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Best Up to date OS for Retro PC

Elastico345
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I've just restored my very first PC by scavenging all the parts from 3 old different PCs.
But i don't know if whats the best OS for my Retro PC.

Here's the Specs :
CPU : Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz
GPU : Inno3D Nvidia FX 5500 AGP
Alternative GPU if the first GPU failed : ATI Radeon 7000
RAM : 1GB of DDR400 RAM (i'm probably going to upgrade this to 2GB of RAM soon)
HHD : 80 GB +40 GB Seagate IDE Hard Drive
PSU : 300 watt PSU

I'm not going to use this for gaming obviously. Just going to give this to my parents for basic purposes.

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Umm, the pc is ideal for XP, but if you are planning to give it to your parents for basic use, it's not an option unless it's completely offline.

If you want to use it online you need to install ubuntu or something. Linux is your only option.

If you want my attention, quote meh! D: or just stick an @samcool55 in your post :3

Spying on everyone to fight against terrorism is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon

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3 minutes ago, Elastico345 said:

I've just restored my very first PC by scavenging all the parts from 3 old different PCs.
But i don't know if whats the best OS for my Retro PC.

Here's the Specs :
CPU : Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz
GPU : Inno3D Nvidia FX 5500 AGP
Alternative GPU if the first GPU failed : ATI Radeon 7000
RAM : 512MB + 256MB of DDR1 RAM (768MB in total)
HHD : 80 GB Seagate IDE Hard Drive
PSU : 160 watt PSU

I'm not going to use this for gaming obviously. Just to give this for my parents for basic purposes.

Get Windows 7 and then upgrade to Windows 10. Don't quote me on this, I don't know if you can still get the upgrade, if not Windows 7 is still fine.

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8 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Umm, the pc is ideal for XP, but if you are planning to give it to your parents for basic use, it's not an option unless it's completely offline.

If you want to use it online you need to install ubuntu or something. Linux is your only option.

my parents always browsing through internet especially going through facebook.

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Windows 7 and 10 both require 1 GB of RAM for the 32-bit version, and 2 GB of RAM for the 64-bit version.

 

Windows Vista requires only 512 MB of RAM for the 32-bit version - and Vista with SP2 is a great OS. Also, Vista SP2 has received security updates up to this month, so it's still a fully secured OS at this time, and is the most refined Windows OS that's available for that system's specs.

 

If your parents are safe with their browsing habits, they should be fine with Vista.

You own the software that you purchase - Understanding software licenses and EULAs

 

"We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the american public believes is false" - William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

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Just now, Elastico345 said:

my parents always browsing through internet especially going through facebook.

Yeah you will need to look at a linux distribution then. Using XP online would be a very bad idea.

If you want my attention, quote meh! D: or just stick an @samcool55 in your post :3

Spying on everyone to fight against terrorism is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon

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6 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Windows 7 and 10 both require 1 GB of RAM for the 32-bit version, and 2 GB of RAM for the 64-bit version.

 

Windows Vista requires only 512 MB of RAM for the 32-bit version - and Vista with SP2 is a great OS. Also, Vista SP2 has received security updates up to this month, so it's still a fully secured OS at this time, and is the most refined Windows OS that's available for that system's specs.

really?! because i heard that windows vista is known for bad optimization and windows 8.1 is better than using windows vista? unless they patch it?

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1 minute ago, Elastico345 said:

really?! because i heard that windows vista is known for bad optimization and windows 8.1 is better than using windows vista?

Whatever issues Vista might have had are resolved by SP2, which performs on par with or faster than Windows 7.

 

You might want to ask @Captain Chaos about running Vista on a machine with low RAM, as I think they've done it recently.

You own the software that you purchase - Understanding software licenses and EULAs

 

"We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the american public believes is false" - William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

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Just now, Delicieuxz said:

Whatever issues Vista might have had are resolved by SP2, which performs on par with or faster than Windows 7.

