On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:27:20 -0500 (CDT)
Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Has he tried using antiX Linux or Puppy Linux on the old laptop?  You 
> >> haven't told us anything about the hardware specs.
> >
> > Haven't tried them.  I have noticed that you are an advocate.
> 
> This is a Dell Latitude D800 with 1 GB RAM.  Do you think one of those 
> mini-Linuxes will make it do better with YouTube videos in Firefox than it 
> is now doing with Ubuntu 10.04?  I should also try Chrome.
> 
Given that 1 GB of RAM is plenty for Ubuntu, antiX Linux and Puppy Linux will FLY like a rocket on the same 1 GB of RAM.  That said, I'm not sure if that will resolve the problem of choppy Youtube videos.  On my 10-year-old Dell desktop with a 467 MHz processor and 384 MB of RAM, Youtube videos at 360p are choppy unless I download them first and view them offline.  (This is the case with any distro.)  However, I don't have choppy 360p videos on my 9-year-old IBM NetVista desktop with a 1 GB processor and 256 MB of RAM.  (This is the case with any distro.)
> 
> Regarding this, I suppose it is possible to have Ubuntu and Win7 as dual 
> boot and still run XP, say, in VirtualBox.  I might actually do that.
> 
In my opinion, it would be better to run Win7 and XP in virtual machines.  The inevitable reinstallation can run in Virtualbox while the computer is still free for other tasks.  As we all know, you cannot install any Windows OS in 10-15 minutes like you can with antiX Linux.


-- 
Jason Hsu, embedded engineer, Linux user <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com>