I've tried Longhorn 4074 but it being the unstable-ish OS it is, it decided to disconnect me from the Internet every few seconds as well as the realtek ALC888 drivers not being able to be installed.

Soo... any suggestions?

I can do Windows XP, any good Longhorn build that'll accept these drivers as well as WPA authentication, Mac OS X Snow Leopard or any Linux distro except Ubuntu.

Don't give me:
Windows Vista - I had negative experiences, don't want them again.
Windows 7 - No ISO for it. I do have a product key lying round somewhere
Ubuntu - lags quite a lot, I think... just not Ubuntu 11.x or 12.x please.
OS X Lion - No ISO/disc for it.

EDIT: CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP SORRY HERE ARE THE SPECS. Didn't think at the time ;~;

Intel GMA 950 (82945G Express Chipset)
1GB RAM
Realtek ALC888 HD Audio
160GB Hard Drive
OSes tried: Windows Vista, Ubuntu, Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac OS X, AROS (failed ones were live USBs of Android and Chromium OS, yes Hexxeh's build)

Here you go:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/download- ... oad-links/

It's not illegal. Simply download the ISO of the copy of windows you have a key for, burn it, and use your key during the installation. It works, I did it when my old Windows 7 DVD got too scratched up to use.

If your key is upgrade only, use this trick:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/clean-ins ... ard-drive/

Laptop specs? Any reason you can't download an ISO image of Windows 7 or OS X?

Any specs would be nice. You may as well try MS-DOS, since nothing else seems to work for you...

Lol'd at that....

Who didnt?

I'll try MS-DOS since this computer can't run any games at all. And people thought that Macs can't play games.
Anyway, posted my specs. Sorry about that.

You could try AROS. I ran that for a while on my an old computer and it worked pretty well.

He already tried AROS.

Did you try Windows 8 on this system?

From having used it before, many, many times now, I have always found Windows 8 to be a very fast and extremely well designed operating system, one that doesn't even need the newest, most powerful system in the world to run properly, and given its speed enhancements, it should generally run fine on your system, even if it's not the fastest system on the market (either when it was released/purchased or now).

It's also very reliable, so really, I would definitely try that, before giving up hope completely.

Chrunchbang Linux or Gnome Linux?

I tried AROS, the only thing setting me back is the Realtek8180 drivers that the OS uses for my NETGEAR WG111v3 adapter.
If it worked I would've stuck with AROS all the way.

If Linux it's ok for you, you can give openSUSE KDE a try...

Why didn't XP work? Looks like a perfect system for it...

Tweak it a little bit in nLite and it should run like a charm!

My Athlon XP laptop with 512 MB RAM boots XP in 5 seconds!

nLite == FAIL.
I suggest you not to try Longhorn, you won't get HD Audio to work. Neither WLAN.
Vista is not the best for a netbook.
7 is no good.
The choice of 8 is up to you.
Jolicloud is a cloud-based OS (an OS with a web browser as a desktop environment). Not the case.
I wouldn't go for OS X.
SuSE, Mandriva, or Arch (Arch is a pain in the neck to install), or any other Linux distro with a lightweight desktop environment (GNOME 3/XFCE or even LXDE) should do fine.

It did, actually. I nLited it with an automatic product key and SATA drivers, installed it.
The main problem is finding the right drivers and stuff. Sometimes the installer will blurt out that it's not compatible.

Also, I'm going to look for chipset drivers so I can get proper AHCI and USB working.

The main thing with XP: The computer was pretty much running Vista, and I've already told BA my negative experiences. XP is getting quite old now, and its starting to show its age.

@CaptainPeanut
I've tried Vista, I've had too many problems during my experiences on my Compaq and Packard Bell. In fact, my Packard Bell recently died a few weeks ago, and now we've got a Lenovo all in one with a touchscreen that can play Portal 2!
I'm not using a netbook. This PC is from 2006-2008, looking at the year the BIOS was released.

How about go a little strange and install Haiku or eComStation? No one else uses it, not sure about driver support, but hey, you never know.

You also could go strange and run CP/M or even use an emulator and make it a Commodore 64 lol.

I know you had some trouble with Vista and 7, but try one of the starter versions.

>Windows Starter
No. It will have the exact same problems as normal Vista and 7 and is much more restricted; in the case of Vista you can't open more than three programs at a time.

My sister's netbook has Windows 7 Starter, and it is slow. At least it's one of those Acer netbooks where it comes bundled with an Android installer.

So... I'm going to choose between Windows XP, SuSE, Ubuntu, Mandriva or Arch. Still taking suggestions.

Well.....tell us when you choose.

Use nLite on XP, or choose Ubuntu. That's what I think.

You should disable Prefetch while tweaking on nLite. It will never boot more than approx. 6 seconds like my does.

Yeah. What he said. lol