| I find that Linux works perfectly well on relatively old computers. A
Pentium-
3 laptop with a Rage128 and a 40GB hard disk will run the latest
distros quite
happily, if you max out the RAM and are careful with which
desktop
environment you choose (hint: not Unity). I had to add a PC-Card for
Ethernet, but that is recognised straight away (unlike the scrabbling required
to find and install a driver under Windows). There's even been a recent
overhaul of the Rage128 graphics driver.
In fact, there are widespread
recommendations to use Linux to recycle old
hardware for less-needy users (such
as young children or the elderly). That
way you get up-to-date software (which
is less susceptible to attack) but the
hardware can still support it.
For
"power" users like myself, the older hardware may have limitations that
are
unacceptable for a particular use case, but that's nothing to do with the
OS
any more. However, I find that Linux' performance is not affected as
seriously
by a mechanical hard disk as Windows is (partly due to caching and
I/O
scheduling that actually works, and partly due to not fragmenting every
single
file as it is written). This can help by letting you spend money on more
directly useful parts of the system (CPU, RAM) first. If you find yourself
regularly searching large source trees, then an SSD is still a good investment
-
my office workstation would certainly benefit from this if there was a budget
for it.
The practical upshot is that, rather like a Mac, a Linux box will
continue to be
suitable for whichever job it does, even if you upgrade the
software on it. Just
stay clear of software (such as "fancy" desktop
environments) that exceed it's
capabilities.
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