Sell me an OS!

[rknapp]

Some time ago I created a small poll in the Member Q&A forums about favored operating systems. That thread was the precursor to the one you find yourself in now.

 

I have a shit-ton of computer parts. Presently I have two spare motherboards, two spare processors (Athlon XP+ and Athlon 64), a spare power supply, memory that is compatible to both motherboards, a spare 17" flat glass monitor (old Compaq CRT... I call it my Buick, damn thing is so big/heavy), spare CD burner (year old!), spare DVD drive, spare HDD (have yet to determine if it works -- harvested from my old Compaq that was open to dust/pet dander for five years and has sat on my desk in the open for almost a year now).

 

Presently my spare case is set up with the newer/better mobo, the 64-bit processor, 512mb DDR memory, both optical drives, a maybe-busted sound card, etc. All it needs is the power supply I have sitting around, the harvested Compaq HDD (60 GB Maxtor), and a PCI-e video card to run again. I'll be returning the PCI-e card in my current workhorse to the old one when I upgrade to either dual 8800s or dual 9600s, so that's not a problem.

 

What I would like to do is use this spare hodge-podge to fool around with different OSs. What should I use? I have only ever used Windows (95-XP MCE 2005 and everything in between) so I'm curious now what other OSs look like and how they run. My control will be Windows 2000 and I'll only use OSs that can be obtained completely free of charge via the internet (like Ubuntu).

 

My requirements are thus:

Hardware

Athlon processors

MSI socket AM2 motherboard for my workhorse, ASUS socket 939 for the test mule

Corsair XMS2 memory for my workhorse, XMS for the test mule (Corsair doesn't work in every system combination)

nVidia 8-series or 9-series PCI-e video cards for my workhorse, 7-series for the test mule

Linksys 802.11g wireless network card

Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 series sound card (might be broken, using onboard sound at the moment)

Microsoft Intellipoint optical mouse

HP Deskjet 6540

Samsung SyncMaster 940 bw

 

^I need drivers for all of these. Most of them are in the work horse, but the test mule will use PNP parts unless otherwise stated.

 

Software

Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise

WinAmp

AIM version 5.9.6089 (6.0 sucks hardcore)

MSN Messenger 7.5 and/or Windows Live Messenger (sucks hardcore)

DualCore Center/Core Center (MSI CPU monitoring/overclocking program) for my work horse

Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird

Nero Burning Rom

 

Games

I figure any OS should handle these but just in case:

Any Blizzard game (WC3: RoC and Frozen Throne, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Starcraft II and Broodwar)

The Sims 2 and all expansions

Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Pro Street. They won't run well on the mule, but should have no problems on high settings in my work horse.

 

Not using the work horses components will certainly be a limiting factor, but I'm using 2000 initially for test mule comparisons. The hard drive in question already has 2000 on it, but it might not work anymore.

 

As long as I can install all of my components from the test mule and all of my favored programs, there shouldn't be any problems and I can freely peruse the system to see how it runs and to see if it runs better than Windows 2000. Ultimately I want to try Vista, but I don't want to pay for it without testing it on my own system, so that could be a while.

[Armand]

Software

Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise

WinAmp

AIM version 5.9.6089 (6.0 sucks hardcore)

MSN Messenger 7.5 and/or Windows Live Messenger (sucks hardcore)

DualCore Center/Core Center (MSI CPU monitoring/overclocking program) for my work horse

Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird

Nero Burning Rom

 

msoffice 2007

 

i have it and hate it

it only runs fairly well on vista

it sucks on xp takes forever to load

and slows down the booting of the machine that it is on

 

so i did the next best thing

i reverted back to office 2003

 

armand

Edited April 9, 2008 by Armand

[Eddy]

Some time ago I created a small poll in the Member Q&A forums about favored operating systems. That thread was the precursor to the one you find yourself in now.

 

If you're at this stage you really need to take a look at this::

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha5

 

you can download a FREE Live CD of the OS boot from the CD load the program and, without it ever touching your hard drive, give it a test drive.

 

It is Linux - but I have been checking out the different blends and really love this beta (one of 5 or so versions)

of the ubuntu product line.

 

I downloaded this beta the other day and did a flawless install on my XP system. To my astonishment, it picked up all my windows drives, including my external drives. I can't launch any programs but do have access to all files (jpg, mpg, avi, doc, etc) A major plus!!!

 

I love the feel of ubuntu - like windows and much easier to configure. The Xubuntu has an 'XP clone' feeling.

