[sf-lug] distro for an ageing laptop

[Michael Paoli]

Well, various folks have already [generally usefully :-)] chimed in, but
for what it's worth, I'll put in my $0.02 worth or so.

I'd generally recommend Debian.  Though it may be quite possible to find
a distribution, or customized installation/configuration thereof for
older, and generally low(er) resource computer, Debian is much better
supported that some specialized low resource distribution that few folks
actually install.

Debian also supports more architectures than any other distribution,
including still well supporting "i386" ... which - although that no
longer runs on Intel 80386 (notably due to gcc kernel compiler & kernel
source issues), if I'm not mistaken, it does still run on Intel 80486.
Many other distributions not only support far fewer architectures,
but of those supporting Intel 80386 and successor architectures, many
have deprecated or no longer support 32-bit CPUs or only support certain
later generations of those CPUs (e.g. Pentium, or later, and sometimes
only Pentiums that support certain CPU functions/flags).

I do also have relatively similar older laptop:
IBM ThinkPad T40p TYPE 2373-G1U
Standard/default (minimal as shipped) RAM on those was 512 MiB,
with a maximum capacity of 2 GiB.  Mine just has the 512 MiB - I
never upgraded that.  And these days, do I still use it?
Sort of ... and with Debian, of course.  :-)
Actually, some years back - the hard drive of that laptop was
seriously flaking out - and I wasn't interested in replacing it - per
se.  So ... I eventually set it up using a USB flash drive as its
storage - that model also included USB 2.0 "High Speed" - and with later
BIOS, also supported booting from USB.  And a bit later, I set up
a quite similarly configured virtual machine ... using that exact same
physical storage - so that image could run on ye olde laptop ...
or virtually ... and nowadays I mostly run it virutally, and still
maintain the image ... and sometimes run it physically (I've also had
occasion to run that physical image on another laptop of comparable
vintage and relatively low specs).  So, yep, ... will run physical ...
but mostly I run it virtual these days ... and still do fairly regularly
fire up and maintain that operating system image (and its backups).
Theoretically it's a "fallback" image for my old "spare" laptop ...
though I do also have a hardware issue on that old laptop I haven't
quite gotten around to fixing yet.

Anyway, here's bit of peek at what it looks like under virtual
(qemu-kvm) ... CPU has faster clock than native, but I think otherwise I
configured it quite similar ... but I forget exactly - was some years
ago, so I don't recall exactly how similarly I configured the virtual
CPU.  And the memory on virtual - the same: 512 MiB.

$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 8.7 (jessie)
$ uname -m
i686
$ free
              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        512168     378772     133396       6476      62672     165820
-/+ buffers/cache:     150280     361888
Swap:      4198396          0    4198396
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 7
model name      : Pentium III (Katmai)
stepping        : 3
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 2195.012
cache size      : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de tsc msr mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca  
cmov clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 pclmulqdq x2apic tsc_deadline_timer avx  
hypervisor
bogomips        : 4390.02
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

$

I'm guessing from what I have of the virtual CPU configuration, I
matched it as precisely as qemu-kvm would let me:
# virsh dumpxml ... | sed -ne '/<cpu/,/<\/cpu/p'
   <cpu mode='custom' match='exact'>
     <model fallback='allow'>pentium3</model>
     <feature policy='require' name='avx'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='vme'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='dtes64'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='xsave'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='vmx'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='xtpr'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='est'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='monitor'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='tm'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='pclmuldq'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='acpi'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='tsc-deadline'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='osxsave'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='tm2'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='ht'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='pdcm'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='ds'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='rdtscp'/>
     <feature policy='disable' name='ss'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='pbe'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='ds_cpl'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='x2apic'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='clflush'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='cmov'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='sse2'/>
     <feature policy='require' name='de'/>
     <feature policy='disable' name='pae'/>
     <feature policy='disable' name='pse'/>
     <feature policy='disable' name='pse36'/>
   </cpu>
#

Also worth noting:
If the laptop supports booting off USB, might try Debian Live on there.
That might also be more feasible if it's at least USB 2.0 "High Speed".
But beware the Debian Live desktop may be rather comparatively
large/bloated for low spec hardware.  Might be okay(ish) for less
intensive stuff, but firing up, e.g. Libre Office or some other resource
hungry applications - not so likely to work well.  Even the desktop
environment itself and window manager, can be much more lightweight.
And Debian Live may also require more of RAM than an actual
installation, as Debian Live makes fair use of RAM for some filesystem
stuff in RAM.  So, lots can be trimmed by going with light(er)weight
desktop environment (or skipping that), minimize or avoid resource heavy
apps, go with light(er)weight window manager, or even skip X entirely.
I know I've certainly done some Debian installations mostly or fully
devoid of X.  Anyway, if one does a minimal Debian installation of i386,
that will run fine on a lot of lower spec (older) systems ... at least
within reason.  ;-)

Of course there are also relevant questions, such as:
Exactly what are the hardware specifications?  (Most notably, CPU, RAM,
drive capacity)
What exactly are the objectives?  Notably user and use requirements.

> From: "Alex Kleider" <akleider at sonic.net>
> Subject: [sf-lug] distro for an ageing laptop
> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2017 18:59:22 -0700

>
> I've got an old IBM t41. The current version of Ubuntu no longer runs on it.
> Does anyone have a recommendation as to which distro to use?
> My understanding is that it's a 32 bit version of the Kernel that is needed.
>
> If I can get a serviceable OS running on it I could probably find 'a  
> person in need' who would otherwise not afford a computer.
>
> I'm looking at
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxle/files/Betas/LXLE%20OS/16042-32/lxle-16.04.2-32-beta.iso/download
> and
> have also heard some enthusiasm for mint:
> https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=229
>
> Suggestions or warnings would be appreciated.