But still slower than Ubuntu which still gets frequently updated and has similar system requirements than Vista.

Also it's just a matter of time until browser devs will no longer support Vista and you have no other option than going with a Linux distribution.

If you want my attention, quote meh! D: or just stick an @samcool55 in your post :3

Spying on everyone to fight against terrorism is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon

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13 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Windows Vista requires only 512 MB of RAM for the 32-bit version - and Vista with SP2 is a great OS. Also, Vista SP2 has received security updates up to this month, so it's still a fully secured OS at this time, and is the most refined Windows OS that's available for that system's specs.

 

If your parents are safe with their browsing habits, they should be fine with Vista.

6 minutes ago, Elastico345 said:

really?! because i heard that windows vista is known for bad optimization and windows 8.1 is better than using windows vista? unless they patch it?

6 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Whatever issues Vista might have had are resolved by SP2, which performs on par with or faster than Windows 7.

Vista got a bad rap because it's "requirements" are FAR lower than they should have been. Vista never should have been targeted towards single-core machines with only 512mb of RAM. That's one of the biggest problems that OS has faced, and as far as I know SP2 didn't make the OS significantly lighter. Not to mention the fact that Vista also lost long-term support as of April 11th. 

 

A light Linux distro would be my recommendation -- maybe something like Lubunutu. 

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5 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Vista got a bad rap because it's "requirements" are FAR lower than they should have been. Vista never should have been targeted towards single-core machines with only 512mb of RAM. That's one of the biggest problems that OS has faced, and as far as I know SP2 didn't magically make the OS significantly lighter. 

I ran Vista from its launch on a P4 2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of RAM. I can tell you that the (sufficiently powerful enough) single-core CPU part was not an issue - it ran like a dream for me.

 

I think I recall seeing Cpt. Chaos post a screenshot of their system running Vista on ~400 MB of RAM, and they've used Vista extensively for a long time. That's why I recommend they chime in on this.

You own the software that you purchase - Understanding software licenses and EULAs

 

"We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the american public believes is false" - William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

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By the way, OP, I think you should be able to overclock that P4 2.4 Ghz CPU to 3.0 or 3.2 Ghz pretty easily.

 

And if you are able to find a couple of used RAM sticks to give it 2 - 4 GB total, you could just run Windows 7 on the machine.

You own the software that you purchase - Understanding software licenses and EULAs

 

"We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the american public believes is false" - William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

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31 minutes ago, Jadan said:

Get Windows 7 and then upgrade to Windows 10. Don't quote me on this, I don't know if you can still get the upgrade, if not Windows 7 is still fine.

Windows 7 needs minimum of 1GB to install. Between, even if he has 1 GB, the system will be slow as hell.

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Just now, kameshss said:

Windows 7 needs minimum of 1GB to install. Between, even if he has 1 GB, the system will be slow as hell.

I completely missed the amount of ram he had, my bad. But yeah I agree, tbh he should either get an upgrade of ram or just go with Vista and suffice with 256mb of ram he'll have left over... or linux.

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Doesn't Windows 10 need instruction sets that some P4's Don't have?? NX Instruction Set has been a requirement since Windows 8 so it may not work.

 

A light version of Linux would be your best bet for a machine that old.

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9 minutes ago, Jadan said:

I completely missed the amount of ram he had, my bad. But yeah I agree, tbh he should either get an upgrade of ram or just go with Vista and suffice with 256mb of ram he'll have left over... or linux.

Linux could be ideal for his situation.

 

He should try install Remix OS (android based).

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I'd say Lubuntu as well. For parents and basic web browsing, it will be fine!

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12 minutes ago, kameshss said:

Linux could be ideal for his situation.

 

He should try install Remix OS (android based).

what kind of linux?

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Just now, Elastico345 said:

what kind of linux?

Lubuntu.

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WD Green 1TB - Seagate 2.5" HDD 1TB - Seagate Barracuda 500GB - Antec X1 E.

