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Linux as an alternative for old machines that won't work with Win 10


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Old 15-08-2015, 14:05
Kromm
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Talk about it here.
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:06
oilman
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deleted - sorry sbout double post. DS being a pain today.
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:06
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:17
lettice
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There has been a long running linux thread on DS for many years.
Probably the best place to ask about anything Linux.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1482956
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:19
Kal_El
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There has been a long running linux thread on DS for many years.
Probably the best place to ask about anything Linux.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1482956
Seconded.
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:41
TelevisionUser
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There is a lot of choice in Linux so much so that people might feel overwhelmed. A lot of rubbish is said about Linux operation systems that might have been correct ten years ago but is out of date now. This is a broadly fair article: http://blog.cbtnuggets.com/2014/03/l...als-pros-cons/

The good news is that Linux operating systems can be tried out first without installing them on a USB stick or DVD. These days, Linux operating systems have software that corresponds to Windows equivalents although someone in a highly specialised field might possibly have an issue. There are very good equivalents to Microsoft Office from Kingsoft and FreeOffice, for example.

My own suggestions for trial are:

Older equipment: LXLE, Linux Lite, Linux Mint Mate (these can, of course, be tried on newer equipment too)

Newer Equipment: Linux Mint Cinnamon, Zorin, Linux Mint KDE

While there will be a bit of a learning curve, the above Linux operating systems won't be too much of a shock.

List of major Linux distributions: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Lastly, my tip of the day is to help Android phones talk to Linux operating systems: On your Android phone, go into Settings>Applications>Development and tick the USB debugging box.
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Old 15-08-2015, 14:43
Kromm
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Then the bellowing and complaining about Linux discussion in the Win 10 topic should have more reliably pointed people to that topic. What I mostly saw was "#^& off--go create a topic!"

Really it's nonsense. The general discussion of market positions and that an alternative exists for low end machines is fine in ANY topic. The nitty gritty technical discussion then should be shunted off to other topics.
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Old 15-08-2015, 15:11
TelevisionUser
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Then the bellowing and complaining about Linux discussion in the Win 10 topic should have more reliably pointed people to that topic. What I mostly saw was "#^& off--go create a topic!"

Really it's nonsense. The general discussion of market positions and that an alternative exists for low end machines is fine in ANY topic. The nitty gritty technical discussion then should be shunted off to other topics.
I will say this. While many people have had compatibility problems with Windows 10 (mostly driver issues, it appears), I'd go so far as to say that they will have (far) fewer problems if they tried out one of the operating systems that I suggested above. One of the great advantages of using Linux is that you will not be plagued by virii, trojans, ransomeware etc. and, of course, it's free (although you can make an optional donation).

Here we have some comments:

We have a winner! Fresh Linux Mint 17.1 – hands down the best
Originally Posted by Jim 59
Mint, mate
I switched from Fedora to Mint 17 LTS 6 months ago for stability reasons, and I can recommend it to anyone. Being a business user, and over the age of 12, I went for MATE, and I have to say it is a great working environment. Reliable, logical, configurable. It does a great job and then gets out of the way. There isn't really much to say about it and that is one of the features of a good windowing environment IMO.
NB My hardware is not old. Quad core i7, if you please. The combination of a fast CPU and fast, minimal desktop is doubly wonderful. The desktop never pauses for anything, ever, not even for a second, even with the encrypted /home. (except for scanning wireless APs). Anyway I heartily recommend Linux Mint 17. Tip: Replace LibreOffice with OpenOffice for better stability.
...and:

Originally Posted by Vincent
"Because of lack of funding, we cant afford Windows licenses for a bunch of company computers so Linux was the way to go. Thanks to Zorin, it became easy for us to force Linux to employees who are very much used to the Windows environment."
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Old 15-08-2015, 15:16
IvanIV
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There's also an alternative of not upgrading/ rolling back to the original OS. Unless you absolutely want something else on your computer, it's the most reasonable thing to do.
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Old 15-08-2015, 15:26
noise747
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Talk about it here.
In theory machines that will run Xp and 7 should run windows 10 as it is suppose to be lighter, the problem is drivers.

I do have my old Laptop a Acer celaron machine running Manjaro, it did have Windows xp on it many years ago. Not that I use it much.

If I do get another laptop I may get one without a OS and stick a Linux distro on it.
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Old 15-08-2015, 15:52
TelevisionUser
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In theory machines that will run Xp and 7 should run windows 10 as it is suppose to be lighter, the problem is drivers.

I do have my old Laptop a Acer celaron machine running Manjaro, it did have Windows xp on it many years ago. Not that I use it much.

