Help me choose an OS for my old intel 845 board

 
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Operating Systems Linux Fedora Help me choose an OS for my old intel 845 board
# 1  
Old 11-07-2011
Help me choose an OS for my old intel 845 board

I have a pc with intel 845GLLY board with integrated i845g graphics, 768mb ram, and 1.7ghz p4. I've tried some linux distros before, ubuntu and linux mint and fedora, and older versions of ubuntu, but none of them work! They keep crashing. I searched for answers online and seems that linux kernels are incompatible with the 845g graphics, so no linux distro is likely to run. So I need help finding an open-source OS to run on this system. There seem to be lots of operating systems, unix, beos.. but I'm not sure if these are compatible. I want an OS that runs very smoothly on this older hardware with low-memory/cpu footprint and gives good performance for general use - internet browsing, music, word processing and have a feature to control the system with speech recognition if possible. A nice GUI like Win XP would be nice, I don't want any fancy glass and transparency effects which most likely wouldn't run on these graphics either. Anyone can help? (Note: I'm currently running XP on this system, which works ok for the most part albeit a little sluggish when running new versions of web browsers. But I'm looking for a high-performance open source OS.)
# 2  
Old 11-07-2011
"nice gui like windows xp" and "low-memory/cpu footprint" are opposite goals. Fortunately, your system actually isn't that bad.

What exactly was happening? 'crash' is a bit vague.

If your video chipset really is that bad, putting in a cheap but more compatible video card would work around that.
# 3  
Old 11-07-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
"nice gui like windows xp" and

What exactly was happening? 'crash' is a bit vague.

If your video chipset really is that bad, putting in a cheap but more compatible video card would work around that.
I agree with Corona688.
Also you can check the HCL for linux at LinuxQuestions LQ they have a good HCL for Linux.
# 4  
Old 11-07-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
"nice gui like windows xp" and "low-memory/cpu footprint" are opposite goals. Fortunately, your system actually isn't that bad.

What exactly was happening? 'crash' is a bit vague.

If your video chipset really is that bad, putting in a cheap but more compatible video card would work around that.
The linux distros would often lock up randomly and stop responding, forcing me to do a hard restart. I could never use a linux os for more than fifteen minutes without that happening. Last time I checked, a few months ago, linux developers were discussing the bug, an issue with the intel graphics, on the site where they discuss bugs and all (I forgot the web address) but were making no headway; I searched the internet recently and couldn't find a proper fix or update for the bug either. Hmm, if possible I'd like an OS which will run with that hardware.
# 5  
Old 11-07-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mooches
The linux distros would often lock up randomly and stop responding, forcing me to do a hard restart. I could never use a linux os for more than fifteen minutes without that happening.
"Lock up" is still a bit vague unfortunately. It tells you something bad's happening in the kernel, but doesn't tell you what.

If it really is video problems, using the VESA driver instead of trying to use a native Intel one may stop the freezing.

Also, did you ever try any kernel boot options, like "irqpoll"? I had a board that would lock up Linux quickly because the BIOS gave it faulty IRQ assignments. "irqpoll" helped at the cost of some performance. Also worth a try are "noapic" and "noacpi".
# 6  
Old 11-07-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
"Lock up" is still a bit vague unfortunately. It tells you something bad's happening in the kernel, but doesn't tell you what.

If it really is video problems, using the VESA driver instead of trying to use a native Intel one may stop the freezing.

Also, did you ever try any kernel boot options, like "irqpoll"? I had a board that would lock up Linux quickly because the BIOS gave it faulty IRQ assignments. "irqpoll" helped at the cost of some performance. Also worth a try are "noapic" and "noacpi".
Hi Corona688, I don't know how to describe it any better at the moment as I don't have those distros set up so I can look up exact error codes and system logs, but it's a well known issue if you search through google, and even trying workarounds suggested by techies and developers, like using nomodeset and noapic and more hideous commands and hacking the system to use vesa or install patches like Bryan'svideopatch, or some such similarly named thing, doesn't result in a stable system. I'll try to find the link to the i845g graphics bug reports on the web, but don't think that would be helpful as there doesn't seem to be any working fix for it. But still, I'm wondering if there are alternative systems, maybe some unix or beos or bsd or something which would be compatible with the hardware. I'm asking as I'd like to know if these OS's would work (because linux distros won't) before I venture forth and download a big iso!!
# 7  
Old 11-07-2011
If you're not willing to try and get Linux working I have no advice for you. Linux has unusually broad hardware compatibility for a non-Windows OS, whose fanbase has pressured many manufacturers into partially supporting their products and gotten many hardware devices whose manufacturers don't even acknowledge their existence to work anyway.

I'm not aware of a BSD or Solaris distribution made to appeal to home-users. These kind of server OSes consider a gui firmly optional.

Two more relevant facts:
1) Intel graphics, especially older Intel graphics, isn't the pits just in Linux, it's the pits in most respects in general.
2) Intel tries to be pretty decent about Linux support for their graphics. They don't always succeed, but they try, and the community usually manages to kludge their efforts into working. Other alternative OSes may not be so lucky.

...suggests to me that the chipset is a lemon in general and you may be better off putting in a cheap nvidia or something.

Last edited by Corona688; 11-07-2011 at 05:13 PM..
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