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pengyou · 02-14-2007, 09:13 AM

I have a Dell Latitude CPI, one of the last ones so it will hold up to 512 mb of ram. It is not my main computer - I have a desktop to do the more robust things in life but I use the laptop when I need to be mobile or just want to be creative in a comfortable part of my home. What I like about it is that the tv out seems to be completely hardware driven - does not need cpu time, allows 2 batteries to be installed at one time and has batteries that can still be bought new for about $50. I use the notebook to: chat (icq, yahoo, msn, skype), listen to music, watch dvd's, surf, read news, do simple word processing and spreadsheet stuff, upload pics from my digi cam, etc. It has a multitude of uses but seldom requires big files.

I want to get the best performance out of this pc that I can. Which OS would you suggest? I will willing to consider, xp, 98se and linux. The only drawback I have found to the hardware is that the video card only has 4 mb of ram. Is there someway I can use memory from the motherboard for this function? While I do not have any experience with linux ( i am willing to learn) i slightly favor that because the penguin software seems to have smaller footprints which would give me more use out of my 12 gb hard drive.

Any suggestions?

02-14-2007, 09:13 AM	#1 (permalink)
pengyou Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 152 OS: xp & 98	How can I get the most out of my P2? I have a Dell Latitude CPI, one of the last ones so it will hold up to 512 mb of ram. It is not my main computer - I have a desktop to do the more robust things in life but I use the laptop when I need to be mobile or just want to be creative in a comfortable part of my home. What I like about it is that the tv out seems to be completely hardware driven - does not need cpu time, allows 2 batteries to be installed at one time and has batteries that can still be bought new for about $50. I use the notebook to: chat (icq, yahoo, msn, skype), listen to music, watch dvd's, surf, read news, do simple word processing and spreadsheet stuff, upload pics from my digi cam, etc. It has a multitude of uses but seldom requires big files. I want to get the best performance out of this pc that I can. Which OS would you suggest? I will willing to consider, xp, 98se and linux. The only drawback I have found to the hardware is that the video card only has 4 mb of ram. Is there someway I can use memory from the motherboard for this function? While I do not have any experience with linux ( i am willing to learn) i slightly favor that because the penguin software seems to have smaller footprints which would give me more use out of my 12 gb hard drive. Any suggestions?