Best Linux for old computer

Yeah, I know, Doomworld is Not a Tech Support Forum and this question is probably better posted on a more relevant board, blah blah. But I know a lot of you guys are well-versed in the art of Linux so I figured I might as well ask your opinions on this before I register elsewhere.

So my Mum's rather old system (Dell motherboard, Celeron 2.6GHz, 512MB DDR @ 166MHz) seems to have a lot of trouble running apps on WinXP. I've gone through all the optimisation I can think of and scoured the web for more obscure tips and tricks but it still grinds to a halt when she has several windows open. Done the common sense stuff, too: checked for malware nasties, defragged with PerfectDisk, ran CCleaner, turned off then uninstalled her Avast AV... same shit. It was given to her by a friend only a couple of months ago and I went to the trouble of putting a fresh install of XP on there and made sure the OS was fully updated, so it's not like it should need a format & complete reinstall of everything.

I've come to the conclusion that a lightweight OS that consumes less resources than XP but is still compatible with modern apps might be in order. I know lightweight versions of Linux exist... but yeah, which one is best? Not knowing a lot about Linux I don't know what to go with, but the requirements are basically as follows:-

• Lightweight OS with no bells and whistles; will run fine on aforementioned specs
  
• HAS to be easy for a 69-year-old with limited experience with computers to use. Point & click interface is a must.
  

inb4 someone suggests she buys a new computer. She can't afford one and neither can I right now.

Maybe not install SP3? I know SP2 ran fine on hardware much worse than that

Mr. T said:

Maybe not install SP3? I know SP2 ran fine on hardware much worse than that

Hmm, wasn't aware that SP3 came with performance penalties.

I guess I could revert to SP2 but that would require a clean install of XP just to be on the safe side, wouldn't it? I'll keep it in mind but by the time I've done all that I could've put an alternative OS on there that performs even better, if it exists.

I am able to run Linux Ubuntu on all of my old machines. Anything Debian based seems to run well.

Not to dissuade you from installing linux, but XP should run extremely well on that system. If she's not interested in learning a new os and she knows windows, rather than optimizing the original install, reinstall windows completely. The two reasons it is running slow are either that the hardware is dying, or it's mucked up from all the junk that most old people download.

Don't switch the OS on her. That's cruel and unusual punishment for someone who isn't an enthusiast.

DoomUK said:

Hmm, wasn't aware that SP3 came with performance penalties.

Yes and no. If you upgrade all the way from SP1/SP2 to SP3 plus updates, the Windows directory starts weighing in at sizes comparable to Vista/7, unless you manually remove backed up installers. This leads to indirect performance penalties.

It also introduces some new services and background tasks that didn't exist in earlier SPs, but those can be manually removed (something I do anyway with any "new" PC I install XP on). OK, maybe it has more crap running than a "SP0" WIndows XP, but so does SP1 and SP2.

With that out of the way, I have 3 Pentium III-class PCs with RAM amounts ranging from 384-640 MB, all running on Debian Lenny. They really work much smoother than XP on a similar configuration, especially regarding RAM usage and multitasking. To understand how well they run, they are able to

1. Use JDownloader
   
2. Decompress encrypted .rar and .7z files to external hard disks via a USB 2.0 add-on card (VIA chipset, horrible drivers unders XP, working smooth like a baby's bottom with Debian)
   
3. Keep 3-4 Konqueror and even an IceWeasel instance open, with multiple tabs, plus 3-4 Konsole windows
   
4. Play music with JuK
   

...all at the same time, on a Pentium 800-class CPU. And with swap usage being minimal (I topped max 2-3 MB of swap space by really pushing it). Windows has a much more aggressive swapping policy, and the disk trashing alone would have stopped you in your tracks long before you even did half of the above stuff. Linux actually fills up to the last KB of your RAM before even considering swapping. Major difference, this.

DoomUK said:

HAS to be easy for a 69-year-old with limited experience with computers to use. Point & click interface is a must.
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Edit: saw this now...well you all know how I feel about "Granny PCs". If she's OK with you doing all the administration and not being able to install anything on her own/run Smiley Central etc., I guess you could install Debian or Ubuntu. Just some last tips for XP: with that amount of RAM, you really shouldn't have more than 25-26 tasks visible on Task Manager with an idling machine. You can remove the following services from msconfig: Wireless (if you are not using it), backup services, serial number of mobile devices, etc. and in general anything that you will NOT BE ACTUALLY using (includes remote desktop, ANYTHING). Finally, set the swap size to be FIXED (put same minimum-maximum sizes) and defrag with a decent utility like JKDefrag and PageDefrag, before fixing the new swap.

In addition to the above, if you are already running an older version of XP, you can use a SP3 disk to do a "repair reinstall" (or, in your case, "upgrade reinstall"). Start installation normally, choose to install over your existing installation but select the "Repair" option at the blue selection screen (it might not appear with certain OS/disk combinations). This is NOT the same as the recovery console.

