what operating system

M cebee

i have a couple of old compaq pentiums with about 128meg of ram

i want to use them for vlc media playback (mkv) and web browsing

what's the best operating system and web browser to install on these

to keep the memory usage down.

thanks

slowlydownwards

Most .mkv-s are compressed using h264 codec, which needs a good bit of cpu grunt and ram in order to play smoothly... so, good luck on this issue.

There are a lot of linux distros aimed at vintage pc-s, google it. They'll allow you to use those pc-s for net surfing, office work etc. Much better than going back to windows2000.

Khannie

M cebee wrote: »

i want to use them for vlc media playback (mkv)

You (almost certainly) haven't a hope. As the last poster said, H264 decoding on a box like that just aint gonna happen. Unless those mkv files contain lower bitrate content than is the norm on the internet. They just require more oomph than a very old laptop like that is gonna posses.

DSL or puppy linux is probably worth looking at. Windows 2000 or even windows 98 is worth considering too. You can probably get 512MB of laptop ram for a tenner though. That's worth considering too. You still wouldn't be able to decode high end video, but you would have enough ram for a nice interface. At that point ubuntu or xp lite would be worth a look in.

M cebee

thanks

M cebee

they're compaq deskpros and seem to have 256mb of ram (two sticks)

any idea what ram they take and is there any point replacing pci graphics

niallb

Have a try of GeexBox.
Download a CD image, burn to disk and boot it to test run straightaway.

Don't know what graphics you have as you don't give a model number,
but this is a good example of what you might be able to do.

melekalikimaka

.mkvs are a no go witht those pcs, the memory could be pumped up but the processor will be the weak link then... then its the gfx... i'd say even a large music lib would struggle tbh

Erkhan

Damn Small Linux
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html

M cebee

thanks

so whats the best video format for these pentiums 3's -divx?

the fsb is 133mhz and the ram is single sided- 2 slots total
what type is it?

M cebee

niallb wrote: »

Have a try of GeexBox.
Download a CD image, burn to disk and boot it to test run straightaway.

Don't know what graphics you have as you don't give a model number,
but this is a good example of what you might be able to do.

i've gone with geebox for now

seems pretty good playback on the basic hardware

just out of interest- i stuck in a 32mb matrox agp card and drivers -video playback was much worse

is that because the rest of the hardware is a bottleneck?

also-manual states 133mhz sdram/512mb max- can i put in 1 512mb stick of say pc3200 sdram?

thanks

M cebee

niallb wrote: »

Have a try of GeexBox.
Download a CD image, burn to disk and boot it to test run straightaway.

Don't know what graphics you have as you don't give a model number,
but this is a good example of what you might be able to do.

geebox is amazing on these old machines- for media playback

MunsterCycling

Nope you need, PC133 SDRAM, PC3200 won't fit.