Ron & Sox

No doubt this will seem a ridiculous question to most (if not all here) but I really want to know so I figured I'd just sign up and ask! Why are the v22 RON and v22 SOX so different in size if they are the same version?

I recently resurrected an older laptop I had abandoned years back because I preferred the sound on my current one, but beggars cannot be choosers and productivity is of the essence, so since the current one has slowed to a near leg-less crawl—perogative has been flexed and "no-legs" has been shelved in favour of "ear-cracker".

Why the ramble? Well, said ear-cracker has v17 on it, which I had forgotten about - and have been so very delighted by these past few days that I kick myself for not having paid closer attention to it's speed and beauty when I first encountered it.

Went searching through our DVD graveyard for my original install disc from back then in order to vaporize no-legs' current condition and replace it with v17 but having changed residence 4 times since, I've so far located a whole lotta everything but ... of course.

So I Ooggled v17, landed here in LastOS and now I am lusting after the last of the last so to speak - v22 - but do indeed wonder, what is the difference between the two? And if I could choose, which should I choose?

 

Thanxmuch for the info - while I'm not a high end PC user by any stretch I've always been a bit OCD about less is more. I was extremely reluctant to "upgrade" to XP from 98 way back when because it struck as me as overly busy and bloated - I rather liked being able to shape 98 to my preferences without too much hassle (I'm not very tech literate but learned what I needed online and certainly modified fearlessly lol) But of course times change and there came a point when I had no choice but to change along, so I learned some "tricks" to bend XP to my liking. It's been a long time but I think I actually came across LastXP in fact because I was hunting for a way to get rid of IE altogether back then.

I did try Vista for awhile, but it seemed like you had to jump through 40 hoops to do any simple little thing on it and I was just angry all the time when I had to try getting any work done on that one! I've been told to switch to a Linux flavour, and I did try a few live versions a long while back, but I'm simply not tech savvy enough to be productive on them, I end up spending all day reading and learning how to make simple(r) adjustments - I haven't been able to grasp and hang onto the computer language skills needed to be competent with Linux.

So here I sit happily with my old XP machine(s), knowing I will of course have to change - and likely soon - but I don't want to give up the old programs I am used to, particularly my graphics which is beyond ancient by today's standards but it's the one I know and the one I can actually get stuff done in. The problem now is I can't work in it and be online at the same time anymore because it seem like Firefox and XP no longer work well together. My old system used to be blazing fast (for me) but slowed to crawl when online, I trouble-shot that for months with no success. When I got this one up and running it seemed like I was back to the old speediness I had been missing, the first couple days were brilliant! But after having been using it for a few days I can see it too is now slowing down online an no doubt will be crawling in short order.

I plan on keeping LastXP on at least two machines, and would like to ask some technical questions, I'm not sure if I should do it here in this thread or start another elsewhere though, please advise - and thank you again for the awesome OS and the info

 

Appreciate the link bphlpt, I actually did try to install Pale Moon on my original laptop with XPsp3 but kept getting errors and never could get it to install. Spent a week down and up grading various (like 5 different) Firefox version clean installs trying to get it back to "the good old days" when it worked well for me but it simply made no difference no matter what. What exactly makes it so unusable with XP now? I don't understand why if it worked well before it suddenly can no longer? I get that they make changes with every new version but why, if you have an older original version that worked flawlessly will it stop working properly on the same system/setup? Minus the security that new versions offer of course, I get that you shouldn't use old versions because they patch new ones etc. but if one accepts the security risk in using the older one I don't really get why it doesn't still work like it used to in all other respects. And yes I have done malware, virus checks etc - there are no issues there, it's Firefox constantly using 92-100% cpu - even when I open just one tab now. And I've done all the safemode, add-on, extension troubleshooting from every possible angle (I don't use add-ons, and have 0 extensions fwiw, still sucks in safemode too).

