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Linux and eyecandy on VERY old computer

youtube.com — Linux Xubuntu and Compiz-fusion on a 7 year old computer

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  • searayman, on 11/22/2007, -4/+28I have this same graphics card but my computer doesnt run compiz fusion as well, is it because i am using normal ubuntu and not xfe
    • has2k1, on 11/22/2007, -0/+32No dude. It is missing ze dust.
    • Philluminati, on 11/22/2007, -17/+8Gentoo would help you out a treat because you compile the source code yourself it's optimised for your hardware. On older machines it can make a difference.
      • mallardtheduck, on 11/22/2007, -2/+12Of course on older machines, compiling Gentoo will take *days*...
        • kahrn, on 11/22/2007, -2/+14It's worth noting that the end difference probably won't be that much anyways.
          • bejayel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+4On older machines, the difference as far more noticable than on newer machine. Hell, right now is difficult to tell the difference in responsiveness from a 2.0 core 2 to a 3.0 core 2.
        • Elranzer, on 11/22/2007, -8/+11On a *modern* computer, Gentoo would take days. On this machine, it might take months.
          • bejayel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7After the initial install, my core 2 duo E6750 will compile the average users USE flag, as well as a lamp configuration on Gentoo 2007.0 x86_64 (default profile) in about 2.5 hours.
          • abuelos84, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7in my P4 2.66 1gb ram, it took it about 3, 3.5 hours
          • yevkasem, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1on my dual opteron 3gz, 2gb ram, from nothing to desktop in under 8 hours. including firefox, all my usual applications, etc. and there is a noticeable decrease in load times. so for me, yes it's worth it.
            however, a pentium iii wouldn't be able to use many more optimizations over default compilation settings (some things are even compiled for i686). so it might not be worth the couple days setup time.
        • XVampireX, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7Days on a modern PC? Hehe, you're still thinking a few years ago... I bet I can compile gentoo within half a day if not less...
      • allywilson, on 11/22/2007, -0/+4Gentoo does take some time to compile - but it's all about the flags...
      • BrainInAJar, on 11/22/2007, -3/+2"you compile the source code yourself it's optimised for your hardware."

        That's utter and complete nonsense spouted by people who have no idea how a compiler actually works. Compiler optimizations won't buy you that much performance overall, and package maintainers generally have a better idea what would make a particular package faster than some ricer idiot running gentoo with a string of compiler flags that may actually slow things down. The only way to really speed up a given chunk of code is to code it better.

        buried for inaccuracy.
    • Ashex, on 11/22/2007, -0/+13pretty much, gnome/kde require at least 256 to run smoothly.
    • EbilPhish, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2Gnome+Beryl ran fine on my parents 900mhz, geforce 440mx PCI system. I wouldn't want to have too many windows open on it at once though.
    • renegadeafk, on 11/22/2007, -2/+13What the hell my computer is a 3.0ghz p4, 2 gb ram, 7600GS and it runs it a little slower than that.
      • XVampireX, on 11/22/2007, -7/+1Either nvidia drivers or compiz is really designed for older cards.
      • bejayel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+4I dont know, i used to have a p4 3.0 and 7300gs and used beryl on gentoo and it was smooth as all hell. No problem (outside of stabiliy) at all.
      • renegadeafk, on 11/22/2007, -2/+3No matter what distro I use it's pretty slow compared to aero, not sure why it is, it should be alot faster on linux from what I've seen in things like this video. Certaine ffects are smooth, but minimize effects in particular are slow as hell.
    • ubergeek09, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I would think so XFCE uses very little RAM, it's great for older systems with not a whole lot of RAM.
  • Philluminati, on 11/22/2007, -10/+109Seriously though, it really speaks volumes about the efficiency of Linux. 128MB RAM and 32MB graphics card compared to the minimum requirements for vista being 512MB RAM.
    • houndeyex, on 11/22/2007, -3/+59Think about it though: a Pentium III and a geforce 2 isn't anything to sneeze at. It's plenty for an OS and videos. Keep in mind that we didn't watch him LOAD anything. That's where the RAM comes into play.
      • bejayel, on 11/22/2007, -2/+24The thing is that he only had 128 mb of ram. And have you ever tried running vista on minimum requirements? Slow as a hooker giving birth... ... ...wait, that doesnt make sense.
        • IntruderII, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2It's slow when you try to load programs... once vista loads, you could probably drag windows around fine -- even with 128mB of RAM.
      • directedition, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2My Inspiron 8000 runs compiz and loads programs just fine. PIIIm 877mhz, 512mb of ram (this is pre-DDR, very cheap), and a Geforce 2 Go. It runs Feisty without a complaint. Seriously, I don't NEED anything more.
    • mockstar, on 11/22/2007, -8/+12It only speaks volumes about the inefficiency of Vista. Anything else would run fine on a machine of that (actually quite capable) spec
    • Spuy767, on 11/22/2007, -1/+12I had 10.4 running on a clamshell iBook with 256 ram, that thing was nearly nine years old. It was perfectly usable for everything but photoshop and games.
    • airstrike, on 11/22/2007, -0/+10i wouldn't dare to run vista on anything with less than 1GB ram. i actually have 2GB here and still decided to drop vista completely (granted it wasn't only due to ram usage.)
      • silfiriel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I run vista with 512 RAm, but you are right I think that even 1 Gig of RAM won't help me.
      • Roger, on 11/22/2007, -1/+1If you disabled Aero and used the basic theme it would probably run on less than 512 MBs of RAM.
        • GreatDrok, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2I don't see how. Vista Basic which came with my Compaq still takes the best part of 10 mins to be usable and it has 512MB. Actually, did I say usable? I really meant unusable. As in, you can't use it. If I hadn't bought the machine to use as a CentOS server I would have taken it back and demanded XP for it because Vista can't be used for even the most basic tasks with 512MB of RAM. It actually struggles to run Explorer and IE at the same time and changing between windows results in long redraws. This is after I removed NortonAV. Vista's minimum specs should have been 1GB. On the other hand I am running Leopard on this 4 year old iBook G4 with 640MB and it is completely usable.
          • victorc26, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1People seem to think it's Aero that's using up a lot of system resources. It's not Aero, and you just saw proof of that with Compiz running on a 7 year old system. Like I've said before, It's everything else that uses up resources.

