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If the hardware is that old you might be nearing the end of its life. Since PC hardware is sold strictly on price at the consumer level, it usually doesn't last that long, and starts creating all sorts of strange problems. And also Windows tends to degrade the longer its used as funny things happen to the REGISTRY and the disk fragments, and incompatible DLLs create conflicts. In every business environment I've been in with Windows a fresh copy gets re-installed every year or two.

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"Build a man a fire and he'll stay warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll stay warm the rest of his life."
'93 Subaru Legacy DIRTBOMB
'98 BMW M3
2013 Rallyx Co-VP

If you mean the web browser, then no, it's actually pretty kick ass. I'm using it right now. This is a new Sony Vaio laptop, and Sony loads Chrome on the preload, set to be the default browser. It's a hell of a lot faster to load pages than FF3, and most everything I've found works. There's a few problems with it that I've seen:

- Horizontal scrolling with the touchpad on my laptop doesn't work. Works on IE8 and all other programs I've tried it with.
- Text selection in editable fields, such as for posting something to a forum, don't work like most apps when using the keyboard. Usually, for instance, I could hold down the Shift key, press the up arrows, and select text as the cursor moves up. This doesn't always work properly.
- The text formatting buttons (B, I, U, etc) on this very forum don't format quite properly - the text is shifted slightly to the right of the buttons.
- Plugins, if those are your thing, aren't anywhere near as available as they are for FF. I've tried one so far, and it was broken.
- There are a couple Vaio-specific updater tools that stumble when trying to do their thing, since they want IE to be the default browser. Easily fixed by putting the URL in question into IE and proceeding as normal.

I've submitted bugs on those already.

Otherwise, it's really good. I often wondered if I needed to call TWC and complain about my internet speed; turns out, it was Firefox taking forever to display them. IE8 is even slower.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Will Ubuntu work WELL with a vintage 2002 Dell laptop with 256 Mb memory and slow processor? The poor old thing is almost useless now even though I did a fresh install of XP recently (including all the service packs). It might be interesting to play with Ubuntu on it for future reference before having a reason/excuse to get a new laptop or netbook to supplement my Vista desktop.

What about old windows applications? What about new applications such as MaxQdata?

Wireless pc card adapters?

Also, anti-virus?

Dick (NOT a computer nerd . . . just a nerd)

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

ubuntu should be fine with that config, although it may be necessary to use a non-default desktop environment for best performance (ie, use xfce instead of gnome, or just use the xubuntu release which does this automatically). most wifi cards are supported out of the box and AV is unnecessary.

windows apps will not run (yes i know about wine but this is for a linux noob) but there are literally thousands and thousands of freely available apps that you can choose from.

Dick FYI I have (and have had) ubuntu running well laptops that old, and older. Get much older than that, and stuff doesn't work well out of the box. Ubuntu ran from a LiveCD fine for me on a Thinkpad T30, A31, and I think a T23, but it failed (wireless IIRC) on an A22m. These are all 2001-2003 laptops.

For what it's worth, several times I have installed Ubuntu, thinking it would work great for a spare/garage/kids laptop, but I never make it for long -- always find some windows app needed, or X10 control, or dual-head display, or something that makes me abandon it and go back to Windows. Usually for compatibility, But the OS itself works great.

Mike (a former Apple/Mac user, 1984-1997)

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Thanks for the responses. Since essentially everything I do on computers at home and work is Windows apps it looks like I'll stick with it for now.

Plus I don't actually need the old laptop to do anything anymore.

Dick

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT