Which OS you prefer

[FreedomEclipse]

Received an iMac G3 as payment for a job, those old spherical ones. MacOS 9 is useless on it (Internet Explorer as default browser?), OSX is out of the question because the orange translucent plastic blob only has 96MB of RAM, and it's impossible to get PC100 SO-DIMM sticks this south of the planet.

Tried Debian on it, was excellent, until they decided to kill support for 32bit powerpc, leaving my brother and me with nothing again.
What distro supports all architectures, regardless of their age? What distro can be configured for low RAM usage? What distro can be optimized for a Motorola 740 233MHz processor?

Gentoo.

We put Gentoo on a freaking 233MHz, 96MB iMac G3, optimized for small size binaries (-Os), and it works like a charm. 20 years are nothing on good hardware, you only need good software.

I may have some of these SO-Dimms in my shed somewhere.... Both in 100 and 133 flavours. No guarantee they are working though as i dont have the means to test them. But they did work last time i managed to get a PIII machine working for a while some years ago. If you're interested then you can have them for price of shipping (im from London, UK. So you can get a shipping quote and see if its worth your time)

 

[FYFI13]

- Laptop: Been using Arch for a long time, now switched to Ubuntu 17.10 (Gnome DE) for better compatibility with Steam. Also less headaches after updates. KDE looks better but there are Bluetooth related issues that can kill any sound outputs for good.
- On my gaming rig still using Windows 10 until Arma 3 stops releasing updates so Windows and Linux clients are on the same version thus i can play on my fav server without any worries.
- Also running W10 on my HTPC only because of fantastic hardware based video acceleration when using Edge. With Linux/Windows+other browsers my poor Celeron N2820 couldn't even play 1080p, on W10+Edge 4K goes smooth as silk.

 

[GoldenX]

I may have some of these SO-Dimms in my shed somewhere.... Both in 100 and 133 flavours. No guarantee they are working though as i dont have the means to test them. But they did work last time i managed to get a PIII machine working for a while some years ago. If you're interested then you can have them for price of shipping (im from London, UK. So you can get a shipping quote and see if its worth your time)

Thanks, I'll research the cost and I will contact you. My country is a little stupid with international delivery, so I'll have to look for the current law too.

The only way I've found to play videos in Linux on an N3050 without skips, is with a light desktop (XFCE) and mpv configured for GPU acceleration, but no image improvement (no opengl-hq profile). Maybe the new Firefox Quantum helps?

 

[John Naylor]

As hardware, I don't think about which OS is better. It's about what hardware and OS I should use to run the applications I need / want. Fortunately my 9 to 5 needs coincide with m evening escape time. What ya want in / on ya machine for AutoCAD (Intel i7 / nVdia GTX / Windows) provides the most opportunities for gaming. Gets harder if ya needs run to video editing or CAD rendering in which case ya have to either compromise or have multiple boxes. If I just had to use an oiffice suite and surf the web and light gaming, I'd likely have some flavor of Linux.

 

[StrayKAT]

Installed Gentoo on the small Ryzen, one hell to set up, but performance is a blast and memory usage is the lowest I've seen in a distro. Now I want a Threadripper/i9 so I can compile packages faster.
Using amdgpu instead of radeonsi, works like a charm.

I used to love it when it came out. It was a great learning experience. Although now it's probably too much over my head.. or rather, I'm too lazy to learn ins and outs these days. I'm tempted to try a simple distro like Arch or Ubuntu.

 

[FYFI13]

The only way I've found to play videos in Linux on an N3050 without skips, is with a light desktop (XFCE) and mpv configured for GPU acceleration, but no image improvement (no opengl-hq profile). Maybe the new Firefox Quantum helps?

Firefox Quantum is quite a bit faster but Celeron N2820 still struggles to play Youtube videos at 1080p. CPU usage went down noticably but playback doesn't feel smooth at all. It looks like it's just skipping frames. Just uncomparable to W10+Edge.

It's fairly easy to get HW accelerated video playback for local videos, the problem is Youtube/Netflix and such.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Firefox Quantum is quite a bit faster but Celeron N2820 still struggles to play Youtube videos at 1080p

my daily home PC is a pretty strong desktop, and i get TONS of crashes, and freezing with quantum fwiw. I never had this many issues with the older versions, i dont knwo if its a win10 thing, or what, but my crash reports were almost a whole page in the last couple months.....the freezing is the worst part tho. it stalls for up 10 seconds, and it never used to happen, plus my entire PC is samsung 850EVO, so it cant be data access times.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Old thread is old.