            A lot of new processes and services have been added into Vista. Just try searching for Task Scheduler (2.0) in both Google and Vista Search, and you'll see the kind of processes that have been added.
          • IntruderII, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1Not to mention Aero is rendered using hardware acceleration, unlike XP... which is why Vista uses almost no CPU cycles when moving windows around.
    • silfiriel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+6I have a dual boot vista-ubuntu only for what ubuntu does visually, soon I'll only run Ubuntu, just until I get this open source thing .
      • UNL1M1T3D, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Yeah when I was learning Linux I kept a Windows partition around, just so I had something to boot into if I broke something in Linux.
    • telepwn, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1And yet, after trying for weeks and weeks, learning to use the console and tweaking settings in just about every way imaginable, I still can't get compiz to work at all on my Radeon 1800 512MB.
    • Roger, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I'm sure the Windows kernel isn't demanding either.

      The difference being the Windows shell is designed for relatively modern computers. That said, try running KDE on an old computer and see if the performance is that great.
      • victorc26, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Exactly. The Windows Kernel is only, let me check *Opens Task Manager*, 100 Kilobytes. It's everything else that takes up space. All the Maintenance, system, API, and GUI services. Windows does need to have some sort of Process eliminator/hibernator that shuts off unneeded processes on older systems. Even if it was just created as a Powertoy available through the Microsoft site. It would solve a lot of peoples problems in one clean sweep.
      • linuxpenguin, on 11/26/2007, -0/+1Actually KDE runs fairly well on an old PC. I've used it before on the old Toshibas at work (through Knoppix).
    • scootinger, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3Uh...P3 800, 128MB RAM, and GeForce2 is not a "VERY old" computer (at least in my mind.)
      • UNL1M1T3D, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2Compared to what is out now it is. Granted it's not late 80's old, but 128mb of ram will barely run XP.
    • Neem, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1ugh, try running vista on 512MB of ram. It would make you cry tears of frustration.
    • ggarron, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1I agree with you, Linux is real good for old computers, so for School computers on poor countries, where this computers could be donated is a real good option, and not because it can run compiz, just because it can run!
  • 1337zork, on 11/22/2007, -3/+58That computer almost have the same speccs as mine at home.. need... new ... computer...!
    • EdwardsNH, on 11/22/2007, -0/+14I know, I laughed too when I saw "VERY old computer", then realized I'm still running one older and slower (Ubuntu XFCE)
    • ufia, on 11/22/2007, -0/+28Yeah, they called a Pentium 3 "VERY old". I was expecting an old i386 without internets capabilities or something. Pentium 3 is still good computer if you are not playing the latest computer games.
      • BrainInAJar, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3Some people prefer to throw out perfectly good hardware every couple years I guess...