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Just installed Linux Lubuntu on the old computer and it seems more unstable than using windows 7 starters 32-bit... Is there any problem?

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On 2017-4-27 at 6:45 PM, Elastico345 said:

I've just restored my very first PC by scavenging all the parts from 3 old different PCs.
But i don't know if whats the best OS for my Retro PC.

Here's the Specs :
CPU : Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz
GPU : Inno3D Nvidia FX 5500 AGP
Alternative GPU if the first GPU failed : ATI Radeon 7000
RAM : 512MB + 256MB of DDR1 RAM (768MB in total) (i'm probably going to upgrade this to 2GB of RAM soon)
HHD : 80 GB Seagate IDE Hard Drive
PSU : 160 watt PSU

I'm not going to use this for gaming obviously. Just going to give this to my parents for basic purposes.

Try lubuntu.

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On 2017-4-27 at 9:28 AM, Delicieuxz said:

Windows 7 and 10 both require 1 GB of RAM for the 32-bit version, and 2 GB of RAM for the 64-bit version.

 

Windows Vista requires only 512 MB of RAM for the 32-bit version - and Vista with SP2 is a great OS. Also, Vista SP2 has received security updates up to this month, so it's still a fully secured OS at this time, and is the most refined Windows OS that's available for that system's specs.

 

If your parents are safe with their browsing habits, they should be fine with Vista.

Even though Windows 7 32-bit claims to require 1 GB of RAM, it works fine with 512 MB, and almost tolerable with 256 MB of RAM, but don't expect it to be as perfectly fast. Windows 7 64 bit also works surprisingly well with only 512 MB of ram, despite technically requiring 2GB. Though adding more RAM is ideal.

 

Edit: By the way: Windows 7 isn't any heavier than Windows Vista in terms of RAM. The system requirements were most likely changed so that OEMs didn't sell extremely underpowered computers that could barely run Windows 7. If you recall when Vista came out, the cheapest Vista computers just barely met the minimum requirements, and ended up being getting slow over time. I personally suspect that's why Microsoft doubled the RAM "requirement" without a real technical explanation: Windows 7 will install on 512 MB of RAM perfectly happily. Also, your mileage may vary.

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On 27/04/2017 at 3:43 PM, Delicieuxz said:

I think I recall seeing Cpt. Chaos post a screenshot of their system running Vista on ~400 MB of RAM, and they've used Vista extensively for a long time. That's why I recommend they chime in on this.

A little under 500MB used, while the machine has 1.5GB.  Here's the screenshot in question :

 

Ayame_Vista_specs.jpg.d739d6ef70bc4d5d8d2cdca4a3a69d82.jpg

 

I can remove 1GB just fine, letting it run only on the 512MB soldered onto the main board.  Vista will then consume less RAM to free up space for applications (IIRC it'll go down to around 250-300MB when it sees that the machine only has 512MB total). 

That will affect performance though due to it needing to read and write much more because it can't keep enough stuff in RAM.

So while 512MB of RAM is doable on Vista, I'd recommend 1GB.  With anything below that I'd be looking at a lightweight Linux distro, not a Microsoft OS.

 

Looking at the specs of the OP's PC, I'd suggest getting a cheap SSD and an IDE -> SATA converter.  IDE HDDs are getting old so there's no telling how long it's going to last.  An SSD will also make a huge difference in terms of responsiveness.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-SSD-HDD-Female-Hard-Drive-To-IDE-3-5-40-Pin-Male-Converter-Card-Adapter-/331704563058?hash=item4d3b21f572:g:9r8AAOSw~bFWQcF6

 

Sorry for the late reply, I've been away for a while (and may not be around often in the near future either)

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Updated the Topic :

*RAM is now upgraded from 768MB of RAM to 1GB of RAM
*IDE HDD is now with 80GB (Master) + 40GB (Slave) instead of 80GB only
*PSU is now upgraded from 160 Watts to 300 Watts

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