One of the most hyped features of Linux is its ability to run on computers with just about any processor and RAM configuration; I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find a way to boot the penguin on a TRS-80. Of course, if you want a modern GUI like KDE, you're going to need a modern computer; most low-end Linux installations are CLI-only. What do you do if you want a GUI, plus the ability to run relatively current, mainstream apps, on an old PC?
According to this guide, you can run Windows 2000, which, with a little tweaking, can apparently give you reasonable performance on as little as 32MB of RAM and a 233 MHz processor. Why would you do this? Well, it's a good way to breathe new life into an old computer — not to mention an opportunity to show your Linux-boasting pals that Windows really can be run without bloat.
Tags: hardware, osupdates
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Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsGuilleJul 19th 2005 1:47PM
This might be useful for running Win2K under VirtualPC on a Mac. Thanks for the link.
dennis pJul 20th 2005 1:39AM
This is NO joke, kids. I have two old, slow laptops (Dell 233Mhz/128MB, HP 500Mhz/384MB) and a funky desktop (homebrew 900Mhz/750MB) running Win2K and they all run just fine. I've been doing this for a couple of years already...
The reason I stuck with Win2K over Linux was the admin learning curve -- I support the "women folk" in my house and if I want to be able to get my own stuff done, I have to be able to do things fast. Switching to Linux meant learning a bunch of new stuff and then training the users (ugh!).
I don't remove all the things the guy at the other end of the link suggests... Even the 233Mhz box runs OK with everything going -- my 15 year old doesn't complain about it...
Morgan at Direct TextbookJul 20th 2005 2:51PM
I had it running on a 233 Mhz laptop with 192 MB forever, I felt totally special until today.
Cool to have the tweaks though.
Andrew StewartJul 22nd 2005 9:19PM
I personally don't see the big comotion, but before I bought my Athlon 1800 I was running windows 2000 on a Pentium 90 with 32MB ram for almost a year, The old beastie took about 20 minutes to boot and it took 4 hours to install windows 2000 but when it was running, it was a responsive as windows 98 on a 166. I have been a great fan of 2000 and still run it to this day on my now Athlon 800 (Sold the 1800 to fund a psp).