        /pets his circa-1998 file/web server
    • UncleDavid218, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3That's not that old!
  • crackah, on 11/22/2007, -11/+2Thats Amazing!!!!!!
  • ronaldmonster, on 11/22/2007, -20/+9I'm not impressed, eye candy isn't a reason to switch to an entirely new OS
    • miccet, on 11/22/2007, -0/+22It might be an indicator to how scalable linux is resource wise, and that might be a huge appeal to a group of people not wanting to buy a new computer every time they switch OS.
    • CarlH2007, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3While I love Ubuntu's eye candy --- what I love far more is the increased functionality of having multiple (in my case 56) workspaces, unique screens that I can jump to and from with great ease. I used to use a dual monitor setup and now I can achieve as much just on my laptop as I used to be able to with my dual screen desktop.
      • bigsteve, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1While I agree that that particular feature is very useful, it's available for Windows (via 3rd party app) and Mac OS (now officially supported, formerly through a 3rd-party app.)
    • Philluminati, on 11/22/2007, -0/+15so your not upgrading to vista then?
    • loconet, on 11/22/2007, -0/+4Tell that to Microsoft
  • morriscat, on 11/22/2007, -12/+29P3's kicked ass.. from about 800mhz on up. Whats a core2 anyway except a pimped out P3?
    • Remmy, on 11/22/2007, -5/+10What?
      • rageguy, on 11/22/2007, -0/+23No he is correct, the Core 2's have more in common with the Pentium III than the Pentium 4. The Core series evolved from the Pentium M which are essentially modified Pentium III's. The Pentium III processor was able to achieve similar performance to the mobile version of the Pentium 4 but at a lower clock speed and as such used much less power.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M
      • Spuy767, on 11/22/2007, -0/+12Indeed. Netburst was an engineering dead end. Sure, you could get wildly high clock numbers, I think ARS or Engadget or somebody got 6 GHz by cooling the chip with liquid nitrogen, but the Core architecture can do so much more per clock cycle that it eats Netburst chips for lunch.
    • Dylson, on 11/22/2007, -5/+10_0
    • mbdfahrer, on 11/22/2007, -1/+10Early Pentium M's were pimped out P3s
      • kafitz22, on 11/22/2007, -1/+1And since Core 2 is a pimped out Pentium M, it goes without saying it's one BAMF pimp P3.
    • UncleDavid218, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2A completely different architecture?
      • starkruzr, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I wouldn't call it "completely different." It certainly shares much more with the P3 than it does with anything Netburst-derived.
    • bigsteve, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Yea they did, until those Athlon Thunderbirds came along. The good old days of Best Buy computer retail. Explaining to customers that AMD wasn't an "off brand" and was a direct competitor to Intel. I don't miss those days. Like, at all.
  • RudyV, on 11/22/2007, -72/+159DIGG ME DOWN!!!!
    • breakaway, on 11/22/2007, -2/+36I went to digg your smart ass down but accidentally missed and hit the up button :
    • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -6/+7you're not ambitious enough, but I am
    • Dylson, on 11/22/2007, -7/+14Never!
    • hyperair, on 11/22/2007, -3/+36Reverse psych huh? Not falling for that! *diggs you up anyway*
    • DeathGod321, on 11/22/2007, -1/+16Don't tell me what to do!
    • friendlyman, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2You're not Darth Vader you can't do that!
    • angers, on 11/22/2007, -2/+1i won't digg you up or down.
    • xyzunit, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Okay I will.
  • wyrdness, on 11/22/2007, -9/+1477 years is not VERY old, even for a computer. PC's back then still had gigahertz processors and 3D graphics cards. Quake 3 came out in 1999, FFS. When I read the title, I thought that someone had it running on something from the 1980's or before. Now that would be impressive, unlike this.

