> Hi Brian,
>
> Interesting personal history you shared!
>
> As much as I enjoy tinkering with computers, I get very mad when anything
gets in my way of being productive. Therefore I am very much in the group
of people who see computers being a tool --- the means to an end.
>
> I don't know that I can help. For several years I have sheltered myself in
Slackware, which is not known as a "mom and pop" friendly system. Although
some time ago I started a series of essays about finding an operating
system for older computers, I have not continued that journey. I would like
to renew that journey this winter.
>
> A big challenge with what you ask is defining your audience. A basic bell
curve more than likely would show most users wanting only the basics. There
always will be computer-challenged people who, no matter what anyone does
to help, will never understand anything they do or think they want to do.
Then there are the power users, both smart and non-smart. The non-smart
ones can take anything apart but can't fix their mess. They always call
somebody to help.
>
> Mostly though you are focusing on the people in the middle of the bell
curve. My struggle is not so much selecting a distro. Even Slackware, if
preinstalled and configured by a subject matter expert, can serve the
purposes of these people because all of them want basic point-and-click
access to applications. The majority of computer users do not care about
how everything runs underneath.
>
> The challenge is older hardware can't deal with the modern internet. Back
in the mid 1990s a 486 machine running Netscape 3 or 4 had no problem
surfing the primarily text based web. Today too many web sites use
JavaScript and Flash. Even if those two features are disabled, most older
hardware still can't surf the web. The limited RAM and video cards on these
old machines can't render a typical web page fast enough to be suitable.
Running flash on these old machines is hopeless.
>
> If a user does not need the internet, then the older hardware runs quite
well with the traditional apps of yesteryear: word processing,
spreadsheets, etc. Anything that requires serious video rendering will
bring these old machines to their proverbial knees.
>
> I have Slackware 12.2 and KDE 3.5.10 installed on two such machines: a
Pentium I and Pentium II class machine. Startup speeds of any app is slow
but tolerable. Using an app is acceptable after the app is started. I can
improve desktop speed a bit by using a window manager such as IceWM, but I
still need to start and use apps, which tends to be slow. The moment I try
to surf the web, even with images disabled in the web browser, the systems
show their age immediately.
>
> In short, the problem is not the operating system but the hardware.
>
> I don't know an easy answer. What is the minimum specs that allow surfing
the modern internet in an acceptable manner? Are such users willing to
accept that they can't watch online videos? Are they willing to accept that
a dial-up connection means they can't download videos or receive such
videos as email attachments?
>
> Perhaps the answer is to use nothing less than a Pentium III class
computer. If I find the time this winter to return to my "old hardware"
project, I should find one or two of those types of computers to
experiment. The PI and PII machines can't deal with the modern internet.
That said, anybody still using dial-up probably never would notice because
the connection speed is more of a bottleneck than the computer. I wonder
whether I can rig up a way to simulate that kind of connection speed and
then test my old hardware.
>
> If we get past the hardware questions, which distro to choose? Any Ubuntu
based system, regardless of hardware or desktop environment, will kill any
old hardware. That includes Mint. Forget about cloud-based distros such as
Peppermint because the hardware and connection speeds used by such people
can't deal with the overhead.
>
> Otherwise I probably would stick with a Debian based system because of the
size of the repositories for additional software.
>
> Puppy is an interesting possibility and one I wish I had more time to
investigate.
>
> Which desktop environment? None of the new desktops will work on older
hardware, such as KDE 4 or GNOME 3. Those new desktops require 3D
acceleration hardware. That leaves Trinity, Xfce, or LXDE. To me, LXDE
remains too experimental and likely would frustrate many mom and pop users.
A window manager approach would work, but only if highly customized by a
subject matter expert. Regardless of which desktop is chosen, everything
would have to be preinstalled.
>
> Therein lies the real problem which no Linux based distro developer has
solved: creating a system that mom and pop users with old hardware can use.
The Puppy people might be close.
>
> As far as I can tell, the only solution is select a distro and then
customize everything. Guess what? At that point you have created your own
distro and must face all of the related support headaches of such a
project.
>
> Any such project requires serious usability testing. Somebody like you or
me can tinker and find a solution. Most mom and pop users can't --- and
won't.
>
> I wish I had a simple answer. :)
>
> Thanks for stopping by.
>
> Darrell
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