Which OS to install?

[Thimblewad]

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!

 

[Toothless]

Linux

 

[Thimblewad]

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

 

[GoldenX]

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.

 

[alucasa]

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/

 

[Thimblewad]

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.

 

[GoldenX]

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.

 

[natr0n]

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

 

[Thimblewad]

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.

 

[cornemuse]

XP or Ubuntu 11.04!

XP and Ubuntu 11.04!

 

[alucasa]

Fedora all the way!

FEDORA!

 

[NumberCruncher]

+1 Fedora

 

[Thimblewad]

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

I tried cleaning it with all my best efforts.

 

[alucasa]

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

 

[Thimblewad]

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.

 

[theFOoL]

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

 

[Thimblewad]

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

 

[theFOoL]

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

 

[arbiter]

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.

 

[Mussels]

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)

 

[GoldenX]

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

 

[NumberCruncher]

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

 

[slozomby]

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.

 

[Thimblewad]

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.

 

[eidairaman1]

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