If I do get another laptop I may get one without a OS and stick a Linux distro on it.
I suspect that the PCs and laptops that originally had XP installed as standard will have the greatest problems because of no Windows 10 drivers for outdated components, for example. In those cases, it certainly would be worth considering Linux operating systems as an upgrade.

Windows 7 was launched in the summer of 2009 so I expect that most of those systems that were sold with Windows 7 pre-installed would have fewer problems when it comes to trying out and running Windows 10. In those cases though, it still might be worth looking at the latest generation of Linux operating systems as an alternative to moving to Windows 10.
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Old 15-08-2015, 15:58
Kal_El
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Then the bellowing and complaining about Linux discussion in the Win 10 topic should have more reliably pointed people to that topic. What I mostly saw was "#^& off--go create a topic!"

Really it's nonsense. The general discussion of market positions and that an alternative exists for low end machines is fine in ANY topic. The nitty gritty technical discussion then should be shunted off to other topics.
Sorry Kromm, didn't realise. I've not been in the W10 thread as I've no interest in it. I did watch a video review the other day but it left me cold. So fussy and boingy. What's with all the bloody menus all over the place? Give me a simple desktop any day. I like bling but there seems to be a lot of fuss with W10.

What spec do you have? Mint with Cinnamon can work on surprisingly low specs I've found.
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Old 15-08-2015, 16:01
Kromm
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In theory machines that will run Xp and 7 should run windows 10 as it is suppose to be lighter, the problem is drivers.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect.

Win10 is NOT lighter than XP.

It IS lighter than Win7. Mostly.

People with XP-era machines expecting to run Win10 are going to get a real shock, even if it somehow installs.

People who installed Win7 onto some old XP machine, where the upgrade BARELY ran? Possibly will do better on 10. Although possibly not. Why? Because realistically Win 10 needs a dual core processor to be more than barely passable. Win7 didn't. Really it's going to be a case by case basis with those machines. And it depends on what people are used to calling "okay". Some may be so used to how 7 crawled on a former XP machine, they'll judge differently than someone seeing the situation fresh. 10 might work "better" but still be more trouble than it's worth.

As a general guideline I think it's safe to say that you can find a flavor of Linux to work on a single core XP-era machine if you really want to, and it will do basic tasks like web browsing, word processing and photo editing fine. Nothing else. Making the same assumption about a single core XP-era machine and Win 10 isn't as sure of a bet.
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Old 15-08-2015, 16:13
Kromm
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Sorry Kromm, didn't realise. I've not been in the W10 thread as I've no interest in it. I did watch a video review the other day but it left me cold. So fussy and boingy. What's with all the bloody menus all over the place? Give me a simple desktop any day. I like bling but there seems to be a lot of fuss with W10.

What spec do you have? Mint with Cinnamon can work on surprisingly low specs I've found.
I currently have exactly that installed (Mint with Cinnamon I mean) on my secondary (actually tertiary) single core old Acer laptop.

I also have an old desktop level HP workstation xw4100 that;s my fourth string machine, and that has an old install of Ubuntu on it (after they changed interfaces to Unity, but before the second change where they started only supporting video cards that could run some stupid 3d mode they needed after I think mid-2011 or so).

I have packed away in a closet a positively ancient machine (half a gig or so of RAM if I recall right--but I haven't turned it on to doublecheck in years) with Lubuntu on it, although I've also had Xububtu on at some point, and I think briefly even Elementary OS. There are OpenBox compatible Linuxes that work on even older hardware too (256MB RAM type boxes), and I haven't fooled with them in years.

These are not for everybody. Likely as time goes by, things like Flash will stop working for example, although I think HTML 5 probably will keep working. Word processing with an old-tech type Office Clone is fine. Photo editing okay for pics that aren't huge. Video editing out of the picture totally. But there are parts of the world where this is all they HAVE and they get along fine. As emergency machines they're fine.
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Old 15-08-2015, 16:39
Oscar_
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If you are talking specifically about Linux on older machines (and I think it is nice to have a separate thread for that) then people should be aware that many of the current Linux systems on offer are actually quite "heavy" and really best suited to modern hardware.

I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea so I would ask others not to shout me down, but I am a big fan of Puppy Linux and would recommend it as something worth trying (at least) as an operating system for older machines. It is very light and fast, even on XP era machines it runs sweetly on 512 MB of RAM and even acceptably on one machine I have which only has 256 MB installed.

