X31 and alternatives to XP

[PePeFR]

Hi,

Well, I've been testing XP for several days. It was really awesome and worked really well.
The presence of MS Office, the ability to fire up some good old games, and the presence of IBM tools was really nice.

Anyway, I received 2 days ago the wifi mini-PCI board I was waiting for, and was able to put the X31 online (with XP SP3 to be able to connect to my modern wifi box.

And... well it's not good :
IE is unusable (impossible de connect to most websites), Chrome too. Firefox works quite well but seems to be such a waste of resources that I would need one or 2 more CPUs to cope with it.

Searching for a solution for Chrome, I saw that the XP obsolescence had created problems that seem very hard to overcome...

Linux may be the way (Debian that is, as Ubuntu is less and less compatible with the old machines) ; unfortunately, I would like to continue to have access to the good tools which make the value of such a laptop : web browsing is useful, but if it becomes the only real feature I could use my smartphone instead !

I use Linux for years and I definitely can't compare OpenOffice with MS Office, and I really would like to be able to use the old Windows games...

I'm still thinking about it and it doesn't look so simple !

[RealBlackStuff]

https://windowsreport.com/browsers-old-computer/

[mazzinia]

You could dualboot, and so have the best of the 2 worlds, as they would say.
Alternative would be using a 2nd hdd in the ultrabay in the ultrabase , and boot the 2nd os from there

[PePeFR]

https://windowsreport.com/browsers-old-computer/

I tried each one of your list :

Opera -- same issue as Chrome (invalid certificate, each page)
UR Browser -- not XP-compatible, won't download.
K-Meleon -- last stable version dated 2015... But hey, seems to work quite well !!
Midori -- website offline
Pale Moon - Min spec W7/8/10, won't install.
Maxthon -- same issue as Chrome (invalid certificate, each page)
Firefox -- The loop is looped...

I'll give a try to K-Meleon, but for XP the list of available browser is low !

[dr_st]

IE is unusable (impossible de connect to most websites), Chrome too. Firefox works quite well but seems to be such a waste of resources that I would need one or 2 more CPUs to cope with it.

Searching for a solution for Chrome, I saw that the XP obsolescence had created problems that seem very hard to overcome...

On XP/Vista I use an old version of Slimjet - it's a Chromium-based browser, but I think their latest XP-supporting drop is slightly more compatible with the modern web than Chrome's latest XP-compatible drop.
https://www.slimjet.com/en/dlpage_xp.php

Another alternative is Roytam1's New Moon builds (Pale Moon with backported XP/Vista support). Not sure whether their official downloads are.

The advantage of Mozilla-based browsers over Chromium-based browsers is that they have an internal ciphers package, whereas Chromium (and IE) use the system ciphers, which on XP are much more limited compared to a modern OS. This limits HTTPS website compatibility. However, I still prefer Slimjet, because most sites I have a practical need for still work, and it is faster.

[PePeFR]

Ah OK, thanks for the info. I was wondering if Firefox based browsers worked a little better on XP than IE or Chrome ones because of a lack of cipher system or because of a different way of handling it.

[Sudos]

Putting in my 2 cents here. X31 with the 1.7 M, 2GB of RAM and a 128GB PM841 in an mSATA adapter. Also have the no-1802 fix loaded and a Broadcom 43222 in the slot for some nice 2.4/5 N300 fun.
Been running XP flawlessly.

As far as web browsers go, FF 52.9.0ESR is indeed the limit as far as official support goes. You can install New moon which is a Palemoon fork to get a slightly better browsing experience, but not for much.

Honestly if I need to use the internet it's a lot easier to just RDP to another box, or grab any files elsewhere and host them over the network (remember to turn SMB1 on and disable the timer for re-disabling) and just do it that way, or move stuff via flash drive etc.

My big plan is to use this as the replacement for another small laptop I own, a Fujitsu P2120. While that is a nice small machine, it's a Transmeta Crusoe and is slower than molasses because the CPU shares a single PCI lane with EVERYTHING. So far with the X3 ultra base, two batteries of relatively used status and with/without the DVD burner, I can net somewhere around 4-ish hours on both batteries if I'm not doing anything too taxing.

If you have problems with any N cards you throw in, you can install XSupplicant off Sourceforge. It makes quick worn of disabling the XP wireless zero config stuff and substituting its own solution, which is not bad at all and allows me to sanely use the 5GHz band on the card. It also seems to make the CPU overhead go way down especially during situations where I'm uploading ISOs I've ripped from disc to the fileserver.