    • Elranzer, on 11/22/2007, -2/+4True, the only thing really bad about that machine is the 128MB of RAM. I think AMD broke 1GHz in late 2000, today's most common Pentium M and Core 2 Duo processors tend to be under 2GHz. You'd think at the rate we went in 2000, we'd have 10GHz processors by now.
      • TRENT310, on 11/22/2007, -0/+10You know, that's why we have multi-core processors instead of having multi-gigahertz processors. The higher the clock speed, the hotter it runs, and then eventually you get to a point where it gets really inefficient to cool it. So people decided to throw multiple cores on the same chip.
        • Spuy767, on 11/22/2007, -0/+6Not to mention that you get those tiny circuits too hot and they start to leak like a sieve.
        • witcompe, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Higher clock does not always mean higher temperature, although it seems like it. The actual problem with higher clock speeds is the background noise. The higher the clock, the harder it is to tell noise from the actual signal. Intel found this out in the late Pentium 4 days when they were pushing 4GHz.
    • unitedatheism, on 11/22/2007, -2/+4Yeah, we're all plenty of sure that would be capable running a 3d environment on a 80286 with a 16-colors EGA graphics adapter and do everything the same way vista does... We all do it, right?
      If a computer made in the 80's was capable of just playing that video (let's name a 320x240x24bpp) with no frame loss I would be already wondered
    • Pixelante, on 11/22/2007, -1/+3Yeah. Run it on a Cantab Jupiter ACE (in FORTH) and that's what would make my day.
      • XVampireX, on 11/22/2007, -4/+2Please, get out of the cave, it's just not the age for caves, if you're talking about games (Quake 3) then check where we are now (Crysis)
    • skyteria, on 11/22/2007, -2/+22 years is really old, if you want to run Vista.
    • Patrickdnj, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1I have a computer from the 80's......and sometimes I still use it. : (
    • sup34dog, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1...yeah, I was expecting an AMD K6 with 64MB RAM - like the one that I tried installing redhat 8 on years ago (that failed hard)
  • HKLozzo, on 11/22/2007, -2/+477 years is a VERY old computer? I had my last PC for 5 years. The only reason i stopped using it was cause the MoBo got fried in a power surge. It was running just fine until then. And it was running Win XP, surfing with broadband, downloading torrents, etc. OK, the graphics card couldn't cope with the latest games but i'm not a gamer. I'm just presuming it could have been running Linux with hardly much effort then? VERY old indeed!
    • smek2, on 11/22/2007, -1/+10Same here. Same Box for more then 5 years now. I wonder what magic keeps my two hard disks running. Used Wndows2000 and Suse Linux for years without any major complaint (needed couple of security patches for both though, especially Windows what with the Win32 blaster etc.). Never felt the need for updating my OS or hardware and pitty those kids masturbating to eyecandy and spending moms money on new hardware, just because Vista and Crysis is coming out.
    • DemonWasp, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2I used my previous computer for 6 years, and never really noticed it being slow until I compared to newer machines. Still runs WinXP just fine, despite being 7 years old at this point. People look back and see these "old" computers and go "gasp, wow, it can run video!". Yes, yes it can - ad it ran video just fine when you originally bought it.
      That said, it's still kinda impressive that said machine's running CF, considering the graphics available at the time when it was built.
  • thomasprebble, on 11/22/2007, -6/+33More proof (if we needed it) of what the open source community is capable of. Not only can they do it better than Microsoft but on no budget and with ancient hardware. Keep it up guys!
    • TechCF, on 11/22/2007, -0/+11Well, the some of the devs are paid though ;)
      • Darkhacker, on 11/22/2007, -2/+6A majority of the big projects that make open source look good are done by paid developers. The kernel receives a lot of code from Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, etc. Firefox has paid developers. OpenOffice was created by Sun. Very few of the top open source applications are coded by a bunch of college kids in their mom's basement. They almost all have some commercial development and it makes me mad sometimes to see people using Linux as some hippie movement to take down "the man".
      • xspinkickx, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2and the lead developer of compiz is paid by novell if I am not mistaken or a novell employee. However there is a lot of community involvement as well.
        • init100, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1I agree. I think that Beryl was essentially a community fork of Compiz.
    • thefinger, on 11/22/2007, -4/+2I don't know what to say, beyond, take your oss trolls elsewhere.
  • aliguana, on 11/22/2007, -9/+22Hmmm... I'm running Vista on a machine from 2000. OK, I put more memory into the beastie, but aside from that it works fine. You see, there is this notion, perpetuated by the hardware manufacturers, that you NEED to upgrade your computer every six months, or you won't be able to do anything on it. Bull. For gaming, maybe. But my 7 year old Vista-running machine runs Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Office etc etc just fine thanks. I need a quad-core 64-bit 8 gig machine for... what, exactly? Rotating desktops?
    • 256byteram, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Seems the notion is well received by the submitter.
      • aliguana, on 11/22/2007, -2/+1I thought the whole point of Ubuntu (and the like) was to breathe life into old(er) machines?
        If you've got a modern, expensive box, then by all means go overboard with the rotating desktops and flaming windows. For everyone else, it's about stability, it's about getting things done. I'm of a viewpoint that we should only upgrade machines when it is impossible to run our software on them. Eg... my old Celeron laptop runs Office 2007 great. If it didn't, then and only then, would I think about upgrading it or buying a new one.
    • smek2, on 11/22/2007, -1/+10Uhm, why did you install Vista then? Photoshop and Dreamweaver runs perfectly on my old Windows2000 Box.
      What you said about hardware is certainly true, but i don't get why you question eyecandy (rotating desktops) but install Vista.
      • adaud, on 11/22/2007, -2/+3could be security or a better feature set than win2k
      • aliguana, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1I installed Vista a) because I bought an upgrade for it and b) because I could. My opposition to buying new hardware for the sake of it doesn't extend to software :)
        But yeah, I installed it for the better metadata stuff, especially for Photography. The eye-candy works, but I wouldn't mind if it didn't. Eye candy isn't reason for choosing an OS (whether Windows, Linux or OSX).
    • airstrike, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1you don't need a quad-core to run photoshop or vista, but i sure think a modern processor and faster/larger ram would definitely make the load time so much quicker it would be hard to go back to your old pc after a couple of weeks.
      • aliguana, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1agreed. Newer hardware would make things run better, but my point was you don't NEED it. My view is that if a piece of software you rely on physically can't run on your hardware anymore, too much cpu or memory needed, then it's time to upgrade. If you can keep working, why bother?
    • xyzunit, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3You don't have rotating desktops?! ***** pussy.
      • aliguana, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1Rotating desktops are like blue lights all over your souped-up car... they serve no practical purpose other than the "hey, look at MY machine. Now bow down baby" factor. Which is quite sad, dontcha think?
  • snoutspout, on 11/22/2007, -20/+5*yawn* to all that beard wearing linux nerds
    • kinghajj, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Hey, we don't all have beards... the younger one's can't grow a beard yet. When they come of age, however, they do usually join the grand-ol' UNIX beard tradition.
  • silentdragoon, on 11/22/2007, -3/+55I'm still running a P2 350 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB HD, and dual-booting XP / Ubuntu. A P3 is luxury!
    • smek2, on 11/22/2007, -4/+4Really? I still got a Suse Linux Box running on Pentium 233 Mhz and 64MB ram, but can't use a GUI, it runs too slow. Console runs fine. I am very surprised that Windows XP runs perfectly on a P2 with 256MB ram.
      • Pbrane101, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3Yep, I was able to run XP just fine on a 233 Mhz P2 with 256 megabytes of ram
    • Spuy767, on 11/22/2007, -1/+6I ran an nLite'd XP on a P2 500 for a friend of mine, it worked rather brilliantly.
    • Siraf, on 11/22/2007, -0/+8Yeah, well my computer takes up an entire house. And it uses punch cards. So beat that.
      • xsquirrel378x, on 11/22/2007, -0/+8my computer cant handle punch cards yet, its just switches and vacuum tubes
        • Poopoopants, on 11/22/2007, -0/+5Man, I just have an abacus.
        • CHiLL, on 11/22/2007, -0/+5Man, I've just got my fingers and toes.
        • PhonicUK, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7I'm still waiting for my cells to divide into powers of 2
        • SteelFrog, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
  • Theoxenmooving, on 11/22/2007, -0/+28Bah. I have mklinux running on a Quadra 700, 128 MB RAM, with X windows. That computer is from 1991, IRC.... So yeah, >15 years v. 7 years, on a chip that went obsolete in 1994. You bore me.

