You can also install Ubuntu next to windows on a machine, you don't have to have only one of them, tough I don't know how much hard drive space they require actually.

And yeah funny thing, I NEVER got ET working on vista.

Haha! It probably could. Actually, that's a good idea, good old retro gaming. It's probably the only thing that machine will be useful for, I've got Vista running on my laptop and every time I try to run Doom everything goes psychadelic, it hates DOS so bad. And DOSbox proved useless.

Doom's been ported to windows many times: there's chocolate Doom made as close as possible too classic Doom and other, more advanced ports like ZDoom, that add lot of features like mouselook, jumping, translucency, framerate cap removal and ton of another stuff. You don't need to fiddle with DOSbox if all you need is Doom

[djskrimp]

Haha! It probably could. Actually, that's a good idea, good old retro gaming. It's probably the only thing that machine will be useful for, I've got Vista running on my laptop and every time I try to run Doom everything goes psychadelic, it hates DOS so bad. And DOSbox proved useless.

Doom's been ported to windows many times: there's chocolate Doom made as close as possible too classic Doom and other, more advanced ports like ZDoom, that add lot of features like mouselook, jumping, translucency, framerate cap removal and ton of another stuff. You don't need to fiddle with DOSbox if all you need is Doom

Haha! It probably could. Actually, that's a good idea, good old retro gaming. It's probably the only thing that machine will be useful for, I've got Vista running on my laptop and every time I try to run Doom everything goes psychadelic, it hates DOS so bad. And DOSbox proved useless.

Doom's been ported to windows many times: there's chocolate Doom made as close as possible too classic Doom and other, more advanced ports like ZDoom, that add lot of features like mouselook, jumping, translucency, framerate cap removal and ton of another stuff. You don't need to fiddle with DOSbox if all you need is Doom

ClassicDoom3 = best ever. Knee Deep In The Dead redone in the Doom3 engine. All done by a group of modders. The cutscenes are agonizingly bad, but the gameplay is spot on and true to the original.

Haha! It probably could. Actually, that's a good idea, good old retro gaming. It's probably the only thing that machine will be useful for, I've got Vista running on my laptop and every time I try to run Doom everything goes psychadelic, it hates DOS so bad. And DOSbox proved useless.

Doom's been ported to windows many times: there's chocolate Doom made as close as possible too classic Doom and other, more advanced ports like ZDoom, that add lot of features like mouselook, jumping, translucency, framerate cap removal and ton of another stuff. You don't need to fiddle with DOSbox if all you need is Doom

Oh wow, I had no idea. That's awesome, I will totally give that a go. I've just moved the crap machine into my room and I'm about to wipe it of everything.
I hope someone did a remake of Lemmings.

It's amazing that old shitty computer starts to shine again with Ubuntu Linux. I have two laptops and the 2002 one using Lubuntu and the newer with Ubuntu 64-bit. 10.04 is the first version that everything works and not missing Windows anymore to do some things.

And for all you digital artist types, there's a Studio version too: http://ubuntustudio.org/

Free. (As in beer, as in speech).

For me 10.04 has been the first version where NOTHING works. Well, atleast concerning any audio and thus the Studio programs. It was a struggle to get even music playing. I think it's because things in the sound arcitechture got changed a few times. I heard they can't decide what device driver (proper term?) to use mainly with audio in Ubuntu.

I'm using 32-bit though. My dad told me the 64-bit was having problems with audio.

I'm about to inherit a really old, shitty computer from my brother who doesn't want it anymore, I was thinking of replacing XP with Ubuntu to improve performance but if it's more hassle than it's worth I don't think I'll bother. I have a bunch of friends have offered their odds and ends of parts for me to upgrade it a bit so hopefully after that performance won't be too much of an issue. Right now it's got a 20gb hard drive and i think 256mb RAM so it's not even going to be useful just to store and playback media. I have no idea what I'll use it for, but I love computers and it was free!

Aye, but harddisk and memory are cheap so if you up the diskspace a bit (I think you should be able to get a 1TB drive for around 50 euros these days?) it can be very useful for storing and streaming music and video and whatnot (if you do connect it to a network).

For me personally, it's always a bit of a hobby project as well, but I don't now if that's something you'd enjoy. Try Gentoo if you're up for a challenge

I'd certainly recommend giving Ubuntu a try, especially on dated hardware it can really be good. Have a look at the various variants too:
Ubuntu (using Gnome, bit Mac-like), Kubuntu (using KDE, bit Windows-like), Xubuntu (using XFCE, more lightweight), Lubuntu (using LXDE, even ore lightweight) and so on.

It's amazing that old shitty computer starts to shine again with Ubuntu Linux. I have two laptops and the 2002 one using Lubuntu and the newer with Ubuntu 64-bit. 10.04 is the first version that everything works and not missing Windows anymore to do some things.

And for all you digital artist types, there's a Studio version too: http://ubuntustudio.org/

Free. (As in beer, as in speech).

For me 10.04 has been the first version where NOTHING works. Well, atleast concerning any audio and thus the Studio programs. It was a struggle to get even music playing. I think it's because things in the sound arcitechture got changed a few times. I heard they can't decide what device driver (proper term?) to use mainly with audio in Ubuntu.

I'm using 32-bit though. My dad told me the 64-bit was having problems with audio.

I'm about to inherit a really old, shitty computer from my brother who doesn't want it anymore, I was thinking of replacing XP with Ubuntu to improve performance but if it's more hassle than it's worth I don't think I'll bother. I have a bunch of friends have offered their odds and ends of parts for me to upgrade it a bit so hopefully after that performance won't be too much of an issue. Right now it's got a 20gb hard drive and i think 256mb RAM so it's not even going to be useful just to store and playback media. I have no idea what I'll use it for, but I love computers and it was free!

Aye, but harddisk and memory are cheap so if you up the diskspace a bit (I think you should be able to get a 1TB drive for around 50 euros these days?) it can be very useful for storing and streaming music and video and whatnot (if you do connect it to a network).

For me personally, it's always a bit of a hobby project as well, but I don't now if that's something you'd enjoy. Try Gentoo if you're up for a challenge

I'd certainly recommend giving Ubuntu a try, especially on dated hardware it can really be good. Have a look at the various variants too:
Ubuntu (using Gnome, bit Mac-like), Kubuntu (using KDE, bit Windows-like), Xubuntu (using XFCE, more lightweight), Lubuntu (using LXDE, even ore lightweight) and so on.

Yeah, I was thinking of doing that. Hard drive is not a huge issue as I keep all my movies and things on an external anyway, and a friend of mine offered me one he didn't need anymore that was about 140gb or something like that. I'd had this in mind as a project for awhile now actually, I just have to get the parts together. It'll be good, I loved IT in high school, and if I didn't have such a huge hole in my heart only music could fill, I probably would've done a degree in computer science or something.

As for OS, I'll probably end up doing a clean install of XP and seeing how things go considering I'm so used to the Windows platform. If it needs a performance kick, or I'm feeling bored, I'll probably look into Ubuntu and its other variants and trying them out, see how I go.