windows 98 vs millenium vs linux

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kdream3

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
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So im going to be building another computer mainly for web browsing. I already have a gaming pc and i dont want to buy another xp.....so I can get windows 98 or millenium free from college. Which would be better? Or should I go with a linux distro?
 
Anything would be better than ME. If it's just for web browsing, I'd go with Linux. Gives you a chance to learn it as well.
 
The web browsers for Linux kinda suck in my opinion. I didn't even like Firefox. I would do 98SE myself. It's all you need. Me is good too if you know what you are doing, but it can be a royal pain in the ass if you don't.

Linux can be a real pain out of the box. I have had nightmares with that program, mostly to do with building from source and trying to install packages and satisfy dependencies. As long as Linux has EVERYTHING you need right out of the box it's ok, but if it doesn't everything you have to touch on it is a pain in the ass. Some distros are worse than others.

At least with Windows everything just works. It is all standardized and everything you go to install is simple, painless and pretty much flawless.
 
I'd recommend at least trying one of those "painless" Linux distributions (Fedora Core, or whatever - a better Linux guru than I can point you in the right direction) on the computer and seeing how you like it. The biggest problem you'll have with the 98 machine (and I'm going to pretend you didn't mention ME - as it's really not a good choice) is security flaws / lack of user privilege separation.

With Linux, you can run as root (which you shouldn't do), but it won't make a lot of difference because very little malware targets Linux users. With Windows, you're running with (effectively, as 98 didn't have user rights to speak of) administrative privs, and anything you pick up online can run with full access rights.
 
At least with Windows everything just works. It is all standardized and everything you go to install is simple, painless and pretty much flawless.
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Ever tried installing/administrating exchange ?
 
Since Debian is my favorite distro, I highly suggest the Debian-based Ubuntu.
 
Ubuntu is about as easy as it gets to install, and as long as the NIC is detected during the install, you'd be browsing the web in about 20 minutes from the beginning of the install.
 
thx for the replies. Since i have no experience with linux what do you guys think is the easiest distros to install and maintain?
 
kdream3 said:
thx for the replies. Since i have no experience with linux what do you guys think is the easiest distros to install and maintain?
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Fedora Core 4
 
grethor said:
Ever tried installing/administrating exchange ?
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I have Exchange 2003. :) But this guy isn't talking servers, he's talking Win 9x.
 
djnes said:
Ubuntu is about as easy as it gets to install, and as long as the NIC is detected during the install, you'd be browsing the web in about 20 minutes from the beginning of the install.
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Not so much, first five times i did it i kept forgetting to put in root as a user which is a small problem. Strange thing is that the Debian 3.1 install has select root password menu, so what is ubuntu doing by removing this.
 
kdream3 said:
thx for the replies. Since i have no experience with linux what do you guys think is the easiest distros to install and maintain?
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Definitely Ubuntu ;)
 
98 and ME suck ass.

There are millions of Linux distros out there. Lycoris and Ubuntu are means for easy user interfaces.
 
locutus24 said:
Not so much, first five times i did it i kept forgetting to put in root as a user which is a small problem. Strange thing is that the Debian 3.1 install has select root password menu, so what is ubuntu doing by removing this.
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You don't need a root user with ubuntu, you can use sudo instead.
 
If you look at my other post you'll see that I've posted a list of OS's that I've used, Currently using ME on a borrowed computer (long story), but my rig has a dual boot of Windows ME and Fedora Core 4
If you want easy to install. Go with Mandrake 10.0 - nearly flawless install on all of the differant systems I installed it on....just a word tho - know your monitor and vid card before starting - beyond that it has Mozilla (not just firefox), and KDE desktop has some 'simularity' in look to Window if you don't customize it = which you will.
 
SirKenin said:
At least with Windows everything just works. It is all standardized and everything you go to install is simple, painless and pretty much flawless.
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Maybe 5 years ago but I find Linux just faster, safer, and funner especially as a 2nd lower end system.

Just dump Linux (Fedora Core 4) on the machine. Don't need to worry about running Spybot, AdAware, Norton, all that other crap - just browse the web and Firefox is standard on the latest version of FC4. Just run: yum update firefox
 
SirKenin said:
The web browsers for Linux kinda suck in my opinion. I didn't even like Firefox. I would do 98SE myself. It's all you need. Me is good too if you know what you are doing, but it can be a royal pain in the ass if you don't.

Linux can be a real pain out of the box. I have had nightmares with that program, mostly to do with building from source and trying to install packages and satisfy dependencies. As long as Linux has EVERYTHING you need right out of the box it's ok, but if it doesn't everything you have to touch on it is a pain in the ass. Some distros are worse than others.

