That's what i was thinking too. Even the newest debian releases support 32bit PCs and Debian is (very) similiar to Ubuntu (because Ubuntu is based on Debian).
Debian over Ubuntu every day. If you ever run into a problem Debain has better documentation. Ubuntus documentation changes by the release. Also other distros wikis generally works on Debian, but not always on Ubuntu
yes, and now you need to check they have some commercial bs like "military grade" materials and construction or something like that because if not they're made of utter crap now
Right? The only keyboards on semi-modern laptops I can bear are professional line-up Thinkpads. Stuff like consumer HP laptops have SUCH terrible keyboards
@lepeepersauvage I've used those terrible keyboards so much that I've gotten used to them... I can't be bothered getting out an old dusty keyboard from the depths of my tech junk drawer so I'm just gonna bare with the cheap junk of a keyboard on my laptop
Actually, LXQt desktop is notorious for doing exactly this on basically every distro you install it on. You get exactly one usable session post install, and then after reboot is broken.
@@PPKNexus Oddly nough i have never had this issue with it, the only reason i stopped using the old lubuntu versions is because of how dated it feels to use, sometimes installing software and having to battle in order to find it since it wouldn't automatically appear on the start menu. So usually i ended up using xfce based distros back then and it was still super snappy
@@PPKNexus actually this is LXDE, LXQt was introduced in Lubuntu 18.10. Anyway LXQt or LXDE has nothing to do with EXT4-fs error / filesystem corruption...
@@darkiceywolf2953 Yes. But it's going to be in the install media only. Upgrading from Debian 12 32bits to Debian 13 32bits will still be possible. It's Debian 14 where they will no longer allow even upgrading the 32bits version.
@darkiceywolf2953 debian 13 (which will release in 2025) will still support 32 bit architectures, and will drop i386 (though that term actually hasn't referred to the actual intel i386 for more than a decade now) 32 bit CPUs, i686 CPUs like pentium M on this laptop should be fine. Either way debian 12 is gonna be supported till 2025.
I have Lubuntu (a lightweight official build of Ubuntu) installed on an AMD Turion 64 X2 system from 2007. It works pretty well, especially after a 4 GB RAM upgrade, though 2 GB would have worked as well.
Had the same Broadcom issues on similar age Dell Vostro, Broadcom use proprietary drivers (non open-source) so are not included in distros. Seemed an easy fix after a little research, and so I downloaded the necessary files. A card swap avoids the whole issue, well done.
Pretty nice video ngl I was jokingly thinking through the whole thing "install gentoo" but in all seriousness it's nice to see ubuntu 16.04 running on it, reminds me of my first moments using linux. Keep up the good work man
As for the freezing with RUclips, I think it was more you getting stuck in Swap after you ran out of RAM. That being said, I'd like to see Puppy Linux on this thing.
I use to install Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell (adds the Windows 7 Start button) and it worked fine for PCs having dual-core and 4GB of RAM. Windows 8.1 is known for its lower power usage, fast startup and a lower use of RAM than Windows 7 or Windows 10 and it had support until last year.
lubuntu, it's meant for older hardware and uses almost NOTHING resource wise you can run it on 512mb of ram and it will only use like 280mb it is extremely lightweight
Just discovered your channel while i was browsing random yt vids, i really enjoyed this video and you deserve more subs, keep going with the amazing content and also congrats for 1K subs, i also subbed to your channel since i'm looking for more content :)
try it on VM and always get graphic glitch every repository and system update and sometimes the window freeze for no reason, (i still prefer linux over this)
Honestly base debian would be a much better experience with this hardware, with ironically more updated packages due to them still maintaining a 32 bit release (for now). Aside from that stuff like puppy linux which are meant for this kinda hardware would also be good. DEs like gnome or kde expect 4 gb ram and more importantly a competent 64 bit CPU to run well, especially KDE with all it's fancy effects (which was probably why kubuntu was a terrible experience even with lower ram usage), so sticking to lxqt or xfce is a good idea if you wanna use a full DE, there are far more good options on the window manager side of things.
