Spec me an OS..

.Griff.

.Griff.

.Griff.

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Daft title I know but in essence that's exactly what I need.. Opinions on what OS to run.

The setup - I've got my main PC running Vista UE which I'm very happy with but in a few days I'll inherit my fathers 3 year old Sony Vaio laptop.

Ideally I'd like to use the laptop for a few purposes such as web browsing, watching divx/xvid's, music library, Live messenger or an alternative multi platform messenger and if possible to admin our BF2142 server (saves me alt-tabbing on the main PC)

Now I've read some things about Ubuntu, DSL, DSL-N, and openSuSe 10.2 but I'm not sure if they will suit my needs, in particular the ability to admin the BF2142 server.

I'm sure I've also read about some form of really stripped down Windows. Is this a reality or did I dream about it.

Anyway any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Edit - From a brief look at the laptop I know it's only got 256mb of ram (will upgrade when I get it) and it had a 1.6ghz cpu (which kind I can't recall)
 
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WWS|Griff said:
Daft title I know but in essence that's exactly what I need.. Opinions on what OS to run.

The setup - I've got my main PC running Vista UE which I'm very happy with but in a few days I'll inherit my fathers 3 year old Sony Vaio laptop.

Ideally I'd like to use the laptop for a few purposes such as web browsing, watching divx/xvid's, music library, Live messenger or an alternative multi platform messenger and if possible to admin our BF2142 server (saves me alt-tabbing on the main PC)

Now I've read some things about Ubuntu, DSL, DSL-N, and openSuSe 10.2 but I'm not sure if they will suit my needs, in particular the ability to admin the BF2142 server.

I'm sure I've also read about some form of really stripped down Windows. Is this a reality or did I dream about it.

Anyway any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Edit - From a brief look at the laptop I know it's only got 256mb of ram (will upgrade when I get it) and it had a 1.6ghz cpu (which kind I can't recall)
Click to expand...

The striped down XP is real - but is not legal and is missing some core components - so you cannot 100% know all would work (I know in the notes it says office won't work, so who knows what else).

An option is this - Install XP and use this guide - http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2007/02/06/1465/1/ to clean up and speed up XP.

Rich
 
Cheers Rich...

I could always give that a try and see how well it runs.

The only other option I've come across is running Linux and using Wine (I think it's called Wine) to run any Windows apps I need.

Is this feasible?
 
It's feasible yeah - but again compatibility issues may arise (Wine doesn't run everything 100% as I recall - I may be wrong) and also you would then be sharing resources between Linux and XP, meaning a slower machine all round!

In my opinion, install XP on that machine and follow that website I previously linked to and start clearing out as much unwanted background services as possible.

Rich
 
Is that url correct? All I see is some really messy blog/motd thing with loads of spam links. What exactly does one click on that page to see anything related to XP?
 
titchard said:
also you would then be sharing resources between Linux and XP, meaning a slower machine all round!
Click to expand...
Wine isn't virtualization. it simply is an attempt to make an interpreter that lets Windows dll files run on a Unix-like system. It comes with its own library of most of the standard Windows dlls, all of which have been reverse-engineered specifically for the project.

There is little performance overhead when running in Wine.

However, you are right that there is not 100% compatability. Hardware acceleration is used incompletely for graphics rendered in Wine. Some programs run very well on Wine, some do not.
 
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