At least with Windows everything just works. It is all standardized and everything you go to install is simple, painless and pretty much flawless.
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Errr?????

Firefox is not the only browser
Opera is bloody good.

SO you would advocate IE5 (thats what 98 uses) over Firefox - think of the security!!!!!!!
 
eeyrjmr said:
Errr?????

Firefox is not the only browser
Opera is bloody good.

SO you would advocate IE5 (thats what 98 uses) over Firefox - think of the security!!!!!!!
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NOOOOO. lol. Upgrade the browser for sure. Uggh. I like Opera for the most part.
 
Full fledged Mozilla runs on my FC4 no issues, the mail/browse/irc/ all work flawlessly ...

carloswill said:
Maybe 5 years ago but I find Linux just faster, safer, and funner especially as a 2nd lower end system.

Just dump Linux (Fedora Core 4) on the machine. Don't need to worry about running Spybot, AdAware, Norton, all that other crap - just browse the web and Firefox is standard on the latest version of FC4. Just run: yum update firefox
Click to expand...
 
Before you go thru the hassle of wondering if linux will work for you, download Knoppix or another "Live Linux" distro and see how that runs on your system. FWIW you will need about 512mb of ram on the old system.

What class of system are you talking about? p2, p3, k6, k7, etc? That might help determine the best suggestions.
 
KoolDrew said:
Definitely Ubuntu ;)
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Definitely. Debian based Linux flavors are all pretty easy starting out and Ubuntu is very good for beginners.

I'd recommend Linux over 98/ME as it scales with almost any system and much more stable. Not to mention most of the software is free and easy to get (apt-get 4tw).
 
Definitely not 98SE or ME. Both of those are sadly lacking when it comes to stability. I'll also suggest Ubuntu. Its painless to install and easy to use, and between www.ubuntuforums.org and www.ubuntuguide.org there are a lot of howto's and a very rich knowledgebase if you run into problems.
 
RavenD said:
Definitely not 98SE or ME. Both of those are sadly lacking when it comes to stability.
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That's your opinion and may very well have more to do with a lack of experience than fact. I have had Windows Me machines run for weeks at a time without a reboot for example. Windows Me especially required technicians that knew what they were doing and mainstream, brand name hardware. I know what I am doing and thus have never had a problem with Me. Another example. I sold a laptop to my parents five years ago with a fresh install of Me on it. Just now they are reinstalling it, next week, because they were told that their installation was going belly up (a running out of memory problem).

I'm not saying they're perfect, but I am definitely saying your statement is not at all accurate or all encompassing.
 
The point is, windows ME is like, what, 5 years old? A decent new linux distro will be totally stable, totally secure, and support more hardware than a 5 year old "virus" better known as Windows ME. Ubuntu is nice if you like gnome, theres a Kbuntu for KDE, Suse has a nice live cd you can check out, or Fedora Core 4. You should go to www.gnome.org and www.kde.org to get an idea of which window manager would work best for you. KDE is probably the most windows friendly, but its probably requires a little more system to run than gnome would. Xandros looks like it might be decent too, but I think you have to pay for it. http://www.linuxiso.org/ is a great starting place, it has a ton of information about various distros and links to download cds, etc. Now-a-days, most linux distros come with about everything you need for browsing web, documents, mp3s, and video. I've heard good things about Vector Linux too, its based off of slackware, which is probably considered the most "unix-like" linux distro.
 
The info on distros here is exactly what I needed, thanx. :)

WinME is the misbegotten bastard child of the M$ lineup. Even Mr Gates admitted that if I remember correctly.
One good thing about ME though, that's when M$ started including Pinball. :D
 
Give Linux a shot first. For a basic machine it'll do pretty much everything better than 9x. Not to mention MS has pretty much killed updates for it, so you'd be essentially a 10 year old OS, that's unpatched and updated for quite some time.

The only reason I haven't totally switched to *NIX is the fact that I like to game, so my workstation is stuck with XP ;)
 
If I had a gun to my head, I would choose 98SE over ME (Mistake Edition). And no you don't have to be a tech to run ME, you just have to be extremely choosy with your drivers, a pitfall that really only ME had.

I think if you are a technician, and you do know what you are talking about, then advising someone to install an extremely low security OS, which is targeted by most if not all malware/spyware is very irresponsible. You could patch 98SE/ME till the cows come home and it is still not going to be secure. On the other hand, you won't know how to patch your linux install if you have no experience with linux, so it won't be as straight forward as a win9x platform, but hey chalk it up to a learning experience, you will be happy you did.