AntiX is probably the defacto optimized 32-bit Linux distro and is Debian based. Netbsd will probably never drop 32-bit support and has a plethora of DE's and window managers that are super lightweight. You can have lxqt (like lubuntu), but there is a ton of even more lightweight options for even older computers (think 486). So you can choose your level of performance/eye candy. There is a ton of emulators retroarch and mednafen for example, so you could have dedicated system for retro gaming. The software suite is more mature than Haiku on 32-bit, otherwise Haiku would be a great choice, but the 32-bit software suite is very limited.
@@aaaalex1994 pentium M's are nice 32 bit chips. :) I think Slackware might still continue with the 32 bit support even if Debian will drop it at some point.
@@spookyghost3209I know a lot of people hear the word "fascist" and think of it as a generic insult, but the maintainer of antix is from greece where there is an actual fascist party. Regardless of if you agree 100% with his politics, I think its fair to give him a pass given his circumstances.
My mom had a similar dell Inspiron 1014 it uses Linux mint xfce and still works well it's only used for data transfer DVD files to USB drives and few browsing on chromium.
Void Linux with a light desktop like xfce seems to be the best option for old pc's if you want a light fast distro with more cutting edge and casual user mentality than Debian, it also still supports 32-bit.
Or Devuan, which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" and choose any famous DE, I think LXQt will be a better choice than Xfce for his 32-bit laptop. Also, this distribution has an almost identical Debian package base, which is a significant advantage over Void.
Void documentation is a major turn off for me though. Still, it's great to have it combined with a window manager like i3, but it's a big step up in difficulty compared to Ubuntu, Debian or any of the other popular distros
I was running Ubuntu 20 on a dual core Lenovo laptop. When I tried to upgrade to 22 it crashed mid upgrade and i had to reflash my bios. Havent used Ubuntu since.
@@BilisNegranot sure honestly. But when it rebooted none of the firmware was working properly. No keyboard, touch pad, DVD drive or HDMI working after it happened. I had to use a different PC to track new copies of all of it before the PC would even boot properly again. I've never seen anything like it.
If you have ancient hardware Ubuntu is as bloated as Win 10, I should know as I have a 2011 AMD EEE PC netbook and the only thing I found that would run snappy was Sparky Linux. With Sparky I can run 720p video with only a few dropped frames while Ubuntu chugged worse than Win 10 did.
I guess the best current beginner friendly option for a 32 bit machine would be Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), or if you feel more adventurous Debian itself
Congratulations on an incredibly well maintained nearly 20 year old laptop… as on Jan 2025. And on start of your Linux journey. I have a 2006-7 Dell Latitude D520, 2 GB Ram, Intel 1.7 Ghz processor but 64 bit dual core. Hardly as well maintained btw… In case you haven’t tried- changing hard drive and replacing with a SATA SSD.. biggest TLC upgrade you can get for these beauties. A nice cleanup of insides- fan + re apply thermal paste for cpu are other two upgrades I made. As for Linux distributions recommendations, there have been plenty of reccos in comments. 😊 but another vote for Debian. Best wishes!
I looked up the Inspiron 1300 and it has an IDE HDD. As SSDs for IDE aren't widely available, you will either need another IDE HDD or SATA HDD/SSD with adapter. You have wifi 3/G internally, so try a Linux compatible usb 2.0 wifi adapter that is somewhat more modern (4/N 300/600, possibly 5/AC if your kernel supports it) to speed up internet access some. Enjoyed the video and good luck 😀!
Lubuntu likely ran much faster than Ubuntu 16.04 because Ubuntu 16.04 uses Unity which was really heavy (and discontinued now) and Lubuntu uses LXDE (lxqt? i forget).
The biggest problem I've always had with Linux on old computers is the graphics. Drivers aren't an issue, but opengl support is since the newer opengl support either wasn't around yet or the GPU focused more on directx.