 

The Beta 5 even comes with the new Foxfire 3.0 which hasn't even been released yet! I have been looking for a good replacement for Windows. I'm not happy with the direction MS has been heading. Linux is the answer for me. Another plus is that it is ALL FREE!

 

EDIT: An interesting install option is to embed within Windows -- want to try that!!

Edited April 9, 2008 by Eddy

[rknapp]

msoffice 2007

 

i have it and hate it

it only runs fairly well on vista

it sucks on xp takes forever to load

and slows down the booting of the machine that it is on

 

so i did the next best thing

i reverted back to office 2003

 

armand

Runs fine on my laptop with XP MCE 2005.

 

If you're at this stage you really need to take a look at this::

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha5

 

you can download a FREE Live CD of the OS boot from the CD load the program and, without it ever touching your hard drive, give it a test drive.

 

It is Linux - but I have been checking out the different blends and really love this beta (one of 5 or so versions)

of the ubuntu product line.

 

I downloaded this beta the other day and did a flawless install on my XP system. To my astonishment, it picked up all my windows drives, including my external drives. I can't launch any programs but do have access to all files (jpg, mpg, avi, doc, etc) A major plus!!!

 

I love the feel of ubuntu - like windows and much easier to configure. The Xubuntu has an 'XP clone' feeling.

 

The Beta 5 even comes with the new Foxfire 3.0 which hasn't even been released yet! I have been looking for a good replacement for Windows. I'm not happy with the direction MS has been heading. Linux is the answer for me. Another plus is that it is ALL FREE!

 

EDIT: An interesting install option is to embed within Windows -- want to try that!!

I noticed that there is a counter on the Ubuntu website indicating the date of the next release, so I'll wait for that to have the most up to date thing. Interesting that it can be booted from CD.

[JamesSavik]

Perhaps you are ready for CP/M.

 

CP/M runs on a Z-80 processor at a maximum of 10MHz and can only address 64K of RAM and a little over 10 Mbytes of hard drive space.

 

It uses 5 1/4" floppies and there are no known drivers for CD ROM media.

 

CP/M has the advantage of being very small and is highly efficient as it is written entirely in optimized assembly language and has a long documented history of bug free operations.

 

You'll probably want to buy the CP/M professional kit as it has several compilers and an assembler so you can write any software that you might want that you can't find in the archive.

 

Another big selling point of CP/M is that it comes with a complete set of manuals that completely document the operating system. For a fee you can get a copy of its source code.

[Raro]

I'm not an expert on this, but I get the feeling that XP is about the only operating system existing that's compatible with most every game/hardware.

 

Vista will probably work eventually with many things, but, just as a random statistic, I've heard that about 30% of Vista crashes now are caused by buggy Nvidia drivers. Vista has a really strange security model where they don't trust the user, don't trust the hardware, and barely trust the software, so it'll constantly be fighting either you or the other stuff on your computer.

 

And non-windows operating systems have completely different driver models, shared libraries, etc. So windows software just flat won't work on them; there's still an outside chance that some software you already own comes with a separate version for OSX, but it may not, and I've got no idea to what degree it's even possible to run OSX on AMD processors. Linux and variants have their own quirks, in that it's very hard to find any software for ithem that *isn't* free, so any company that likes to make a profit probably doesn't produce Linux variants of their software. That said, there's a huge amount of free stuff for Linux, including (from what I've heard) decent home-brew drivers for most popular hardware; and OpenOffice is an increasingly popular Microsoft substitute.

 

Anyway, one quite workable option is to dual-boot your system, so you keep XP for games, and just add a second (or third) operating system, either as a sandbox to play around in, or because any of the various quirks of XP are driving you crazy.

 

-- Raro

[glomph]

Perhaps you are ready for CP/M.

 

If we stick with his hardware requirements, he could use of of the CP/M clones. They were sold under various names such as MS-DOS and PC-DOS.

[rknapp]

Perhaps you are ready for CP/M.

 

CP/M runs on a Z-80 processor at a maximum of 10MHz and can only address 64K of RAM and a little over 10 Mbytes of hard drive space.

 

It uses 5 1/4" floppies and there are no known drivers for CD ROM media.

 

CP/M has the advantage of being very small and is highly efficient as it is written entirely in optimized assembly language and has a long documented history of bug free operations.

 

You'll probably want to buy the CP/M professional kit as it has several compilers and an assembler so you can write any software that you might want that you can't find in the archive.