I don't run linux, I have in the past at one point or another though. But if you can't hit up win2k or XP, then I would advise downloading one of the easier to deal with Linux distros...Fedora Core 4, SUSE, Ubuntu are all good choices...and I would second the recommendation of downloading a Knoppix Live CD and give it a try and see if you like it.

Edit: The more I think about it...the more I hate WinME ;)
 
Susquehannock said:
The info on distros here is exactly what I needed, thanx. :)

WinME is the misbegotten bastard child of the M$ lineup. Even Mr Gates admitted that if I remember correctly.
One good thing about ME though, that's when M$ started including Pinball. :D
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Pinball ownz you... :p What more reason does one need for Me than that? (by the way, M$ is retarded).
 
hardwarephreak said:
If I had a gun to my head, I would choose 98SE over ME (Mistake Edition). And no you don't have to be a tech to run ME, you just have to be extremely choosy with your drivers, a pitfall that really only ME had.

I think if you are a technician, and you do know what you are talking about, then advising someone to install an extremely low security OS, which is targeted by most if not all malware/spyware is very irresponsible. You could patch 98SE/ME till the cows come home and it is still not going to be secure. On the other hand, you won't know how to patch your linux install if you have no experience with linux, so it won't be as straight forward as a win9x platform, but hey chalk it up to a learning experience, you will be happy you did.

I don't run linux, I have in the past at one point or another though. But if you can't hit up win2k or XP, then I would advise downloading one of the easier to deal with Linux distros...Fedora Core 4, SUSE, Ubuntu are all good choices...and I would second the recommendation of downloading a Knoppix Live CD and give it a try and see if you like it.

Edit: The more I think about it...the more I hate WinME ;)
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I have secured Win 98SE no problem against most exploits. It wasn't like XP SP2 or anything, but it was still pretty damn good if I do say so myself, all things considered. Incidentally, Microsoft is still supporting Win 98 and Me until June of next year (or was it May? I can't remember).

I don't recommend Linux to anybody that doesn't know what they are doing. Linux isn't as great and user friendly as the fan boys make it out to be. I have played with a dozen distros over the years and none of them really made the grade as far as I was concerned. They have all been stashed away in my file cabinet, with the exception of one that I gave away.
 
I have secured Win 98SE no problem against most exploits. It wasn't like XP SP2 or anything, but it was still pretty damn good if I do say so myself, all things considered. Incidentally, Microsoft is still supporting Win 98 and Me until June of next year (or was it May? I can't remember).
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I believe the point everyone is trying to make is the reason you have to secure win9x is becuase the vast majority of spyware TARGETS win9x boxes, while the same vast majority of spyware DOES NOT target linux. And since the box is going to be a web browsing box, why go through the extra hassle of securing something when there is an alternative that doesn't require the same level of attention.

And as fas as support goes...that is just for the most absolutely gaping security holes...point of fact...go try to install MS Antispyware on something other than 2k/XP. You can't, win9x are not supported OSes.

I don't recommend Linux to anybody that doesn't know what they are doing. Linux isn't as great and user friendly as the fan boys make it out to be. I have played with a dozen distros over the years and none of them really made the grade as far as I was concerned. They have all been stashed away in my file cabinet, with the exception of one that I gave away.
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The second point is nowadays, with some of the most recent distros...you dont have to know what you are doing...especially just to click on the brower icon and start surfing the web. If you want to start to do a bit more than email and inet, then sure you might have to step outside the box a bit and ask for some help or do some research, but for the most part, the lastest distros are up to the task. Again Fedora Core 4 and Suse are ones that I have personally used and found to be "easy". Hell, when I had FC4 on my system, my wife (who isn't a comp geek by any means) was able to login, click on the firefox icon, and surf her favorite sites...
 
hardwarephreak said:
I believe the point everyone is trying to make is the reason you have to secure win9x is becuase the vast majority of spyware TARGETS win9x boxes, while the same vast majority of spyware DOES NOT target linux. And since the box is going to be a web browsing box, why go through the extra hassle of securing something when there is an alternative that doesn't require the same level of attention.

And as fas as support goes...that is just for the most absolutely gaping security holes...point of fact...go try to install MS Antispyware on something other than 2k/XP. You can't, win9x are not supported OSes.
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That's true. Especially the MS Antispyware point.

