Later operating system install

No, get a new PC. It is not worth putting any money into that system. The most you can put on it is Win ME and I wouildn't recommend that.

You can get a decent PC that will run Vista and the new Win 7 for under $500.

That computer is finished wrt Windows OS'es.
If you wanted something to play with you could put a version of linux on it.

I agree with both previous posts.

First off beings your current PC is lacking what it needs to run much more of an OS' I wouldn't put money into especially for ME because ME *cough cough* blows. And putting 2k would be an improvement but not worth the money....having said this Linux is a great idea, you can get many versions of Linux OS' that are freeware and its fun to play with...I am unsure of whether or not its something you'd be interested in but Linux is defintely different and it would only take the effort and no money....

I suggest not putting money into this PC. It's so low grade its not worth it, Linux would be a great idea (granted your into changing it up a bit)....

Rick

Thanks to all of you for your responses.

Do you think Linus would work better with the current internet than the Windows 98 SE?

I have 2 computers, so could play with one of them.

This isn't true at all, he could install Linux for free.

With an old machine? Absolutley. You'd really have to do research to find out what's best, but I would say get Xubuntu, it's Ubuntu (which is very easy to use) only it's running the Xfce desktop environment that's built for speed; it doesn't come with all the goodies that Gnome and KDE come with.

My roommate and I had our music server, which was a Pentium II with 128MB of memory, we put Linux on there (minus X) and it ran like a charm.

Yes it IS true! As much as I respect Linux it is still not an OS for the masses. There is still enough of a learning curve as well as its inability to run some mainstream PC software to not make it reasonable for people not willing to go through the learning curve. If the OP wants to give it a try, then yes, by all means go ahead and do so. Its the only OS that might be appropriate.

I stand by my recommendation to not put any money into such a machine. As you point out, Linux can be installed for free.

I have looked at the Linux and xubntu sites, but all I see available is download, and the estimated time is like 43 hours, so that is not practical for me.

There's going to be a learning curve with any OS. We're all going to have to learn Windows 7 when support for XP ends this coming fall. And to note, Linux isn't as far behind as it used to be, the only two issues every user will notice with Linux is limited accelerated graphics (it's decent, but not every card is supported) and audio support altogether.

Regardless, if this guy wants to use this old machine then Linux is his only practical option just because it's fast and free.

43 hours? You must be using a dial-up connection. Even downloading through HTTP with broad-band cable has taken me no more than two hours in the past, and less than 20 minutes if I used bit torrent.

You can try moonOS (download the LXDE edition), it's just Ubuntu built with LXDE as it's desktop environment.