Using win 98....dont have money to upgrade...would linux be an option?

[chinadoll]

I am running win 98 on my computer...dont have money to upgrade to other microsoft operating systems but want to improve performance of computer....what version of linux would bring me up to a level of say MS Millenium or even higher....is this a good idea....would it work?????

[Loosehead]

changing OS will not improve the performance of your computer, probably the opposite, because it will have alower hardware spec. If your machine came with W98 then it probably will struggle to even install XP etc. Linux is not really for novice users. Generally if you have W98 then upgrade to W98SE if you have W98SE then XP. You should be able to get an unsupported version of W98SE or XP from the net

[scatman]

The latest Mandrake or Fedora will bring you inline with XP and will run much better on older PCs than XP does. However, as stated above, you need to know what you're doing, not really for novice users.

[OBonio]

Have a look here for Linux distributions :

http://www.crucialparadigm.com/resources/tutorials/web-hosting/choosing-your-linux-distro.php

Yes, Linux will run better on older hardware but you need to know bit.  SuSe, Mandrake or RedHat Fedora are good for beginners.

[Thunderchild]

loosehead what do u mean by unsupported version ? ....free hehe that would be nice but unlikelly

[Thunderchild]

ps u could put Windows 2000 on it rpobably much cheaper than xp and just as stable and reliable will work on old machines that xp won't take

[Elementor]

Off the record :P You can quite easily get ANY version of Windows for free download (including Media Centre Edition which isn't even for sale seperately). However you need to be careful where you get it and you of course need to fool it into think it's real.

More easily, are you a student? If you are a university student, you have access to free copies of a lot of microsoft products. Including any Microsoft Operating System (not including Media Centre Edition), VisualStudio, OneNote, some server products etc. It's pretty handy. And anything not on the list of free products are 80% off. I personally wouldn't recommend Linux because it's an advanced operating system aimed really at programmers.

As loosehead said, changing operating system won't really boost the performance of your PC, the only problem is that companies aren't supporting older versions of windows as much anymore.

[WoWo]

One thing to remember is if you go with Linux almost all of the programs you currently won't work with it and it's likely many of your peripherals also. There are decent free alternatives for Linux however.

Despite what people have said Linux may improve the performance but it's a little like putting super unleaded in your clapped out old banger i.e. you might not actually notice.