The second point is nowadays, with some of the most recent distros...you dont have to know what you are doing...especially just to click on the brower icon and start surfing the web. If you want to start to do a bit more than email and inet, then sure you might have to step outside the box a bit and ask for some help or do some research, but for the most part, the lastest distros are up to the task. Again Fedora Core 4 and Suse are ones that I have personally used and found to be "easy". Hell, when I had FC4 on my system, my wife (who isn't a comp geek by any means) was able to login, click on the firefox icon, and surf her favorite sites...
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No, it isn't that simple. If you want to get this program or that program working you would then have to satisfy this dependency or that dependency. You couldn't do that because this binary wasn't compatible with your distro or that package couldn't meet the right dependencies or whatever. I have been there, done that.
 
Find me an install of Fedora Core 4 or Suse 9 that won't immediately connect to the internet. (i.e. one that does not require installation of various packages or software).

You won't. It works right after install. Sure you want to go create your own OS just the way you like it, go pickup a copy of slackware...that's no fun except for the command line junkies...

It would be a wild guess, but me thinks you have never installed FC4 or SUSE9.
 
hardwarephreak said:
It would be a wild guess, but me thinks you have never installed FC4 or SUSE9.
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Your wild guess is inaccurate I'm afraid. I have FC4 sitting here beside me in my trusty file cabinet of junk. It's chock full of CDs I never use (and some useful stuff, like rope and goodies).

FC4 is definitely the one I liked the most of the bunch, but it didn't cut it for me trying to integrate it into my network. I had a real problem with trying to get it to login to the AD server as a file server and share files. That's why I discontinued it's use and deployed Win 2000 AS as my file server. Much simpler. It took me days fucking around with the Linux and never solving the problem, after much reading and smashing my fist on the desk, and it took me four hours to deploy W2K AS. What does that tell you?
 
SirKenin said:
It took me days fucking around with the Linux and never solving the problem, after much reading and smashing my fist on the desk, and it took me four hours to deploy W2K AS. What does that tell you?
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It tells me that if you're running a Windows environment with Active Directory, you should continue using Windows for all of your machines and not rely on Samba to play nice with AD. That's not saying "oh god, Linux sucks Windows rocks", it's saying that there's a time and a place for every piece of software. A Microsoft shop with AD is not the time for a Linux fileserver, necessarily.
 
UMCPWintermute said:
It tells me that if you're running a Windows environment with Active Directory, you should continue using Windows for all of your machines and not rely on Samba to play nice with AD. That's not saying "oh god, Linux sucks Windows rocks", it's saying that there's a time and a place for every piece of software. A Microsoft shop with AD is not the time for a Linux fileserver, necessarily.
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The person starting this thread didn't state anything about logging onto a domain with AD (hes probably talking about personal usage).

Anyways...you can get Linux working with domain controllers using Samba (or have one act as a domain controller even) and probably with AD if you take the time to learn more about it.

Personally, I can't stand any Red Hat branded distros. Gentoo is very good for advanced users and I'd recommend Ubuntu for those trying to familiaze themselves with Linux.

P.S. If you don't like Gnome, you can always download some other window manager...I'm using XFCE at the moment on my laptop.
 
UMCPWintermute said:
It tells me that if you're running a Windows environment with Active Directory, you should continue using Windows for all of your machines and not rely on Samba to play nice with AD. That's not saying "oh god, Linux sucks Windows rocks", it's saying that there's a time and a place for every piece of software. A Microsoft shop with AD is not the time for a Linux fileserver, necessarily.
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I agree, and that is exactly what ended up happening. Perhaps in a different environment I would give FC4 another shot. So, there it sits, waiting for the time and the place.
 
Susquehannock said:
The info on distros here is exactly what I needed, thanx. :)

WinME is the misbegotten bastard child of the M$ lineup. Even Mr Gates admitted that if I remember correctly.
One good thing about ME though, that's when M$ started including Pinball. :D
Click to expand...
anti-ms.gif

Props to Penny Arcade

I second those extolling Ubuntu (or any Linux, for that matter). 9x is dead. You should tell your school to come to the 21st century with the rest of the world.
 
So im going to be building another computer mainly for web browsing.
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agree, and that is exactly what ended up happening. Perhaps in a different environment I would give FC4 another shot. So, there it sits, waiting for the time and the place.
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Find me an install of Fedora Core 4 or Suse 9 that won't immediately connect to the internet. (i.e. one that does not require installation of various packages or software).
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And once again, ALL the OP is going to be doing is web browsing, not maintaining a network with AD and trying to integrate a linux sys. Just web browsing.
 
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