# Which OS to install?



## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

Hi guys (and gals)!

Today I received an old PC (2003), boasting a huge ammount of 1 GB of RAM, an Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and an old 9600 Radeon GPU (what a legend this card is). It's currently got Windows XP on it, but I'd like to install something else (or a fresh install of XP) and I was wondering, given the hardware, which OS would be the most suitable for this?

The PC will be used as a home server, meaning I'll be using it for storage of things and I want it to be available across the network via the built-in home network functionality. All of my other PCs have Windows 10 and the biggest concern is in compatibility between operating systems. I think making a fresh install of XP would be the best idea since I believe Linux distros won't be compatible with the network and XP would would also grant me good performance.

So the question would be: Will Windows XP work fine in the home network or do you suggest a different OS that will work in my case?

Thanks!


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## Toothless (Sep 26, 2016)

Linux


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

Will Linux work with the home network thing? And, which Linux distro do you recommend?


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## GoldenX (Sep 26, 2016)

Linux.

I would use something with the XFCE desktop to save some RAM. Xubuntu can be a nice start if you have never used Linux before.

Edit: so an Athlon XP, sorry, didn't see it the first time.


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## alucasa (Sep 26, 2016)

Leonardo997 said:


> Will Linux work with the home network thing? And, which Linux distro do you recommend?



Sure. If you are trying to share files, use Samba. 

Fedora is my choice. https://getfedora.org/


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

GoldenX said:


> Xubuntu can be a nice start if you have never used Linux before.
> The CPU is an XP or an Athlon 64?


In fact, I've used it before, I actually have it on my Nexus now, haha. It's an Athlon XP, fixed OP.

Which Linux distro do I go with then? I don't plan on doing anything on the PC except have it lay there and store my files.


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## GoldenX (Sep 26, 2016)

The correct answer is to just try a bunch of them and stick with the one you liked the most. For what you want to do, any would work.
Start with the big ones, Fedora, Xubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Open SUSE, etc.
Try not to use Ubuntu on that hardware, the Unity desktop is too heavy for 1GB of RAM and the 9600.

Me, I would install Arch Linux with the bare minimum.


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## natr0n (Sep 26, 2016)

any modern custom xp it will fly. or linux if you're into that


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

GoldenX said:


> The correct answer is to just try a bunch of them and stick with the one you liked the most. For what you want to do, any would work.
> Start with the big ones, Fedora, Xubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Open SUSE, etc.
> Try not to use Ubuntu on that hardware, the Unity desktop is too heavy for 1GB of RAM and the 9600.
> 
> Me, I would install Arch Linux with the bare minimum.



Hmm, using Black Arch might be a good idea too, hahahaha. I'll probably go with Open SUSE or Fedora.


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## cornemuse (Sep 26, 2016)

XP or Ubuntu 11.04!

XP _and_ Ubuntu 11.04!


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## alucasa (Sep 26, 2016)

Fedora all the way!

*FEDORA!*


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## NumberCruncher (Sep 26, 2016)

+1 Fedora


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

Well, here's the PC in question, what a gaming beast ain't it? 




 





I tried cleaning it with all my best efforts.


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## alucasa (Sep 26, 2016)

White DVD bezel. Now that's rare these days. It's all black now.


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

New thermal compound for both cores in this behemoth, hahahahaha. Akasa MX-2 btw 




Just wondering, but, this is HIS, right?


 

And another 80 GB of storage, daaaaayum!




P.s.: Decided to just go with XP.


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## theFOoL (Sep 26, 2016)

If it were me, I'd try Xubuntu or the new *Cub Linux*


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## Thimblewad (Sep 26, 2016)

I can't even, hahahaha. Slightly overclocked it, too!


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## theFOoL (Sep 26, 2016)

What's the temps at? You could try up to 2.4


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## arbiter (Sep 27, 2016)

As much as people promoting linux, question down to using that is do you have any experience with linux? You are setup file shares on it but if you have no idea about Linux then probably not good idea. If the machine is just a file server on xp, i update with all updates then use the router to block its access to the internet to protect it as best you can from being exploited.


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## Mussels (Sep 27, 2016)

i had plenty of trouble with linux file shares not working with windows 10, googling for help on the issue just got me dozens of buttfaces just saying to ditch windows 10 and move all my systems to linux.

Give it a shot, but if things dont work move to XP and tweak a few things (manually install drivers, disable windows updates, put a good firewall on it since the CPU is too slow for modern antivirus)


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## GoldenX (Sep 27, 2016)

Funny, to me it works flawlessly, be it Win10, 8.1 or 7.

