True to an extent but I've run Windows 7, 8.1 and now 10 on the same machine and sluggish isn't in it. Linux runs way faster to the point a browser is opened and page loaded in under a second but Windows takes closer to 5. Opening explorer generates a 'loading please wait' message for a few seconds after opening on Win 10 but in Linux I'm done with my file operation before Explorer would have even rendered.
Should i change from xp to Linux?
- Thread starter Jimpowers79
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True to an extent but I've run Windows 7, 8.1 and now 10 on the same machine and sluggish isn't in it. Linux runs way faster to the point a browser is opened and page loaded in under a second but Windows takes closer to 5. Opening explorer generates a 'loading please wait' message for a few seconds after opening on Win 10 but in Linux I'm done with my file operation before Explorer would have even rendered.
Apart from W10 being beta. You realise thats not normal even for Windows. On the W7 machine, I'm writing this on explorer opens instantly and this system has a regular HD.
Re-installing XP would improve that system.
But XP is a security risk. Time to move on and Linux is good choice.
Is your system an ancient Athlon x2 with slow DDR2 RAM and an equally ancient mobo chipset though?
My oldest lowest spec machine ddr2 667, 9~10yrs old is a laptop but file explorer is instant. But it has SSD in it 
. The machine I have with the slowest I/O file (explorer) access, is not the one with the lowest spec of ram, cpu. But slow because it has a rubbish hard drive in it. Newer versions of Windows hit the disk very hard unless you turn off certain features. W8 hammers the disk regardless of what you do. As do many browsers. A SSD is becoming a necessity these days, regardless of machine.
Out of curiosity I looked my slow drive. It actually does well in benchmarks. Unfortunately those benchmarks are from 2005.
. The machine I have with the slowest I/O file (explorer) access, is not the one with the lowest spec of ram, cpu. But slow because it has a rubbish hard drive in it. Newer versions of Windows hit the disk very hard unless you turn off certain features. W8 hammers the disk regardless of what you do. As do many browsers. A SSD is becoming a necessity these days, regardless of machine.Out of curiosity I looked my slow drive. It actually does well in benchmarks. Unfortunately those benchmarks are from 2005.
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Indeed, while my ancient core2 media box takes a min or two to boot and open the aps I want, it's just as fast a a clean xp/7 install, in fact faster, and it doesn't fubar itself over time it just works, all the time, without borking itself.
I concur, time to upgrade as of several years ago. Linux is far easier to maintain than XP (type a few lines in a terminal and done, with zypper or apt-get) and XP will probably run faster as a virtual machine within Linux; Windows often works better kept away from the hardware. A long time ago, I found some apps were faster in Wine than native Windows.
Distro choice is a matter of taste, and there are plenty of lighter ones for aging PCs.
Distro choice is a matter of taste, and there are plenty of lighter ones for aging PCs.
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