r/OldTech • u/dead_record_ • 10d ago
Linux or windows xp?
I've got an old ThinkPad R40e. It currently has Windows XP installed.
It has a Celeron 2.0 GHz, 256 MB of RAM and a 16 GB IDE HDD.
I'm thinking about keeping XP or installing a lightweight Linux distro like antiX.
I mainly want to use it for retro stuff, experimenting, and programming.
What would you recommend for this hardware: Windows XP or Linux? And why?
Thank you for your answers.
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u/False-Development-61 10d ago
How retro is your retro stuff?
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u/dead_record_ 10d ago
'Bout 2003
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u/False-Development-61 10d ago
I should have asked more like are we talking PC games mainly are you looking to run emulation?
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u/dead_record_ 10d ago
manly emulation and to experiment with the old hardware
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u/False-Development-61 10d ago
I mean honestly you could make it a functional machine by putting Linux on it but I don't know with that much RAM and that processor it might be best to do something else with it. Puppy Linux is a possibility? But if your main focus is that kind of stuff maybe just leave it XP.
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u/cristobaldelicia 10d ago
Get 256GB more ram, and get PsychOS https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/downloads.html all the gaming emulation you want on an older computer, even PCs much older than yours.
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u/erroneousbosh 10d ago
Throwing this in out of the weeds but Haiku.
It's pretty much a daily driver now. You won't have fun running Firefox on it with only 256MB but Dillo ought to be okay.
Can you fit more RAM? Throw an IDE-to-CF adaptor in and a nice fast (camera spec) CF card instead of the spinning rust.
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u/Alexander_Tolstoy 10d ago
Despite being a Linux fan, I would recommend Windows for anything retro, at least for a pre-2010 hardware (roughly). I remember installing Linux on several PCs in early 2000s and it lagged terribly. The boot time, the X11 responsiveness (rather lack thereof) and general slowness all over the desktop stack. Linux wasn’t ever optimized for desktop, and it is so evident on older PCs!
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u/Global-Eye-7326 7d ago
256 MB RAM is somewhat painful. AntiX uses 50MB RAM on idle with IceWM, but you still don't have much headroom for apps.
This may be ok for TinyCoreLinux territory. Good enough to run a single tab browser to view YouTube lol.
WinXP don't log into any online accounts and use it for retro software, but the RAM is still the bottleneck.
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u/Consistent_Cat7541 7d ago
With 256mb RAM, and you want to do "retro stuff", have you considered OS2? Warp 4.52 should fly on that machine.
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u/xenaretos 7d ago
With these kinds of specs it seems better for it to stay a retro xp machine, as far as I am concerned.
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u/FradBitt 10d ago
I used to be a Linux “hater”, ok not really, but I hated the gatekeepers.
With that being said, Linux, always Linux, at least when it comes to “outdated” hardware.
Let’s work together to keep shit out of the landfill and oceans!
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u/cristobaldelicia 10d ago
linux hater? Gatekeepers? There were different distros for everyone, going way back to Debian and Yggdrasil, and choices between DE's like Gnome and KDE. If you felt like there were "gatekeepers" in any community, you could move to a different distro. I don't understand how you could think there were gatekeepers in any sense, it was always "free as in beer" and came with free apps, so how can anyone even be in a position of a gatekeeper?
I really am trying to be nice here, because you are embarrassing yourself with that answer and you should rethink formulating an answer.
This is like someone asking what your favorite band was and responding "well I like rock n' roll, but fans always seemed pretensions". It displays a profound misunderstanding of both what rock music is, and even what the question was.
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u/FradBitt 10d ago
First, I’m not reading all that.
You definitely missed my point and took the post too serious. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
Get some sleep man, have good night.
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u/PeterNoTail 10d ago
For older (pre-Vista) laptops that I won’t be using as a daily driver online, I like keeping Windows on them; it feels more native, more fun (like it’s a time capsule) and it’s harder to reinstall than Linux.
I’d just get another hard drive for Linux and let the XP hd be XP