Best OS to install on an X20 (as of 2015)?

[Radioguy]

I'm gonna take a wild guess it's a form of Linux.

Which would run best on this old hardware, though? I assume the newest non-PAE bulid of whichever version, but not sure what's best.

Not expecting much use from this beyond internet browsing, but I like to keep all TPs in my possession as capable as can be.

[brchan]

I'm gonna take a wild guess it's a form of Linux.

You are correct . Wary puppy will run very well and supports all the drivers out of the box (at least for my 600X). If you want more apps and better support, crunchbang linux would also be a good choice. It is based on lightweight Debian Wheezy.

[Dekks]

Any distro of linux should be OK, its the DE that'll slow down an old machine like that. Use the likes of Openbox and you should be fine, although modern JS loaded websites are probably a no no with the hardware.

[Omineca]

As Dekks said, a light DE is key. Application choice is also very important. Many applications will work fine, but any modern browser will be incredibly slow.

My 390X has a PIII/450 and it runs Word 2000 very well using Crossover. You can even install the file format converters, so you can work with .docx files seamlessly.

For almost everything else, I use console apps, because they are fast and responsive: cmus and mplayer for music and video, fetchmail and msmtp with re-alpine for email, and finch for IM. All of those apps are available in the Debian repositories.

Browsing is definitely the weak point: I use lynx (text only) and links2 (graphics, but poor format rendering, missing capabilities, etc., etc.).

[MrMaguire]

Put Windows 2000 on it! With the unofficial updates, you can run the latest Firefox, flash and I think some version of Java 7.

http://windows2000.tk/updates/unofficial/

If you want more information, I'll happily provide it.

[bhtooefr]

Anything NT-based, especially NT 5.x, will be extremely insecure, though, if it's internet-facing. It's like the XP situation, but worse, as some patched XP vulnerabilities are unpatched and very much present in 2000. It's a shame, because Windows 2000 is actually pretty fantastic on that hardware, and if it's not internet-facing, that's what I'd recommend for Windows.

If you must run Windows and use it online, I'd actually posit that Windows 98SE is probably the best bet, with the caveat that the U98SESP is infected by some sort of malware and shouldn't be used (at least last I checked, when I used it on my 365XD).

The newest non-PAE release of Windows is, I believe, 7, but it'll run terribly on that hardware. (Might not even run at all, the maximum RAM is below 7's minimum.) The newest Windows that'll be usable (not fast, just usable) is XP, but it's not going to run as well as 2000, and it's only barely going to be more secure.

Otherwise, some flavor of Linux with a lightweight DE, or possibly Haiku if you want to get really weird.

[MrMaguire]

The unofficial updates do patch some of the post-EOL vulnerabilities in 2000 (ported updates from XP), but I wouldn't count on that for security. The updates are mostly there to add programme compatibility.

I'm curious as to why you would recommend Windows 98 SE over 2000 for an internet-facing computer.

If you want some level of protection on Windows 2000, I think an older version of AVG is still supported. You can also use a standard user account (as opposed to an Administrator account), and that'll stop certain things, because of the limited rights. I'm pretty sure that Malwarebytes works on unofficially-updated Windows 2000.

Honestly, being protected on any operating system is all about using your common sense and good reputable software. It should be pretty easy to spot something dodgy. Using a good browser like Firefox helps a lot, and version 38.0 works just fine on this system.

http://s25.postimg.org/y9y6vjejj/Window ... n_2015.png <1024x768, ~92KB

If anything it should be fun to play around with Windows 2000 on its native hardware.

[bhtooefr]

There's plenty of Windows vulnerabilities that can attack an unprivileged account, though.

In any case, Windows 9x doesn't have many services that can be exploited, and modern malware tends to target NT specifically (as part of how it hides itself). 9x is of course far more vulnerable to theoretical threats (not actually having a security model, just a process separation model), but far less vulnerable to actual threats that expect NT. (I also suspect a 9x box with KernelEx installed is more vulnerable for that reason.)

[MrMaguire]

I'll take your point. But where do I find things that will take advantage of these vulnerabilities?

[Temetka]

They will find you.

I'd highly suggest Linux and forget this whole Windows thing.

[jaspen-meyer]

On my X21 I run debian 7 with openbox or fluxbox. After installing the system, grab this script and see if anything's eating memory

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pixel ... /ps_mem.py
chmod +x ps_mem.py
./ps_mem.py