Windows 2000 or Ubuntu 6.10 (or XUbuntu)

thunderclap82thunderclap82
edited January 2007 in Science & Tech
I have picked up a new (used) laptop for script writing (Final Draft 7) and word processing (Open Office 2). It's an IBM Thinkpad 600 and it has a Pentium II, 288MB RAM and a 4.5GB hard drive. The question is what to install: Windows 2000 or Ubuntu? As much as I'd like to try Ubuntu I'm leaning towards W2K just because it seems to require less horsepower and I don't have to use a 3rd party software (Wine) to get Final Draft 7 running.

Thoughts?

Comments

  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    If you're set on running Final Draft without wine, it sounds like you've made your decision.

    A quick search tells me that Final Draft works with wine, though. I can't imagine that w2k is leaner than xubuntu...

    How experienced are you with linux?
  • thunderclap82thunderclap82
    edited January 2007
    shwaip wrote:
    How experienced are you with linux?

    Not very experienced at all but I always like playing with new OS's. Have OS X, XP... why not Linux on my third machine? :)
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    The question was not to deter you from choosing linux, but if you were feeling ambitious, you could try a less user friendly (=more customizable = potentially leaner) distro than xubuntu.

    Why not load up xubuntu and see if you can get final draft working with wine?
  • thunderclap82thunderclap82
    edited January 2007
    I probably will do that and, if it turns out I don't like it or can't get Final Draft running I'll just go to W2K.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    Win2k is at end of life, I honestly can't recommend using it to anyone. There aren't any new patches and it won't run IE7 so it is and forever will be vulnerable to anything new.

    Any flavor of Ubuntu is a good place to start for new folks. You may wish to explore open source alternatives for Final Draft though unless you have excess time on your hands because Wine can be a real pain to set up. There are a few experienced Wine users here though so we can help.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • thunderclap82thunderclap82
    edited January 2007
    drasnor wrote:
    Win2k is at end of life, I honestly can't recommend using it to anyone. There aren't any new patches and it won't run IE7 so it is and forever will be vulnerable to anything new.

    I don't plan on doing much, if any, Internet usage on the laptop. And even if I did I would install Firefox as I hate IE.
    Any flavor of Ubuntu is a good place to start for new folks. You may wish to explore open source alternatives for Final Draft though unless you have excess time on your hands because Wine can be a real pain to set up.

    Unfortunately I haven't found any good alternative to Final Draft. I've been using Final Draft for years as have my collaborators so switching to new software isn't much of an option for me at this point.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    Windows uses IE as the Windows shell so not being able to use the latest version of IE (the one receiving security updates) is a bad thing. I can totally understand wanting to stick with your favorite software though.

    If you end up not liking Linux you can always use Windows XP Professional. I have a friend who runs a very slim install of XP on his PII 266 notebook with 256MB of RAM. With all the pretties turned off it uses only slightly more resources than a slim install of Win2k.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • hatshats
    edited January 2007
    I wouldnt rule windows 2000 out at all, it is a buisness OS meaning it will be supported for 5 years after release and then an aditional 5 years becouse it is a buisness OS. so u can still get patches and so forth.
    I would go with windows 2k. It is an extremley lean OS and for a pentium 2 system it would be great.
  • thunderclap82thunderclap82
    edited January 2007
    I tried installing XUbuntu onto the laptop and wasn't too happy. The text wasn't easy to read at the default resolution: 800x600. It was also slow and I couldn't get the network card to be found so I just decided to delete the OS and installed XP Home.

    I was actually a little surprised but while XP is a little sluggish it's workable. I only need the laptop for writing so it will be fine.

    Thanks to everyone who commented and suggest ideas.
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    go to control panel > system > advanced > performance and select "adjust for best performance". It should make it a little more responsive, if you haven't done that yet.
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