If you are allowed to proceed with "Repair existing installation", it will install XP from scratch, refresh existing DLLs, drivers etc. but PRESERVE YOUR SETTINGS AND PROGRAMS. This results in a cleaner system than installing service packs one by one, and also fixes a lot of the "binary rot" that settles in.

Maes said:

defrag with a decent utility like JKDefrag and PageDefrag

So PerfectDisk sucks? I always thought it did a good job and people generally speak favourably about it. But I'll try out one of those two you listed along with all the other stuff you mentioned.

My XP, SP3 machine uses about 160~170 MB when idle. But it's not connected to the internet, so I could afford disabling just about every service that isn't absolutely necessary.

I suppose any Linux system with a lightweight DE would be just fine. I have installed Scientific Linux on my mum's computer (a first generation Athlon 64), it has Gnome 2 and it's pretty fast. There are also a few distros with KDE 3, if you prefer KDE, such as Vector Linux.

DoomUK said:

So PerfectDisk sucks? I always thought it did a good job and people generally speak favourably about it. But I'll try out one of those two you listed along with all the other stuff you mentioned.

No idea about that, I just mentioned them because they are free, essential, frill-free also, and work, without resorting to overkill and disk-wearing stuff like continuous defragging.

Another thing that might help such old systems is, assuming that you have an USB 2.0 port and you can't find proper RAM (probably DDR-I?) for it, is to use an utility such as eBooster which allow you to use flash drives as an additional cache under XP, similar to ReadyBoost under Vista/7.

It can't replace RAM, of course, but it does help a lot in situations where you have both little RAM and old, shitty hard disks: in general it gives a combined disk reading speed of 150-200%, so stuff starts quite faster. A 2 to 4 GB stick should do the trick.

XP could run fine on that hardware, but it requires maintenance and responsible usage that i'm sure your mother has no interest in.

Ubuntu is a great OS for relatives' computers, especially if you don't want to get IT calls any more. If you're really concerned about performance you can install Xubuntu instead. Once you've set up updates and everything, you can point her toward the internet and solitaire, then forget about it forever.

IMO, the best OS/distro to run is the one that you can get support with if you run into problems. I don't know if you know other Linux people that you could call on the phone or come over to your place if you have problems, or if the only people you know who run Linux are on the internet.

That being said, from what I've seen, Ubuntu has a good community, as does Fedora/CentOS.

I belong to a local Linux User's Group, and I think most of the people in the group run one of [Ubuntu|Fedora|CentOS]; we have I think one Ubuntu dev and one Debian dev in our group.

I personally run Debian, because I like starting with the bare minimum install and adding to it from there, but I understand it's not for everybody (higher overhead for some admin tasks), and that if I run into problems, I may have to figure it out myself in order to fix it. I'm alright with this though.

If you are going to keep XP a few tips would be...

Update your drivers/firmware.
- This should go without saying, but your graphics card, or devices like your hard-drive will have the greatest impact. Maybe do an update to your PC BIOS as well.

Disable unneeded services.
- Here's a good site to see the rundown, and it should only have to be done once. http://www.blackviper.com/

Make your swap file static, ie - minimum and maximum the same size.
- About 1.5x your real RAM, aka 768MB, should do it.

If you have a secondary hard-drive comparable to the one XP is stored on...
- Place the swap file on a small partition located on the outer edge of the second disk. Use a live Linux with 'gparted' for easy partitioning.

Despite Linux not being the best option for casual PC users, I'd go with one of the following for the fastest distro you can find that has somewhat decent package management.
- Arch Linux (i686 optimized), but requires manual setup of your desktop.
- Aptosid (XFCE version), a Debian SID derivation with full access to the Debian repos.

What you don't want...
- Ubuntu (regular). If you absolutely need Ubuntu, use Xubuntu, or Lubuntu.
- Gentoo. This would be the most optimized for the target system, but good-grief, I couldn't imagine how long compiling each package would take on a system like that.

E.J. said:

Maybe do an update to your PC BIOS as well.

There's no point in doing this unless it's broken. Failed BIOS updates, though rare, make computers into bricks pretty quickly.

Aliotroph? said:

There's no point in doing this unless it's broken. Failed BIOS updates, though rare, make computers into bricks pretty quickly.

Depends on the BIOS and mobo itself. Some laptops or big name PCs can have massive improvements over successive BIOS updates, and generally it's a good way to ensure it will work "better" with more recent CPU/memory than the ones that were originally around (e.g. a Pentium III mobo may need an update to handle later Celerons > 1 GHz correctly).

Also, at least with pre-EFI BIOSes you always have the floppy-only emergency recovery option (there's a part of the BIOS that's never overwritten, even during updates, and you can restore a working BIOS through a special emergency boot procedure). Sure, it's a hassle, but very unlikely you'd ever have to resort to that unless your power tends to go off every 30 seconds.