    /wank wank wank....
    • teaBagger, on 11/22/2007, -1/+17I have compiz running on a 8bit 1981 VIC20 at 1920x1200 with 5k of ram!!!

      sukkar!
    • Philluminati, on 11/22/2007, -2/+39I put 4 typewriters on my table and ask my mum to push me around the table on a wheely-chair. Now that's REAL 3d.
      • bejayel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+6You win.
        How are games on that setup?
    • chrispix, on 11/22/2007, -1/+1I have a 3d pen and 3d scroll that is like thousands of years old. beat that!
      Oh yeah, I also have a chisel and a rock, that is like millions of years old.
      • skyteria, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Carbon dating, or it didn't happen.
    • logost, on 11/22/2007, -0/+11991 and 128MB ram?!?!?! that sounds fishy
      might be true but.... grats on the bttfd
    • megagram, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Yeah the max that computer can take is 68MB. 4MB is soldered on to the MoBo and 4 slots for 30-pin SIMMs are there for the rest. Did they even make 32MB 30-pin SIMMs? I don't think so.
  • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -9/+1I run XP on a P1 133MHz with 64 MB of RAM
    hah!

    XP doesn't refuse to boot if I take out 32MB of RAM

    Vista only needs an 800MHz cpu and 512MB of RAM
    so just beef up that computer you have in the video with more RAM and vista Runs
    • smek2, on 11/22/2007, -3/+1I really doubt that! Stop lying, why do you lie? I got a P1 with 64MB ram and it can't run Linux with a GUI like KDE because its too slow to do so. And you want to tell me you run Wndows XP on a P1 133Mhz and 64MB ram? No way, fanboy. I worked with Photoshop and Maya on a Windows 2K machine and needed a P3 and at least 1GB ram to work properly. And don't tell me you don't use professional software like that, because if you don't , what do you use a computer that old, running on WinXP for anyway? For games?
      • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2dont believe me
        if you want videos and pics then sure
        It loads up, it runs, i can just surf the net on it and play some music

        This has been done twice
        the first time the pc was used as a make shift router
        the 2nd time was just used to play music
        • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2yep no one believes me
          Ill post a video of it running some stuff some time next week
        • Jeffler, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Its not that nobody believes you, but honestly, nobody really cares.
        • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1I shall welcome my self to the retarted world of digg again
          diggers care about seemingly unamazing stuff and care less of stuff that has 1% more amazingness to it
          800MHz comp running linux Wow!!! and doing nothing else
          133MHz comp running XP sp2 + playing some mp3s and some webbrowsing boo boring...

          Digg is just a Linux oriented society... too many super geeks
  • z0mbie2099, on 11/22/2007, -1/+9Was that XFCE?
    • kahrn, on 11/22/2007, -1/+19Correct.
    • TechCF, on 11/22/2007, -3/+17Correct
    • p337r, on 11/22/2007, -3/+18Correct.
    • Dylson, on 11/22/2007, -5/+14Correct.
    • Philluminati, on 11/22/2007, -4/+16Correct.
    • smek2, on 11/22/2007, -4/+7XFCE rocks. I tried Gnome and quickly switched (back) to FVWM2. Then discovered XFCE and using it ever since. Lean and mean. Runs smooth and does what i need. No disrespect, but Gnome is so slow and unstable compared to XFCE.
      • xspinkickx, on 11/22/2007, -0/+4really? ?? When I first tried XFCE it was so unstable, they really fixed that though. Gnome is great on a fast enough computer buy yes XFCE is great if you want light weight.
  • Bromskloss, on 11/22/2007, -2/+13Can that old graphics card (GeForce 2 MX/400) really do the things needed for this? I mean, isn't the graphics card supposed to do the wiggling windows, for example. Can it really do that?
    • yetAnotherCroc, on 11/22/2007, -0/+18One word: Yes
    • Factionrider, on 11/22/2007, -1/+4I had that card in one of my first PCs, it ran Call of Duty when it came out (don't remember settings, probably low) at a solid framerate. So it should have no problem wiggling windows.
      • Bromskloss, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I didn't primarily mean that it was too weak, only that it might lack the feature that does the wiggling transformation.
  • kahlessreborn, on 11/22/2007, -5/+14Anyone notice how he never shows the actual computer or a window displaying the computer specs?
    • ArthurSucks, on 11/22/2007, -0/+12Doesn't matter. You could tell that it was pushing full juice to do that. The video would freeze up when he switch from 2D to 3D.
  • kahrn, on 11/22/2007, -2/+10Why is this popular? It's not exactly news. Here's my beef though.. while running on such a machine, using such graphical effects will be pointless. Sure, it's capable - but it's not practical. It'll end up taking cycles away which could be better allocated for other applications.

