----- Original Message -----
From: "Goran Halfvarson"
Subject: [PCBUILD] Good choice of O/S and web browser for old PC

> What is the best combination of operating system and web browser, to get
> decent performance (and functionality) from an old and slow pc? The main
> task for the computer would be surfing on the web (no advanced stuff).
>
> Let's say the old and slow pc is something like the following (common around
> 1996):
> Pentium 150 MHz
> 32 MB RAM
> 2 GB disk.
>
>
> Feel free to suggest any operating system, but please also consider the case
> when it is a requirement that the operating system be Windows; specify the
> Windows version, e.g. "Windows 95B".
>
> If you say the operating system should be Linux, please also say which
> graphical environment (if any) and any other relevant parameters.
>
> Feel free to suggest any web browser, but please also consider the case when
> it is a requirement that the web browser be Internet Explorer; specify the
> version of Internet Explorer.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Göran Halfvarson, Sweden

---------------------
For what it's worth, the following are my opinions and experiences of a good setup ( not the
best )...

>From February 1996 until March 2001, I had a fairly good functioning system:

Pentium 166
Win 95B
Internet Explorer 5
Outlook Express 5
80 MB edo simms ram
33.6 dial up modem
2.1 GB Quantum Bigfoot HDD
Standard floppy and cd rom drives

This was used for surfing, email, and some online games at www.zone.com (cards, Monster Truck
Madness). Overall, this setup provided decent performance with only a few drawbacks:

-Internet speed was reasonable but had typically slow dial up performance (compared to cable).
-I think Win 95B was likely the most stable of the Win 95 versions, but it did crash often (usually
Internet-related).
-With a hard drive so small it was important to keep the junk files to a minimum, and I ran defrag
once a month. Scandisk ran often because of the crashing.

That same system is now running Win ME with IE5.5, and although it doesn't crash as often, it's
slower than it used to be - a full 4 minutes from boot to the desktop. It's no longer connected to
the Internet, so I don't know if Win ME and IE5.5 would have made much difference, but overall it's
more stable than it ever was with Win 95B. I hope this is enough detail and is helpful.

Al Thompson

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