If you burn and boot a Live CD to try it out it runs at full speed (unlike most of the others) and it will not affect your existing installed system and files. Also worthy of a mention is the friendly and helpful support community on the forum.
http://www.puppylinux.com
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Old 15-08-2015, 17:50
Kal_El
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...But there are parts of the world where this is all they HAVE and they get along fine. As emergency machines they're fine.
Well I personally haven't run Windows for about two years, and the missus has only ever used Ubuntu. We've never had any problems, occasionally she'll ask me how to do something but I never get a "why doesn't it do this, when Windows can?" discussion. I can't think of any hole a Windows machine would fill for me. But it's fun watching everyone fall for the Windows hype machine again.
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Old 15-08-2015, 18:08
Kromm
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If you are talking specifically about Linux on older machines (and I think it is nice to have a separate thread for that) then people should be aware that many of the current Linux systems on offer are actually quite "heavy" and really best suited to modern hardware.

I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea so I would ask others not to shout me down, but I am a big fan of Puppy Linux and would recommend it as something worth trying (at least) as an operating system for older machines. It is very light and fast, even on XP era machines it runs sweetly on 512 MB of RAM and even acceptably on one machine I have which only has 256 MB installed.

If you burn and boot a Live CD to try it out it runs at full speed (unlike most of the others) and it will not affect your existing installed system and files. Also worthy of a mention is the friendly and helpful support community on the forum.
http://www.puppylinux.com
I think we need to be specific rather than just scare people off.

Ubuntu in it's newest versions has become hardware heavier, but to be fair it's still theoretically very light compared to Windows. I bring up Ubuntu simply because it's the "default" Linux most people know.

Ubuntu currently claims: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...emRequirements

Ubuntu Desktop Edition
700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB RAM (system memory)
5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
They're on the money with most of that--it's not ideal but it's usable, but the part about "VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution" is absolute steaming bullshit. It won't even install with a 2005-ish era Nvidia card, for example. Which I know sounds ancient (and is) but when we're talking about something that's supposed to run with 512 MiB RAM, that's the video you get.

But performance otherwise? I use Ubuntu a few versions back on a machine from around 2005 (CPU only a hair better than those specs, but about twice the RAM) and it runs just fine. The Unity front end and the increased specs to run THAT is mainly what's to blame for needing more.

As has been mentioned, the very similar Linux Mint (a branch of Ubuntu) with their "Cinnamon" interface subbing for Untiy? Is quite zippy on pretty old hardware. I STILL would hesitate to go as far back as a Celeron 700Mhz Processor with 512 MB of RAM and ancient video, but in general anything that ran Vista or newer will probably have a fighting chance with it.

I haven't run Puppy in years, and recall it being decent though. Then again, so are Kubuntu, Xubuntu and many others. I wish I could give exact dates, but I guess broad guidelines are all we can do.

2006 or later PCs, dual core processor, 2 GB RAM or more (preferably 3 or more): Win 7, Win 8, Win 10 all fine, short of problems with individual motherboards or graphics cards.

Pre-2006, but machines that ran Vista okay: Well theoretically the Vista specs are just about dead on equal to the current Ubuntu ones (other than what I noted about some older video cards just plain no longer being supported). So if it ran Vista and had slightly newer video (I'd say 2008ish or later) then it will likely run any darn Linux you toss at it.

If it ran XP, then its a coin toss. Those are the machines that go all the way back to 2001-2002 and running Puppy or Kubuntu or Xubuntu or other stripped back Linuxes is what's going to be necessary. Unless it was a newer machine that COULD have run Vista or Win 7 or whatever that had XP on it because someone was more comfortable with it. I'd say besides dual core (too new for most of this discussion) the other break point is if the CPU supports x64 instructions (most of this can be looked up if you know your computer model, find the CPU listed for it, then google it to see if it says "X64" or "x86-64" or "x86_64" in the documentation. Affordable x64 processors for home use (vs. servers) showed up around 2003 with AMD processors and 2004 for Intel. So for me PCs with those dates are around when you can feel comfortable with most Linuxes (short of any old video card problems).
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Old 15-08-2015, 19:57
Ulysses777
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In theory machines that will run Xp and 7 should run windows 10 as it is suppose to be lighter
Hardly.

Windows 10 requires a an x86 CPU with NX bit support, which first appeared in 2003 with AMD64.

There are therefore not many 32bit-only CPUs which can run Windows 10, only the 32bit-only versions of Socket 754/939 Semprons, some Intel Prescott core CPUs, and the Intel Core 1 range.

All 64bit CPUs should run Windows 10 32bit. To run Windows 10 64bit requires a CPU which additionally supports CMPXCHG16b, aka CompareExchange128 (introduced by Intel as part of their implementation of AMD64) and PREFETCHW (introduced by AMD as part of 3DNow).

