So, I finally had to. Ever since I built my rig, my old Dell desktop was going to be shunned forever. Until now. So it was running Windows XP Professional all its life. So, for its almost-10th birthday, I am finally getting rid of XP. (Microsoft pay me for this.) Now, I will uninstall XP and make it run faster. With Ubuntu 14.0 LTS. Here are the specs. http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/servicetag/FGXJM41/maintain http://ark.intel.com/products/27495...HT-Technology-2_80-GHz-512K-Cache-800-MHz-FSB Pentium 4 NW HT 140GB HDD 1.5GB RAM Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (nope not extreme) and other stuffs. I will take the plunge after I get home today.
? I guess it has sedimental value in the family. It s my actual "first" computer, since my actual first one died and bluescreened and Windows 98 was dead so we got this Dell. Oh, and my parents will not let me throw it out until Ubuntu runs its course of life.
This PC just consumes a lot of energy... I think that a newer, yet weak computer, would return it's price pretty fast, if it is used a lot. (All you need, a mobo and a CPU, you can use the HDD, dvd drives and the power supply.) But if you only keep it because it is special for you than I don't think there is a point in (downgrading) "upgrading" to Linux
oh shit you did not just diss linux Linux is DA BOMB, understand? It will eat Window's ass anyday. Any smart fellow knows that. But that is a very inefficient machine.
On the other hand, since that computer is only good to browse, the operating system just doesn't matter at all.
That same meme actually applies to you aswell... Anyway, operating system preferences aside. On that machine if performance is what you are looking for, ubuntu 14 is not going to be a notable step up from XP unless you look at something like Xubuntu, Unity is a bit of a resource hog, ubuntu in general is a somewhat bloated distro. New ubuntu vs XP, doubt you'll see much gain on the performance front.
I've upgrade my Windows 8.1 laptop to Ubuntu 13.10 hahahaha Yes it's an upgrade, it's sooooo much faster and more simple to use. It only looses in bootime though... Windows is 8 and 8.1 are faster to boot but everything else is just so much better in Ubuntu ... Plus, I format my computers alot and Linux is is easier and faster to update to new versions and whatnot, I'm in love *________* Good luck with Linux
So basically it's not your first computer at all, it's your second computer. Where's the sentimental value of a second PC? Also with those specs, there's literally no reason to keep it running. There's nothing productive it could do. If you really want to keep it running, look at Lubuntu. It's a lightweight derivative of Ubuntu. It runs a different graphical desktop environment and since it's based on Ubuntu, it can run all the programs that Ubuntu can run.
Was thinking about putting the Cinnamon desktop on it, but it is very slow running Ubuntu. At least it is not XP. It is decent once you get on Firefox and do not get out, though. This PC will be given to my mom soon anyway, but it has taught me a lot about repairing computers, this one. I know it is old and slow, but if you keep a 2003 mindset, it is actually pretty fast. UPDATE Might uninstall Ubuntu, might try Lubuntu or Xubuntu.
No, if you keep a 2003 mindset, it's actually extremely slow. AMD released the Athlon 64 in 2003 and it absolutely crushed the P4's.
That was a high-end workstation for the day. 2003 mindset, now that would be some Xeon with a lot of RAM and some workstation cards in it, prebuilt/
No, a high-end workstation back in the day would've run Intel Xeons (around since the late 90s) or AMD Opterons (came out mid 2003) When that PC came out in 2004 it was already slow in comparison to the Socket 939 or Socket 754 Athlon 64.
have you got another build? if not then if you wish to have a cheap gaming computer look for an OptiPlex 755 Desktop, you can slap in a GTX750 (or GT610 or whatever if you dont play demanding games) and its easily upgraded to a Q9650. Dells of that era were fantastic! Granted its not an I7 with hundreds of bells and whistles but it does the job. Not many Dell motherboards that are highend fit that case though, they used a BTX style (one fan that blows over the CPU - a big powerful DELTA fan- and then out the back -known as a capicator oven) Its 2.8ghz, by the end of 2005-6 we had 3.0/3.2/3.4ghz single core or even P4HTs! (fan heaters) high end ish for Intel, but AMD (ATi at the time I think) was king 512mb was mid-high end at the time, but now its bare minimum, have you replaced the 40gb EIDE drive, seems like that might slow it down (disk grinding for the swapfile). Ubuntu isn't the most optimized I will say, its still a bit sluggish on my grandparents PC (3.0ghz Pentuim Dual core/Intel GMA/2gbram) Mint I would imagine would be good, or go with puppy linux, runs in the ram if you want (takes around 160mb if my memory remembers correctly) and is fast!
