) occasionally IE (long enough to go to a known good site, grab something, and exit.). > And even if there is somebody at Microsoft who actually cares, they > would NEVER attempt to prosecute a private individual for this activity > for, at least, 2 reasons: > > 1. It is a potential PR disaster that can gain them nothing financially. And it would cost them more to bring action than the results could possibly justify, > 2. Even with highly paid MS lawyers up against a local-yokel > attorney, there is still a 50-50 chance that some judge would bang > his/her gavel and declare the activity "fair use" (it has never been > officially challenged), and that is something Microsoft would NEVER > take such a chance over something so trivial. That would set a precedent, and is the last thing MS would want. An under licensed copy or so of 98 or 2K in the hands of a home user? They don't care. Since they no longer sell/support either, they are not being deprived of revenue. ______ Dennis https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