 

Another big selling point of CP/M is that it comes with a complete set of manuals that completely document the operating system. For a fee you can get a copy of its source code.

Never heard of it. Got any links?

 

I'm not an expert on this, but I get the feeling that XP is about the only operating system existing that's compatible with most every game/hardware.

 

Vista will probably work eventually with many things, but, just as a random statistic, I've heard that about 30% of Vista crashes now are caused by buggy Nvidia drivers. Vista has a really strange security model where they don't trust the user, don't trust the hardware, and barely trust the software, so it'll constantly be fighting either you or the other stuff on your computer.

 

And non-windows operating systems have completely different driver models, shared libraries, etc. So windows software just flat won't work on them; there's still an outside chance that some software you already own comes with a separate version for OSX, but it may not, and I've got no idea to what degree it's even possible to run OSX on AMD processors. Linux and variants have their own quirks, in that it's very hard to find any software for ithem that *isn't* free, so any company that likes to make a profit probably doesn't produce Linux variants of their software. That said, there's a huge amount of free stuff for Linux, including (from what I've heard) decent home-brew drivers for most popular hardware; and OpenOffice is an increasingly popular Microsoft substitute.

 

Anyway, one quite workable option is to dual-boot your system, so you keep XP for games, and just add a second (or third) operating system, either as a sandbox to play around in, or because any of the various quirks of XP are driving you crazy.

 

-- Raro

OSX is out of the question because I would have to pay for it... and it angers me. One of my GSA friends asked me to help him find a nice picture of him (his friend wants to draw his face) and I tried to navigate his picture files/folders on his MacBook Pro (Leopard) with no success. I clicked the folder and nothing happened... wtf?

 

I'd like to try dual-boot since my roommate from last year has that on his Mac with Leopard and XP. I'm guess that would require being able to install XP, though, which can't be done since Dell doesn't believe in shipping install disks with their computers when customers buy them. Gee, we buy the OS, but when it comes time to format the drive we have to buy it all over again... tards.

[Raro]

I'd like to try dual-boot since my roommate from last year has that on his Mac with Leopard and XP. I'm guess that would require being able to install XP, though, which can't be done since Dell doesn't believe in shipping install disks with their computers when customers buy them. Gee, we buy the OS, but when it comes time to format the drive we have to buy it all over again... tards.

 

I can think of at least two relatively straightforward legal ways to get around this:

 

One is to get someone else's XP cd. The installation cds are all identical, so anyone else's is as good as the one that would have come with your computer. Before you install, though, you need to find the product key that corresponds to your legal licensed copy of XP. There are many free tools available online that let you find this (or it might even be on a sticker on your computer), see http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/findxpkey.htm for example. Once you have the key, install from the cd, enter your key, and you're good to go. (On second thought though, I've never seen a media center edition CD, so they might be hard to find.)

 

The second avenue is to just scoot your XP installation slightly to make room for another OS. The technical term for this is "resizing the partition". Again, there are many free tools online that will probably work. A google search reveals http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-res...e-software.html, for example.

 

Of course, back up your data before tinkering with operating systems...

 

-- Raro

[rknapp]

I can think of at least two relatively straightforward legal ways to get around this:

 

One is to get someone else's XP cd. The installation cds are all identical, so anyone else's is as good as the one that would have come with your computer. Before you install, though, you need to find the product key that corresponds to your legal licensed copy of XP. There are many free tools available online that let you find this (or it might even be on a sticker on your computer), see http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/findxpkey.htm for example. Once you have the key, install from the cd, enter your key, and you're good to go. (On second thought though, I've never seen a media center edition CD, so they might be hard to find.)

 

The second avenue is to just scoot your XP installation slightly to make room for another OS. The technical term for this is "resizing the partition". Again, there are many free tools online that will probably work. A google search reveals http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-res...e-software.html, for example.

 

Of course, back up your data before tinkering with operating systems...

 

-- Raro

Well the first order of business would be installing a larger hard drive (40 GB in there right now) so a fresh installation would be required. But, it would be interesting to play with some of those tools on some of my existing hard drives (such as the main drive that I have, since I might format it in the future anyway). Thanks!

 

Yeah I'm the only one I know who has MCE 2005. One time my friend and I were fooling around with my 360 and found that it can do special stuff when working with a computer running MCE, which I happened to have. I think I've only ever used the MCE function a few times, playing music via remote from my old dorm bed because I was too much of a lazy ass to get up and walk the two feet to my desk haha.

[JamesSavik]

Never heard of it. Got any links?

 

CP/M page at Wiki