Hello Everyone

I apologize because I know this is really a worn out question, but I have a reason for asking.

My wife gave me this laptop in December 2003 as a Christmas gift. At the time it was state of the art and she spent over £1100 on it. It is a Samsung V25, P4 2.8Ghz 1GB memory 40GB HD. It still has the original XP home OS on it, and when I got a new laptop a couple of years ago, I let her have it to use because she refuses to use Linux and she did not have a laptop. Well, she stopped using it when she got netbook and it has been jut lying around. After so many years of use, as you might expect Windows now just crawls with so much crap on it and is very unpredictable (might work might not.)

My thought is that she might start using it again (and I certainly would), if I could show her that there is still plenty of life left in it. I KNOW that Slack will be faster, but before I wipe the drive (she is still kind of sentimental about me doing that), and I want to see if I can get a couple of comments about the hardware and what trouble I might expect. I ask because I have tried dozens of live CDS, and some work and some don't. For example, the newest Knoppix would not run (freezes when it tries to start X.) Anyway, the specs are

Display: Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PL
Sound: Crystal WDM AC'97 ICH4

This thing has most of the goodies that loaded laptops offered in those days (i.e. 1394 port). I am most concerned about the display because I have read about others who have had difficulty with Intel graphics.

It is my intention to -Current on it, since it runs great on my main laptop. So if someone could just offer a little bit of their experience with similar old equipment, I would appreciate it.

Bob

I have Slack-current (well almost, have not done an upgrade on it since February) running on a Toshiba 1410 with an Intel Mobile Celeron processor running at 1.6GHz with 256MB RAM and a 10GB hard disk partition.
KDE runs but is slow to the point of being an annoyance (KDE likes a lot of RAM), but WindowMaker runs like a charm.
OpenOffice apps are slow to open, but are quite usable after that.
My only concern with your setup is the 82845G graphics chip. I think there are reports of problems with that, although it would probably run fine in VESA mode. i.e. no direct rendering.

Thanks, allend. That is my concern as well. I need to be able to show my wife that Slackware will be faster and more stable. If it is going to be just as slow as Windows, she would be a nervous about wiping the drive (she has tons of files to backup before hand.)

That is one of the reasons I asked the question. I would rather have direct rendering to get a good resolution, but I don't use any graphics toys like Compiz.

Thank you for your input. It helps.

Bob

I also have an XP partition on this laptop. The performance under Windows is on par with the performance under Slackware-current.

Well, it may in fact be that I will not be improving the usability of the laptop by wiping it and putting linux on it. If it is not going to be blazingly fast like it was when it was new, then I am sure my wife would rather I leave Windows on it. But it really is slow to the point of being unusuable. I have done all I know to do to optimize it, but it still takes three minutes to boot, Firefox takes 40 seconds to load and office chokes and coughs through anything you try to do. I have no viruses, spyware or trojans that could slow it down. Nothing seems to help it any longer.

I have read many posts on this forum and others that P4's are still being used for daily desktop type use, so I naturally assumed that Linux is the only answer to extending its life (a reinstall of Windows is not possible since I do not have an install disk and I am certainly not going to buy one). I also have a desktop which is an old AMD64 3400 2.2GHz (about the same vintage as the P4) and it runs Slack faster than anything I have used.

Other distros are so bloated, I don't think I would be helping the situation at all with *buntus or Fedora. Lightweight distros won't handle all the hardware. Slack seemed to be the perfect solution, but maybe not.

Bob

Pentium 4's are workhorses; a computer with those specs should be plenty usable as an everyday machine.

If your wife wants to try Linux, burn a few Live CDs of different distros. Let her experiment and see if one of them "speaks" to her. If she prefers Windows, let her use Windows... you can install a Windows/Linux "dual boot" so that you can choose between them each time you boot up. Windows for her and Linux for you.

Pretty much any modern distro will work well enough. I've got a 2.4ghz celeron with 512mb of ram, and it runs reasonably well on fedora 12 LXDE. It also has the same graphics chipset (Well, the desktop version), which I can tell you works perfectly fine!

Man, if you don't like the notebook anymore, give it to me! I'll make it fly with Slack :-D

Seriously, can't you do a repartition (GParted or something), get 5-10GB for you to try Slack without endanger your wife's files?

Don't know about the graphic card, but with the other specs and using Xfce the machine will run *very* fast, surely.

Thank you your post, but as I mentioned in my first post, I have already tried dozens of live CD's, some work, some won't. The point was getting rid of the Windows on it ONLY if I could create a very speedy desktop experience and I was concerned about the Intel graphics. I know I can dual boot, but Windows is not going to get any more usable by being on a separate partition.

Bob

A windows reinstall would make the windows partition usable again, surely?

I vote for slackware too

I have Current in my 266mhz 160MB ram 4GB hdd Toshiba 7000CT lappy using Fluxbox
and it runs great!

If you dont like KDE(I dont)
get Gnome
http://gnomeslackbuild.org/

or go with xfce4, lxde, afterstep, icewm, etc

Just make her aware that almost all configs are simple text files

Don't have an installation disc, and I will not buy one. I have only the original rescue cd that came with the laptop and it will not restore because the system updates have created a newer version than is on the CD.

Believe me, I have worked for days trying to revive the Windows installation, and while I have made some progress, I am convinced it is never going to be fast again (or stable for that matter). The silly thing boots to a black screen sometimes and I have to "safe mode" and restore to an earlier date, then it will boot fine. No idea why. It just seemed like the time had come to give this thing a new lease on life if it was possible. I have a spare 80GB laptop hard drive that I was going to try, but turns out it is not compatible (originally came from a Toshiba laptop).

I also have a an old Toshiba laptop with a Celeron M which I do dual boot with Crunchband linux and XP which I keep only for Itunes (the Ipod touch will not work with anything else) That is the only reason I keep XP at all, other than updating the software on my Nokia N95 phone. I don't believe those two things can be done in Linux, or I would have no need at all for a Windows machine.

Bob

If you can get the intel graphics chip to work for you Slackware will run faster than XP with your specifications. I would go with XFce as it is not as memory intensive as KDE. I run Slackware-current with Fluxbox on two PIII systems.
I think it is worth a shot, but, do at your own risk. I hope it works for you!

Thanks, hitest. I have read your posts in the past and your advice has always worked for me. I understand that it may not work, but the only reason I am cautious at all is because she is sentimental about the silly thing (hope she doesn't read this.)

Bob

You're welcome.
Back-up all of her stuff on the unit so you can transfer it over to the netbook if things go awry. You could also try a Linux live CD like Xubuntu to see if the unit works well in Linux ( video card is detected, etc.)
Good luck!