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Which OS should I choose?

seth4912seth4912
edited October 2015 in Software
I have an MSi Wind netbook with 250GB hard drive and 1GB RAM sitting in my room doing nothing. It currently has Windows XP. However, XP does not like my computer. It has missing drivers for pretty much everything, including internet and sound, so I would like to install a new OS on it, preferably something unique, but I can't decide which one. I'm open to any suggestions! (but not Windows 8-10 which run really slow)

Comments

  • tattetatte
    These topics are a thing now? Huh..

    There ought to be XP drivers for it, you just have to look and install them, but that's probably it. XP, nothing more. Imho netbooks are not much of a toys anyway, if you don't have use for a netbook your smartest move could be selling it and buying something more useful with the money. A computer that can actually run a good variety of systems for example.

    If you want "unique", try Plan 9. I bet none of your friends have even heard of it so should bring much respect, wow.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Found drivers pretty easily (for XP & 7):
    http://www.msi.com/support/nb/U100.html#down-driver&XP%2032

    Unless you wanna try Linux, I'd stick with XP.

    If you upgrade the DDR2 RAM to 2GB, and even better have a 60GB or so SSD lying around it would be enough to run Win 7 reasonably.
  • Plokite_WolfPlokite_Wolf
    If you want to play it safe, get Windows 7 (32-bit considering your RAM).

    Ubuntu or its "flavours" aren't bad, either.
  • birdybirdy
    Elementary os is pretty good, but it has it's pro's and con's. Ubuntu is more user friendly and helps newbies learn Linux. If you want to have some thing different than any one else then you should check out: ghost bsd, Oracle Linux, and Oracle Solaris.
  • seth4912seth4912
    tatte wrote:
    These topics are a thing now? Huh..

    There ought to be XP drivers for it, you just have to look and install them, but that's probably it. XP, nothing more. Imho netbooks are not much of a toys anyway, if you don't have use for a netbook your smartest move could be selling it and buying something more useful with the money. A computer that can actually run a good variety of systems for example.

    If you want "unique", try Plan 9. I bet none of your friends have even heard of it so should bring much respect, wow.

    Plan 9 looks good, I will investigate further into that. Thanks for the idea :wink:
  • seth4912seth4912
    So I think I'll stay with XP for now, but Plan 9 looks good, so I'll try that in a dual-boot or a virtual machine on another computer for now. Thanks for the advice!
  • DallasCHVNDallasCHVN
    Puppy Linux is great on older computers and it's very fast
  • SkoraSkora
    I realize you want to stick with XP, but in my opinon for an older system you should definitely consider Linux. XP is out of support and i wouldnt recommend it for anything nowadays.

    Ubuntu is decent, pretty lightweight and at the very least relatively snappy on older hardware, i'd also recommend Zorin if you want a Windows-like interface. I've never messed with Elementary/Puppy/Other strictly lightweight distros of Linux but i suppose those would be better for a system like this.

    I should also mention when it comes to Linux, drivers are almost never an issue.
  • Doqtor KirbyDoqtor Kirby
    Unless you're a wifi user... wifi drivers are very hard to come by.

    If you do go Linux, I'd recommend Fedora. Specifically the Xfce Spin. I would have gone with the KDE spin if you had more RAM.
  • scheurneusscheurneus
    Xubuntu and Lubuntu are pretty nice and not very resource-intensive. Linux Mint Xfce also isn't bad. What CPU does your netbook have?
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    Fedora is too heavy for a netbook. Thats why Netbooks came with Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux because they're lighter.

    Now I'll shoot myself in the foot on this one. How about OSX? The MSI Wind netbooks were favored for portable out of the box hackintoshes.
  • garirrygarirry
    TCPMeta wrote:
    Now I'll shoot myself in the foot on this one. How about OSX? The MSI Wind netbooks were favored for portable out of the box hackintoshes.
    If the computer was compatible with Hackintoshes, the latest system that would work well is 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, which was released in 2009, and the software compatibility with it has quite diminished currently. Anything earlier will work with barely any software, and anything newer is quite heavier than SL (keep in mind they also require 2GB RAM). So, it would be a nice experiment, but not something I would personally do to such an old computer.
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