64bit CPUs which cannot run Windows 10 64bit includes all AMD Socket 754/939/940 CPUs (due to lack of CMPXCHG16b support) and Intel Prescott and Smithfield cores and their Xeon derivatives (due to lack of PREFETCHW support)
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Old 18-08-2015, 20:39
TelevisionUser
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2015 was not only the year of the launch of Windows 10 but also the launch of Linux Mint 17.2.

One of the advantages of Linux is that it can be tried out without installing it using a USB stick or DVD so that there are no permanent changes to someone's laptop or desktop PC.

Linux Lite

MINIMUM RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATIONS:
CPU: 700MHz processor
RAM: 512mb ram
RESOLUTION: VGA screen 1024x768 resolution
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image

PREFERRED SPECIFICATIONS:
CPU: 1.5GHz processor
RAM: 1024mb ram
RESOLUTION: VGA, DVI or HDMI screen 1366x768
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image

Links:
https://www.linuxliteos.com/download.html
https://www.linuxliteos.com/shop/


Linux Mint Mate

System requirements:
512MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
9GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution (1024×768 recommended).
DVD drive or USB port.

Notes:
The 64-bit ISO can boot with BIOS or UEFI.
The 32-bit ISO can only boot with BIOS.
The 64-bit ISO is recommend for all modern computers (Almost all computers sold in the last 10 years are equipped with 64-bit processors).

Link:
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Linux Mint Cinnamon

System requirements:
512MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
9GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution (1024×768 recommended).
DVD drive or USB port.

Notes:
The 64-bit ISO can boot with BIOS or UEFI.
The 32-bit ISO can only boot with BIOS.
The 64-bit ISO is recommend for all modern computers (Almost all computers sold in the last 10 years are equipped with 64-bit processors).

Link:

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

You can prepare your own USB and DVD installation media but pre-prepared Linux DVDs (cheap) and USBs (a bit more expensive) are readily available from both Amazon and Ebay.

Originally Posted by Linus Torvalds

"There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is".
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Old 18-08-2015, 20:51
oilman
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Sorry guys but I could not resist showing you this

http://www.techradar.com/news/softwa...-proof-1288287
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Old 06-09-2015, 12:35
TelevisionUser
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Sorry guys but I could not resist showing you this

http://www.techradar.com/news/softwa...-proof-1288287
However, what is relatively rare for Windows is commonplace for Linux, i.e. the ability to run well on low end equipment.

PCs and laptops with Win 8/8.1 as the pre-installed operating system should have fewer, if any, problems with upgrading to Win 10 but older Win 7/Vista systems might have issues and in those cases, Linux operating systems, such as those mentioned above, can be a viable upgrade alternative.
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Old 06-09-2015, 13:26
oilman
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However, what is relatively rare for Windows is commonplace for Linux, i.e. the ability to run well on low end equipment.

PCs and laptops with Win 8/8.1 as the pre-installed operating system should have fewer, if any, problems with upgrading to Win 10 but older Win 7/Vista systems might have issues and in those cases, Linux operating systems, such as those mentioned above, can be a viable upgrade alternative.
Isn't this thread missing the real point. Why would most users using an old version of windows, who find they cannot upgrade to 10 suddenly take a "leap of faith" and decide to use Linux instead. They would just stay on Vista/Xp or whatever. The free upgrade only applies to 7 onwards anyway.

The sort of person who sticks to old versions will just buy a new pc when old one dies.

To me this thread might be interesting to a niche market of users, but that is all it will ever be. Of course the thread has value in suggesting alternatives, but don't expect many people to be influenced.
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Old 06-09-2015, 14:21
RobinOfLoxley
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The thread may not 'influence' many, but there is quite a lot of useful bits of info now summarised in one place because the scope of the thread is different from usual ones
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Old 06-09-2015, 14:47
oilman
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The thread may not 'influence' many, but there is quite a lot of useful bits of info now summarised in one place because the scope of the thread is different from usual ones
Agreed.
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Old 06-09-2015, 14:59
noise747
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However, what is relatively rare for Windows is commonplace for Linux, i.e. the ability to run well on low end equipment.

PCs and laptops with Win 8/8.1 as the pre-installed operating system should have fewer, if any, problems with upgrading to Win 10 but older Win 7/Vista systems might have issues and in those cases, Linux operating systems, such as those mentioned above, can be a viable upgrade alternative.
All that article proves is that Windows 10 runs on that computer, it don't show us how it runs how fast it runs and if it is usable.
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