Hey all,

I just read that Microsoft has just dropped support for Windows 98/ME. This affects 70 Million people.

I assume that they have not upgraded because they do not have the money to do so. My aunt is one that is affected.

Is this an opportunity to use Open Source to help the masses? I would not mind installing Ubuntu on my aunts computer...

Would you suggest an older kernel/distribution for an older machine, or a newer distribution? The machine has a win modem and needs that for the internet.

What are your thoughts?
Mohtech

On average, Linux will be easier to get going on an older computer than upgrading to a higher version of Windows. If you post the specs of a particular machine, someone here will have more specific comments.

Setting up someone on Linux may or may not make sense--depending on their needs, willingness to learn a bit of sysadmin chores OR: Your proximity and willingness to be the SA.

I often think that most computer users will be fine on Linux--and then I have a glitch that causes **me** to struggle.

I thought micro$oft drop support for 98/me a couple of years ago. From what I hear Ubuntu is a good distro, even if it's an old machine the later kernels should work quite well, except they maybe a little ram hungry you may just have to go for a light desktop manager if that is the case.

they've drop free support a couple of year ago.

I saw it on the news yesterday about unsupporting 98, like above, it was paid support, so if she wasn't using that shes no worse off, there haven't been free patches in a while.

I downloaded the ubuntu desktop cd (live cd, with option to install to HDD) and tried it on a p3 700 MHZ 190 MB Ram Laptop, it ran bloody slow in the live cd and trying to install took way too long.

I am downloading their server cd and i'll just install it through their text installer and apt get the bits i need. I then checked their site, and the min/rec RAM for that to run is 192MB Ram (the live cd, obviously ubuntu will depend on what you run under the hood)

Just letting you know there are distros with lower initial requirements.

Really it depends on what your aunt wants to do, if it's browse the web (no flash 8 btw) and check emails then fair enough, but should she want to install the latest funky screensaver/silly games she will be out of luck. You cuold talk to her about it and make a list of what she needs and see if it can all be done. Don't forget f anything goes awry she'll be wanting you to fix it, so factor in your availability.

Personally i never recomend Linux to anyone who doesn't have the desire or capacity to want to use it in the first place.

It would help to know the hardware specs. If your aunty is
running 98 on a p90 with 8MB RAM I'd STRONGLY suggest
to stay clean of Linux. If the box has more than 128MB even
current distros with "friendly" Desktop managers may perform
satisfactory.


Cheers,
Tink

Ahhh it was free support that they dropped back then.

Just because Microsoft does not support Windows 98 anymore does not mean you have to upgrade. If things are working then maybe it is best to leave it as is.

If you do wish to upgrade then I believe you can run Ubuntu no problem on the hardware you listed. I have installed Dapper and Breezy on several desktops and laptops for friends and family that are not computer literate and they have been fine. Just make sure everything is setup and automated. I do prefer Breezy on older hardware and I do not use the live installer.

For what it's worth, Xubuntu works fine for older systems that used to run Win98. I installed it on an old Gateway GP6-350 desktop model, PII, 192MB RAM. The Xfce desktop is less resource intensive than the Gnome and KDE desktops. I find it to be a great little operating system for people who just want the basics for web surfing, email, and basic office software use.

Can't say how well it would work with a winmodem, though. I use an old Linksys WUSB11 wireless adapter for internet connectivity.

In addition to Xubuntu, other "lite" distros include: MEPISlite, DSL, Puppy, Feather, & probably some others I should mention. I have never installed any of them . . . yet.

All the advice above about evaluating the situation & being conservative is excellent -- the last thing we need is an unhappy user who just wasn't ready for GNU/Linux.

On the Win 98 ME / XP SP1 dropped support means they will no longer release any patches or security fixes for that OS.
MS support has never been free, unless you call security updates free support..

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sup...ofsupport.mspx

The lack of security updates is the reason to move to something else that is still supported..

The presence of them has the same effect on me.

Yes, I realize that's not a real contribution.

Please let me know when you find an OS or software product that never needs updates due to security issues.. I'll be right there with you on the switch

My point was more that Windows security updates tend to cause problems for me, and that this is not very well supported by Microsoft. Their online support seems to assume that their normal update procedures work. I'm still too cautious to install .NET and SP2 on XP Pro. When I get past my current data-rescue woes, I think I'll clone my XP partition first and then try these updates.

One point of mention is that MS now offers customers some kind of virtual terminal that looks like winxp for older pc's and they claim it runs applications off a server, if they were part of that customer assurance program, or somehting like that.

They claim it runs on old hardware, and is to offset those company's who dont want hardware upgrades.

I've never seen it, or used it so I can't comment on how good,etc. But that may put some company's back into the MS revenue stream vs going open source.

Just a thought but who knows.