    It's not ancient or 'VERY' old either. Sure, it's old but it's more than capable. You don't need gigabytes of RAM and multicore cpu's to do.. well.. pretty much anything apart from the latest games and weather simulations and such.
    • kinghajj, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2The point is to demonstrate efficiency compared to Vista. I don't think that Compiz/Berly/Fusison are really meant to be practical; I only enable them when I want to show-off.
    • linuxpenguin, on 11/26/2007, -0/+1a) it's also not practical to go and install Linux on an old PC that you haven't used in years, unless you've found a reason to use it. So saying it's not practical doesn't matter because he just did it because he could, not because there was any use in doing it.
      b) Pretty much anything apart form the latest games, weather simulations, and running Vista/Aero Glass, yup.
      I think the point of this video is that he can use Linux and have a GUI that has more cool effects than Aero Glass (which you only get if you pay for Vista) and requires much less power than Vista.
      c) How does this take away any CPU cycles that "could be better allocated"? First of all, those effects are more dependent on the GPU than the system's CPU as they're hardware-accelerated. Try doing the same thing with just a simple VGA card and you won't get half the performance in the video. Second of all, if you're running stuff like this I'm sure you're more worried about how things look than whether or not these effects hog up your computer's processing cycles.
  • Matt88, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2Will standard Ubuntu give you that sort of effect. I've got it loaded up on a similar setup (P3 900mhz)
  • sp1nm0nkey, on 11/22/2007, -1/+18Err... the transforms that compiz do are fairly simple. It's not that impressive that a not all that old computer can do this, it's impressive how inefficient microsoft made their implementation.
  • phoque, on 11/22/2007, -1/+25Jesus, a Pentium 3 with 800MHz isn't old!
    I am running Linux on a 133MHz @ 90MHz Pentium with 16MBytes of RAM. I use it as an MP3-Player... although without any X-Server but with Orpheus on the console: http://www.phoque.de/projekte/mp3_player/

    With remote-control from any other computer, auto-mounting MP3-discs and stuff.
    • bdlang, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3That's not the point. Yes, we all have linux or bsd running on old pre/early pentium hardware with little ram. The point is to compare what eye candy open source can offer on minimal hardware vs. the Vista hardware req's, and above all performing more 'stupid desktop tricks' than Vista.
  • catt231, on 11/22/2007, -8/+20Die Vista Die!
    • MrJackDaniels, on 11/22/2007, -0/+9The Vista The?
    • thefinger, on 11/22/2007, -5/+2how about you die instead? what does your doctor say lately?
  • fatas, on 11/22/2007, -8/+25Gimp'ed
  • spambutcher, on 11/22/2007, -4/+20one of the youtube comments brought up a good point: lets see how that thing runs with some real apps running.

    Specifically - I'd like to see him open up 6 tabs in Firefox (including a few to digg) - and then pull off that same stuff.

    at least half my desktop's (Windows XP) performance issues are due to firefox taking up 600MB ram / 98% CPU. can't blame that on Microsoft.

    the OS is only half the bloatware problem...
    • ErikHK, on 11/22/2007, -0/+0Very true, the only reason I left my 450 Mhz laptop with 128 MB RAM was because Firefox ate my RAM.
    • HerbSolo, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Well - i'd definitely like to see it work with my own eyes.
      Still: Vista won't reach this level of smoothness on my 2 year old laptop, so i'm still impressed. Thinking about it - more disappointed in Vista.
    • p0ltergeist, on 11/22/2007, -0/+198% CPU and 600MB or RAM? *****. I'm running firefox right now with 6 tabs open, 5 of them are streaming video from youtube, gametrailers, and the other i'm using to type this message, and I still only see 25% CPU usage and 100MB or RAM used.
    • linuxpenguin, on 11/26/2007, -0/+1I'm running Firefox on Debian and it's not hogging up anywhere near that much RAM, or CPU. I've got a couple of tabs open for Digg, Gmail's open, my site's admin tool is open, Youtube is open. . .
  • Keitosha, on 11/22/2007, -2/+6This can be done with any Ubuntu distro: Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and the normal Ubuntu of course. ;)
    Compiz Fusion is really great and shows what could be done better compared to Aero Glass. Ubuntu + Compiz doesn't suck my laptop battery empty that fast as Aero in Vista does.