But Win 10.

 

[dj-electric]

Old thread is old.

Manjaro based Linux. I love this distro, its fantastic. KDE environment.

 

[theFOoL]

For old computers that have 2GB of RAM and a Dual-core CPU+ Cloudready is the OS to go for

For me though Linux MINT for main OS

 

[djthrottleboi]

got a 2007 samsung with only 4GB amd-3420 and it runs kubuntu like a dream. do have to watch that ram but i'm switching to zorin os right now as i type.

for the thread is old post most Linux users tend to forget age due to Linux's flexibility so age is of no consequence.

 

[GoldenX]

Plasma 5 in Arch works like a charm on my cheap notebook, and KDE Connect is very confy.

 

[djthrottleboi]

KDE connect is a dream come true. I want to give arch a shot but dont have the time to tinker

 

[GoldenX]

Mind you, the remote control only works on x.org, not in wayland.

 

[djthrottleboi]

This is true but even without remote you have a lot of features to be had.

 

[johnspack]

A little Kubuntu action, well one of my 2 screens... power user version:

And win10 can eat my a**...
Guess which os I prefer....

 

[djthrottleboi]

I have zorin os installed now and am thinking to make it KDE or see if I can port deepin linux over it

 

[lexluthermiester]

I've been using AndroidX86 on a couple of my laptops and it runs great.
Desktop is still on Win7. Playing with the idea of moving to Win10 but there are a few things that still have to be worked out before I'm willing to take the plunge.

 

[djthrottleboi]

I've been using AndroidX86 on a couple of my laptops and it runs great.
Desktop is still on Win7. Playing with the idea of moving to Win10 but there are a few things that still have to be worked out before I'm willing to take the plunge.

I was thinking of trying android on a touchscreen laptop I have laying around. HP ts 15

 

[lexluthermiester]

I was thinking of trying android on a touchscreen laptop I have laying around. HP ts 15

If I've looked up the right specs on that system, the hardware is supported. Getting it installed will require disabling "Secure Boot" in the bios. But you should otherwise have no problems. Give it a go. I've been using it for years and love it as a Windows replacement for general computing, light gaming, listening to music and watching movies/TV.

 

[djthrottleboi]

If I've looked up the right specs on that system, the hardware is supported. Getting it installed will require disabling "Secure Boot" in the bios. But you should otherwise have no problems. Give it a go. I've been using it for years and love it as a Windows replacement for general computing, light gaming, listening to music and watching movies/TV.

The only thing holding me back is the playonlinux app. I don't want to go through all the installs again. I will install it as I have it on a linux format disk

 

[lexluthermiester]

The only thing holding me back is the playonlinux app. I don't want to go through all the installs again. I will install it as I have it on a linux format disk

Fair enough. You could do the separate partition thing. AndroidX86 has a Linux boot-loader install package which will let you dual boot.
http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-7-1-r1
That is the standard release. If you want a very customization friendly version, there is one based on the CyanogenMod code set. Even though CyanogenMod themselves are gone, there is still community support for all of the repositories;
http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-cm-x86-14-1-r1

Both of those include RPM's for Linux dual booting.

 

[djthrottleboi]

Fair enough. You could do the separate partition thing. AndroidX86 has a Linux boot-loader install package which will let you dual boot.
http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-7-1-r1
That is the standard release. If you want a very customization friendly version, there is one based on the CyanogenMod code set. Even though CyanogenMod themselves are gone, there is still community support for all of the repositories;
http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-cm-x86-14-1-r1

Both of those include RPM's for Linux dual booting.

So I'm running lineage is on my phone currently. Would the desktop version be the same thing with updates?
Cause since its a touchscreen laptop I want it to be the tablet with keyboard approach with the benefits of x86. Also its the rpm manager?

 

[lexluthermiester]

So I'm running lineage is on my phone currently. Would the desktop version be the same thing with updates?

LineageOS, while a direct fork of CyanogenMod, is different in it's approach of things. AndroidX86 takes CM directly as it was right before the shut-down.

Also its the rpm manager?

Any package manager that uses RPM's will very likely to work fine. Any of the Debian/Ubuntu based distros will work perfectly. I use Mint and it has never failed.

 

[jagjitnatt]

Hate to admit it, but Mac OS is down right the best combination of good looking/reliable/easy/compatible out there. When coupled with the right hardware, it just is amazing. The only thing not possible on a mac is gaming.