Hello Rob!

** On Monday 23.06.25 - 01:03, Rob Mccart wrote to ARELOR:

 AR>> I could keep upgrading the software on my lameass workstations prety
 AR>> much ind
 >> nitely just by upgrading their Linux/BSD versions.

 RM> It's definitely a Windows problem, although I suspect at
 RM> some point hardware will get so old that even Linux won't
 RM> run much on it. I've looked into 'light' versions of Linux
 RM> a few times and with my warped past I would gravitate to
 RM> versions that look and work more like Windows. I may try
 RM> that out again at some point but my comment about learing
 RM> new things is still there, you either learn to use
 RM> software that is common to Linux or do without.

I think the best approach with linux is to find the distro that  
is the best compatible with the host pc.

So.. experiment with different LIVE-CD distros and their  
different desktop flavours: Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc.. whatever.

I really liked the way Zorin looked (Windows-like), but it  
simply had some issue with the intended pc that I wanted it on.

For another pc, Manjaro performed exceptionally well. The maine  
issue with that pc was the NVIDIA support. Other distros  
rendered a choppy laggy pixelated kind of performance.  But  
Manjaro handled it very smoothly right out of the box. Perhaps  
a minor tweek was required, but I don't remember exactly.

Another cool thing with that pc was that although it was  
limited to 4GB max on the mobo, the CPU could support 64bit  
instruction set.  So.. it intrigued me to operate a 64bit OS  
version of Manjaro on a PC that originally had Win XP 32bit!

So.. I decided to settle with Manjaro. I started building my  
local environment (even installing Wine so that I could run  
some needed MS progs)  ..but I ran into a snag when I couldn't  
get Samba to cooperate so that I could use the Manjaro pc as a  
network fileshare/server. I simply ran out of time trying to  
research the problem, so.. I reverted back to a Win7 32bit  
install on that machine.


 RM> I've used a few light versions of Puppy Linux in the past,
 RM> but just enough to get them running with the basics
 RM> working. I see a lot of horror stories online of having to
 RM> download new libraries to get software working with Linux,
 RM> plus I believe they are almost all command line use for
 RM> changes to things, which means learning that.

Installs/updates are pretty much basic like:  sudo apt install  
<something>


 AR>> Things only break appart if
 >> you are using an old Nvidia card (because their drivers are
 >> tailored to speci ic graphics compositors and kernel
 >> versions, so upgrading them past certain a gets difficult)
 >> or once your new things require more resources than the old
 >> m ine can provide.

Sidenote to AR:  Yes.. an NVIDIA issue was the major roadblock  
on one pc mentioned above.  But Manjaro seemed to handle it  
nicely - or well enough.


 RM> Anyways, as I said, I may get into some Linux version in
 RM> the near future to see how bad it's going to be.

Several years go, I went through a process to see which distros  
and which desktops performed best on certain WinXP pcs here.  
I've made notes on the sleeves for each LIVE-CD CD.  Not sure  
if when if ever I will commit to a full install - I can still  
access the files I want on those few pcs just the way they are.


 RM> I still have a Tower on the desk with a suped up version
 RM> of Windows 98 on it that I finally stopped using maybe 3
 RM> years ago. I do tend to stick with things until the last
 RM> dog is hung..   B)

Suped up Win98.  Sounds retro-awesome. 


-- 
  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.64
 * Origin:  (618:400/23.10)