    Before the MS fanboys digg me down, let me say that i'm not criticizing Vista (i love Vista, because it becomes better every month and more drivers are being released. I'm using Vista U 64 and also Ubuntu 64), but criticizing Aero Glass.
    • computershack, on 11/22/2007, -9/+0You are aware that although Ubuntu isn't sucking your battery that it's actually shortening your HDD life with an extremely high amount of HDD parks?
  • PabloEscobar666, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Well,. he is only moving around and xterm window and running a video in the background (probably with low resolution and easy to decode codec). Try running real applications like FireFox and Thunderbird. I mean, I am a Linux user but I don't see anything special in the video.
  • computershack, on 11/22/2007, -12/+2Compiz-fusion makes me laugh. You get all the Linux nuts banging on about Windows and the pointless eye-candy and then the very same people bang on about compiz-fusion and how cool it all is.

    What's that word I'm looking for.............ah, found it. HYPOCRITES.
    • Darkhacker, on 11/22/2007, -1/+8I think eye candy is worthless for practical work (pretty though), but the point that was being made (woosh!) was that Vista requires an absolutely insane amount of computer resources to do the same thing.
      • ArthurSucks, on 11/22/2007, -1/+11Vista needs insane amount of computer even when NOT using eye candy.
    • paulsmith288, on 11/22/2007, -1/+3shut up and crawl back under your rock
  • DestroyFascism, on 11/22/2007, -9/+1OMG! SATA Drives?!?!?!? Now where did the MBR go again.....um............
  • Miggyohara, on 11/22/2007, -4/+11for all the bashers i don't think the point of the video is the eye candy itself. think about the medium user.no viruses, no spyware, no trojans, an always up-to-date system, all the support you need, and all this for free.

    and it uses the computers resources in a much better way.
    • thefinger, on 11/22/2007, -3/+5same old tired propaganda. You're boring.
  • Goobernutz, on 11/22/2007, -8/+2Get a better job and buy a real computer. This is like driving around in a 1984 Pontiac Fiero and showing off that you have power windows. Go windows! (power windows that is. not Windows windows. that windows sucks balls)
    • krunchyfrog, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Why should I buy a new H3 Hummer with all the bells and whistles if my 1978 Grand Prix can do the same and perhaps even more?
  • chingy1788, on 11/22/2007, -1/+20Note to all users of Computers
    If you like the OS you are running now, then stick with it
    • SteelFrog, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3Finally, someone with a little rationality and common sense.
      Hate Windows? Use a Mac or Linux. Hate Macs or Linux? Use Windows. How hard was that?
  • cbegin, on 11/22/2007, -3/+8The comments on youtube that say "duh, that's not low spec, that's a pretty decent computer" are retarded. The guy's point is that if you put vista on that it would tank. I'm unfortunately running Vista on a 2.2GHz Santa Rosa w/ 2GB RAM and an NVidia 8600 GT. Vista is a complete dog of an OS.

    OSX, Ubuntu GG, or even Windows XP are each a better choice. I'd choose one of the two latter ones if I could find drivers for my cam and card reader. :-/
    • victorc26, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3Vista runs slow on your machine? I still can't see how Vista can be slow on that kind of system.

      I have an Opteron 175 (Dual-Core 2.2GHz) machine with 2 gigs of RAM and an 8800GT. Vista runs like butter shot from a cannon on ice. Paging is completely transparent/non-existent this time around as well. All I can ask is what/how many apps are you running on it? Is it a clean Vista install or an OEM (Compaq, HP, etc) installed copy?
  • ZeRux, on 11/22/2007, -3/+2Sure, no problem running old hardware on operating system released one month ago.
    Now go and buy any of the newest laptops without OS and try to install linux on it, if you dare...bet you'll regret for not buying a laptop with vista, or MacBook.
    • bdlang, on 11/22/2007, -1/+4Wrong. I would say more but it would detract from how wrong you are.
    • kinghajj, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2He's not completely wrong. The only distro of Linux I could get to detect almost all of my laptop's hardware (excluding the sound) was Sabayon, which I didn't reallly like. Ubuntu 7.10 is better, though I haven't tried installing it. I've settled for Windows XP x68.
    • Labut, on 11/22/2007, -1/+2Well, I don't blame Linux for that issue. I would blame the hardware company for not supporting OSes other than Windows. Who would buy laptop blindly without researching the hardware components to check whether it supports Linux or not.
      • kinghajj, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1I checked but got no answer. Support is coming, though. Maybe if I backup first I'll install Ubuntu again.

        And you're right that the hardware companies need to start writing Linux drivers.
      • ZeRux, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1As end user, why should I care about that? What matters to me is whether my hardware will work on Linux or not, not why it doesn't work.
      • aliguana, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1that is EXACTLY the "problem" with Vista. The boards are full of "my printer doesn't work", "my wireless doesn't work". That isn't Vista's fault. Come on, the beta of Vista was freely available to hardware manufactures 6 months before the thing hit final. But then again, some hardware manufacturers are only now releasing XP version of their drivers, it's a lax culture. God forbid Apple ever release OSX as vanilla, then they'd have three OS to write drivers for, and we'd never get anything done
  • theghoul, on 11/22/2007, -2/+5Dugg because I didn't know Kubuntu was that cool looking.