While it could be that the plain XP machine is in need of a OS reinstall, it doesn't explain why this perfectly clean LastXP machine which has been out of use and off-net for a very long time, and which spent the past 2 1/2 very fast and fine days behaving perfectly and as expected, is now showing the exact same symptoms (browser bog-down constant 80-100% cpu) as the one I was using daily all these years? Ear-splitter here still has it's original FF v37 installed, and was working speedily with (only15-30% cpu) and half a dozen tabs open, the only thing it didn't do was youtube vids because of the html5 thing now, but I only play those for my bird so not really a priority. I'd just like to be able to have more than 4 browsing tabs open without freeze-up. Heck there are 2GB ram in here and I used to open a dozen tabs with my 98 machine and only 512mb ram? I just don't get it. I read and read and read and try all the suggestions but it seems like unless a person is willing to dump 4-5 hundred $$ into a machine with 16GB ram you're sol. There's something seriously wrong with that. I plan to try a Pale Moon install on here but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Mostly just wondering a few technical things: this v17 according to system is only XPsp2 so would installing sp3 be worthwhile? detrimental? I ask because after the earlier hunt I'm not sure 'll be able to find the original discs/drivers for this laptop and I don't want to wreck it since it's currently more functional than my go-to. Is there a way to save the drivers off a laptop after they've been installed on it? I know you can't save installed programs by copying file folders but is it possible with hardware drivers?

That brings me to my other question - years ago I read about cloning a hdd to save time & frustration with repeating clean installs, I'd like to do that for this machine and for "no-legs" once it gets a clean install and I find a decent browser for it because I want to be able to use these for as long as possible, even if it's only offline - it's been years since I've read up on it though and no doubt the process is now either far simpler or far more convoluted than it once was - any recommendations? Last time I read about it was pre USB sticks and I didn't have a DVD burner so that ought to date me lol - I know there is info online, the problem is there is too much of it with too many differing opinions - I would so greatly appreciate a point in the right direction to simple instructions on how to copy this exact setup onto another drive so that I could just plug the new one back into the machine and be on my way - is that possible, or is it actually more complicated and only my wishful thinking?

I've a few other (shorter) tech questions but will save them for another time, work calls so it's time for FF to jack up my blood pressure for a few hours!

 

Did you try portable versions of browsers?

Also, given that portables are made on XP platform, shouldn't they be ideal to run on XP even in their newer versions, those that wouldn't run when installed on XP OS? I understand that FF had issues with using memory and or CPU (we talking about uptodate machines) which they likely solved by now. I routinely use FF with 20+ tabs open and I keep PC/FF running for days, even weeks on end.

 

No I have not tried a portable version, just this one version I found when Oogling "best browser for xp" after a very frustrating week trying to get Firefox to work again. I am super envious of your 20 tabs TorX!! One of the reasons I covet so many tabs at once are long developing "senior moments" - these last few years my memory has been more of an issue than I am accustomed to. I used to print everything out but that soon became unmanageable, then I bookmarked everything under the sun that I read for info, but I've racked up thousands now and have a really hard time remembering what I filed stuff under. I started spending so much time searching through my own notes that I just got in the habit of opening more and more pages, and keeping them all open all day - I, unlike technology am getting far less proficient as time passes! Self taught, I used to build towers for family members, take laptops apart and resurrect the dead as a hobby - 20 years on and now I can barely remember the basics. It's very frustrating trying to track down and re-read things I used to know off-hand, especially these days as I'm now searching for info on an "obsolete" system - there is 10x as much stuff to wade through but only 1/10 of it helps my setup/situation.

If it wasn't for the internet and forums/communities like this I'd have been at a 100% loss long ago, I am not blessed with computer literate young folks (or even old folks haha) in my family or circle of friends - I was the one they used to ask such things of, nowadays I have to beg off as it has not only gone beyond my understanding it seems my ability to absorb and retain is declining steadily. I'm not deterred yet though, as long as I don't do enough damage mucking about to effect a boot failure which would keep disconnect me from the internet I'm pretty confident I can read my way out of most situations!

I will definitely try a portable, I gather by the name that means I will run it off a usb stick like a live Linux? Have you a link you could share? I went to the link for Pale Moon above to get another copy of that browser in case I had a bum download on my first one, but to be honest I didn't know what to click on to download, I saw a link for a Basilisk Test Binary - has the name been changed from Pale Moon to Basilisk perhaps? Is Test Binary computer lingo for program? I was always a much better hardware mechanic than a student of software...

 

There is now an installer for that!