The samba config file (/etc/samba/smb.conf) needs this to work well with Windows 8/10 and if you need to offer folders on a NTFS partition:

[global]
   security = user
   map to guest = Bad User
   usershare allow guests = yes
   usershare owner only = no
   guest ok = yes
   guest account = "your user name"

And the folders at the end of the file needs these:

["share name"]
   path = "path"
   browseable = yes
   guest ok = yes


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## NumberCruncher (Sep 27, 2016)

Leonardo997 said:


> I can't even, hahahaha. Slightly overclocked it, too!
> 
> View attachment 79304
> 
> View attachment 79305


Lol, you know before Intel was awakened by AMD with this very chip, it was the owner of the performance wars! Sadly those days are long over


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## slozomby (Sep 27, 2016)

Mussels said:


> i had plenty of trouble with linux file shares not working with windows 10, googling for help on the issue just got me dozens of buttfaces just saying to ditch windows 10 and move all my systems to linux.



if you aren't using samba 4.3 or higher you'll have connection issues. because prior to 4.3 samba doesn't support ntlm v3. you can downgrade the windows installations to support ntlm v1 ( which is a bad thing but works) or upgrade samba to a newer version.



> 1 GB of RAM, an Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and an old 9600 Radeon GPU


with these specs you don't want a gui install. Ubuntu server or fedora minimal installation then put on the stuff you need. both have versions of samba that are up2date.


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## Thimblewad (Sep 28, 2016)

I decided to go with Windows XP and it's just working great for me ATM. The speeds go up to 12 MB/s (router limit) when transfering files so performance wise it's able to reach it's full potential.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 28, 2016)

Depending on the motherboard chipset you may or may not have windows 7 agp gart drivers.


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## Thimblewad (Sep 28, 2016)

eidairaman1 said:


> Depending on the motherboard chipset you may or may not have windows 7 agp gart drivers.



I don't think I could actually install Windows 7. Don't need GPU drivers, but anyways I have experienced Windows 7 on 1 GB of RAM and I'm not going there, hahahah.


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## theFOoL (Sep 28, 2016)

Yeah but 2GB it 1.25 would work LoL but Xp is fine. I have it installed on my pc just for fun


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## Atomic77 (Oct 2, 2016)

Oh my gosh that thing is pretty outdated I doubt you could do much with it these days.


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## theFOoL (Oct 2, 2016)

Atomic77 said:


> Oh my gosh that thing is pretty outdated I doubt you could do much with it these days.


At least the updates site works and you can install Firefox (the latest version I mind you) and just browse the web and install OpenOffice


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## Thimblewad (Oct 2, 2016)

Atomic77 said:


> Oh my gosh that thing is pretty outdated I doubt you could do much with it these days.



Well, the PC is actually working great with those specs.



rk3066 said:


> At least the updates site works and you can install Firefox (the latest version I mind you) and just browse the web and install OpenOffice



The updates site works, yeah, but I had to install Firefox 12.something because all later versions need SSE2 to function and the CPU itself doesn't support that.


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## theFOoL (Oct 2, 2016)

Mine does i3 4150 and yes I have the latest version of FireFox but I have the last versions of chrome and opera installed as Well although Opera Tends to crash but FireFox and Chrome Version 49 still crashes a Tab time-to-time


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## bayley (Oct 4, 2016)

I think Linux is just that little bit better than Windows, but not by much. Depends what you're using it for really, as Linux is often said to be the preferred option for content management systems. If I were you, I'd read this comparison of the two before deciding


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## slozomby (Oct 4, 2016)

bayley said:


> I think Linux is just that little bit better than Windows, but not by much. Depends what you're using it for really, as Linux is often said to be the preferred option for content management systems. If I were you, I'd read this comparison of the two before deciding



from a server perspective. there is very little that runs on Linux that doesn't have a decent port for windows. Wamp vs Lamp for 99% of the websites out there would make 0 difference. Security on both depends on the administrators skills and basic maintenance. if either of those is lacking its not hard to get compromised. performance is mostly going to be code optimization, the minor overhead of a windows core installation vs a minimal installation is not really relevant until you start scaling horizontally, but bad code runs like crap on both platforms. content management ( git, cvs,...) work fine on either platform. automation controls work on both platforms ( puppet/chef) . there are a more NoSQL options for Linux than there are for windows.

the main reason to pick Linux over Windows for a server is licensing. when you're deploying 50 servers to run a site the money saved using Linux is not insignificant. On the other hand there are things in windows server such as Active Directory ( which samba is getting better at) and DFS and SCOM that just aren't up to snuff on Linux machines for enterprise purposes.

for a home installation windows server is generally way out of most people's price range and needs. and the $100 for a windows 7/10 license is probably better spent on beer. you'll want that beer when installing all the prerec's for samba 4.5


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## Atomic77 (Oct 13, 2016)

What do I know? Ive always gone with Windows. I never really had to install a OS before. I never built a computer either.


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## theFOoL (Oct 14, 2016)

Once Linux has Gaming more i'll switch. Though i have MINT Sarah as my Second OS for my Plex Server though also i have a Zotac Mini-PC for a Mini-Plex Server that i use as a Main Server cause my Linux is just for Back-up


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