    This is why Linux hasn't taken off. We need commercials!
  • wattersm, on 11/22/2007, -2/+5Buried as inaccurate. A P3 800 is not VERY old, hello that's better than the system I have now (dual P3 733). When I started using Linux Pentium IIs were the best we had, I was expecting something like a 486 from the headline.
    • Tomchei, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Not old at all. Still a productive machine by todays standards.
      I've got some RH8 still running and productive on some P2 233 and p3 450's.
  • Jennica, on 11/22/2007, -1/+3same specs as my mom's 1999 computer. she was reluctant for me to install ubuntu, i thought it worked great but the internet was slow because the wireless thing wasn't compatible with linux, but I got it working anyway. she switched back to windows 98 :-/
  • xthroughmyeyesx, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Dugg for a) hope born for my old AMD K6-2 Compaq circa 2002, b) the Foo Fighters. :]
  • soomprimal, on 11/22/2007, -1/+3Not really impressed. 7 years isn't VERY old. Plus it has a 3D card. Meh.
  • reginaldino, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3buried as a 800MHz P3 isn't old.
    I have a 8year old t'pad 570e that i use daily that has a 448MHz P3 and i don't consider that old either.
    My other comp cost me $1400 5 days ago.
    • silfiriel, on 11/22/2007, -1/+1make no mistake about it, it's OLD! There are PIV computers that are considered old these days....
      • samuelcotterall, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2"Old" is subjective. If it was truly old it wouldn't run a new OS.
  • proverbs17, on 11/22/2007, -0/+3I run Xubuntu on a 800 mhz PIII Compaq laptop. It runs great.

    By the way, I consider anything > 3 old. But that is just my opinion. I think this guy's point is that Xubuntu on a PIII is just as good (better?) then a brand new computer running Vista. I think he did a good job making his point.
  • flytronix, on 11/22/2007, -7/+1fake
  • tcpip4lyfe, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2What Foo Fighters song is that?
    • SKick, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1It's New Way Home, from The Colour and the Shape.
  • SuperGreen420, on 11/22/2007, -2/+6This might be the worst pissing contest I've ever won...
    Intel Celeron 555MHz, 320MB RAM (64+256), imbedded graphics chip (I think), no graphics card (I'm sure), 15Gb HD with XP installed and a 160GB secondary HD.
    I have wet dreams about playing DVD's without lag.
    ...and now you know. *cries*
    • ubergeek09, on 11/22/2007, -1/+1Why don't you install Kanotix or some other Linux Distro with very low overhead? My uncle has a computer with a 600 MHz Celeron and around 256 or so Megs of RAM and Red Hat runs fine :). Most Linux Distros are much less bloated the Windows, go try it out you won't regret it!
  • lebaige, on 11/22/2007, -2/+0I tried running Xubuntu on a Celeron 433 with 256MB of ram and some sort of crappy ATI Rage PRO 4MB integrated graphics and it ran like total ass. I switched back to XP.
    • computergod, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Same here, 800MHz p3 /w 256 and a crap laptop card. XP works faster then xubuntu, but it's just a matter of tweaking it a bit more I suspect.
  • sega01, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7Heh. My last server was 14 years old when I decided to turn it in. The floppy controller died, it would only boot on CD's with a floppy-style boot sector, and the harddrive was squeeking and continually slowing down. Almost all of the boxes in my room are >7 years old; one is 17 years. Old hardware FTW! :-)

    Awesome video though. People still using Microsoft are really missing out on the goodness of open source.
  • silfiriel, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1vista vs. ubuntu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
  • Zorkon, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7If it ain't running on a C64 or TI-99 4/A, it's not "very old". :)
    • aliguana, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2C64 isn't very old. If they had busted out one of those office mini-computers from the 60s and installed Linux on it, then I would be impressed. Oh wait, they ran Unix, so I wouldn't be THAT impressed...
    • computergod, on 11/22/2007, -0/+2Yeah, man. I was looking a 70's "Whole Earth Catalog," and they actually had a computer for sale in it that could run UNIX, it was small too, the size of a bar fridge. If I had $20K back then (and was alive) I'd be all over that sucker.
  • Tivor, on 11/22/2007, -0/+7Wow, I didn't know a 7-year-old computer deserved a "very" with all caps. Have we gotten that attention-deficit?
    • canadalolz, on 11/23/2007, -1/+0we you expecting eyecandy on a punch-card computer?

      computer technology evolves quickly enough for 7 years to be "very old". get over it
    • joshma, on 11/23/2007, -1/+1I agree with canadalolz - 7 years in the computer industry is truly VERY old.
  • adragontattoo, on 11/22/2007, -0/+1Uh that isnt a very old machine..

    My smoothwall is a p3 450
    My web browser is a OLD inspiron 7500 (celery chip meant for win 98)
    I have multiple servers running Dual 450-800s)

    Yes the video is an example of linux making a good use out of older equipment but it shows little more then "Hey look the eye candy works".
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