Linux in recent years has gotten more bloaty with more hardware support and the ability to get away with making flashy UIs a thing, plus baked-in hardware acceleration you can't turn off half the time which relies on newer GPU support. If you were to use Linux in any reasonable amount, it'd need to really be either Debian or Gentoo you'd be installing, and with those, you'd want LXDE as a base or some other minimal environment like i3 or the like, but those usually require lots of config and such.


As far as upgrading the CPU in the X31 for PAE support, there's a couple threads here about such an upgrade, bit it requires buying a BGA chip and having someone solder it in for you if you can't do it yourself. There's only one sane option for power savings to performance, and in doing so you end up with a system that barely ever turns the fan on during full-tilt scenarios. Since I know a few people that are able to do such things, I've been considering buying such a chip to do the modification so that I can take advantage of those benefits, since it also means getting more battery life out of the equation as well.

[fiat682]

i think xp is always the best choice if that notebook has the xp license under it also the thinkpads has lots of utilities and software required for some functions that only work on windows.
also its more original.
btw win xp its still perfectly usable, for browsers there are still some with the best one being mypal wich is always up to date.

[PePeFR]

Still sticking with XP... and well I like it. And I can use Office.

Thanks for Mypal ! Trying !

EDIT : I adopted Mypal. K-Meleon is really fast but many sites are out of reach (YouTube, but also many french newspaper sites).

[blackop]

My X31 has original XP recovery partition on it but i installed Windows 98 on another harddrive. i am dual booting with Win98 + Debian 10. Win98 for old Win9x games and DOS games. it has sound in DOS games unlike T23, quite happy about that. i use Debian mostly to connect IRC in irssi, with Atheros wifi card it is nice to connect to internet.

[Sudos]

it has sound in DOS games unlike T23, quite happy about that.

.....what, does it have sound blaster emulation or something? what does the onboard SoundMAX stuff even sound like in DOS?

[dr_st]

.....what, does it have sound blaster emulation or something? what does the onboard SoundMAX stuff even sound like in DOS?

Probably not in DOS, but in Windows 98. Many soundcards, especially onboard solutions, do not have drivers for pure DOS mode, but have a SB Emulation layer in the Win9x drivers.

[blackop]

it has sound in DOS games unlike T23, quite happy about that.

.....what, does it have sound blaster emulation or something? what does the onboard SoundMAX stuff even sound like in DOS?

i didnt test in pure DOS but in the DOS games i played in Win98 i didnt have problem with sound which same games didnt have sound on T23-Win98

[dr_st]

The T23's sound device does have SB Emulation under Windows 9x, but it's possible that the default driver does not enable it.

[blackop]

The T23's sound device does have SB Emulation under Windows 9x, but it's possible that the default driver does not enable it.

is there a solution for that issue on T23? because i wanna make my T23 win9x and DOS gaming machine if possible. but unfortunately sound doesnt work on some DOS games for example ; The Lost Vikings 1 and Prehistorik 2

[dr_st]

So it works for some, but not for others?

1. See if SB Emulation is available under the sound device/driver settings.
2. For games that have their own setup program (like Lost Vikings) try different options, and make sure the IRQ settings are correct (match the emulated SB setting).

[blackop]

So it works for some, but not for others?

1. See if SB Emulation is available under the sound device/driver settings.
2. For games that have their own setup program (like Lost Vikings) try different options, and make sure the IRQ settings are correct (match the emulated SB setting).

well i didnt test much DOS games but seems working for some or few. i tested Volfied and there was a sound but not on the games i mentioned above.

Sound device appears as on my T23 :
Crystal WDM Audio Codec
provider: Cirrus Logic Inc.
Date: 5-24-2001

driver details :
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\cwawdm.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MM32.VXD (ntkern.vxd)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD

File version: 5.12.01.4032

Resources:
Type: Interrupt Request - Setting: 11
Type: Input/Output Range - Setting: 1400- 14FF
Type: Input/Output Range - Setting: 1080 - 10BF

just that. cant see anything related SB Emulation. actually i dont know how to check and set Emulation setting.

[dr_st]

Volfied uses PC Speaker sound as far as I know...

Try the older driver 4.12.4032 and see if that one has SB Emulation:
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... a21e9x.exe

[blackop]

i will, thanks.

[blackop]

Volfied uses PC Speaker sound as far as I know...

Try the older driver 4.12.4032 and see if that one has SB Emulation:
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... a21e9x.exe

unfortunately v4.12.4032 is causing error while installing about some missing .vxd files and caused blue screen. at the end sound gone that i had to install back v5.xx