The weakest link in those old laptops is the hard drive. The best way to improve the speed is to swap out the spinning disk with a cheap 250G SSD, and if it will support a memory upgrade, maxing out the RAM, which should be cheap on eBay nowadays. Then, at least it will boot and load programs quicker. I have an old Acer laptop in my shop that I use to occasionally look up schematics and such on my NAS, or browse the webs for info on whatever I'm working on, and it's fine for that. I think I put Lubuntu on it, but it might be Ubuntu MATE.
You can get the "propper" graphic drivers for that laptop on windows 10, using modded drivers usually shell or phdgd. For older chipsets like the gma x3100, gma950, they are also avaiable. Only requiring to disable driver siginature verification, installing on safe mode, than re-enabling it and rebooting. After that using a registry hack to add all the graphic driver's IDs on a blacklist so windows 10 won't remove the propper drivers. I've done this to a 32bit dell latitutude D420 to run windows 10 with an SSD.
Honestly, given your success with lubuntu, I think your best bet might be to try either Antix, which has XFCE stripped down to the bare essentials to be as lightweight as possible, or the xfce/lxqt version of Debian. And Spiral Linux not only makes downloading Debian with your preferred desktop environment a breeze, but it also is pre-configured to be way more functional out of the box. Kind of like Ubuntu, except without the bloat. There isn't an LXDE version of Spiral, but you can probably make it work with regular Debian. LXQT is basically LXDE, but switching to the QT framework that Kubuntu/plasma uses instead of the GTK framework. You can think of it like a sequel or spiritual successor, but it might not be as lightweight.
I searched for 32-bit Linux distros and found that pure Debian, without Ubuntu on top, makes for a more lightweight desktop environment. This would allow applications to run quicker by not overloading resources so easily. This is the best you're going to get, yet still easy to use, install, and update software as needed.
Hey! Thanks for your great input of linux distro's on that I can see how they run on old hardware. I can now get my old Toshiba back in service. Mint is not bad but it's a bit sluggish on hardware from 2010. Great demo! thankyou...
The thing that makes Lubuntu run that smooth is LXDE ,which you can install on any modern machine and it still uses only around 411 mb of ram idle.Opensuse is a modern distro that still offers LXDE if you want that
About ubuntu versions, if i'm not mistaken, you can get an older 32bit version and go upgrading through apt up to the latest version. There's just not only a 32bit iso anymore
For using youtube on anything older than 6th gen intel, i would say to use the extention h264ify (or any other that forces h264 on youtube) so you use the older codec that is widelly supported and easier on the CPU, more chunky in filesize, but lighter for playing back.
15:00 kubuntu - settings, display and monitor, compositor - force lowest latency kubuntu - settings, workspace behaviour, animation speed minimum kubuntu - settings, workspace behaviour, desktop effects, turn off most of the unwanted effects
I have a similar vintage dell laptop with Linux Mint can't remember what version, the best Linux version for older laptops was Linux Mint 9 (and the Ubuntu version it was built on). This version should have been maintained for legacy computers. You should try a frugal install of Puppy Linux the Latest Version. It can run most Ubuntu apps from the repository, just trim the fat when installing. Puppy Linux the OS boots and runs in ram. The setup, apps etc are all installed on a frugal file. This is the lightest os you can run, that should work better than Ubuntu, give it a try.
I recommend using Lubuntu. I use a Acer 1810t with 4gb ddr2 and a 128 ssd, plus a driver graphics support. Although, there will be some issues on video playback when on youtube. I also tried LXDE desktop of Debian 12, it works like a charm, other than Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is unusable even though it had drivers installed. But, RUclips uses its gpu for decoding, a very big step up on that. Oh, I'm still very new to Debian, and other linux distros (I already tried fedora, and linux mint.)
In Kubuntu, if you go to the system settings and disable compositing it runs WAY faster on low powered systems because it significantly lowers the number and quality of desktop effects.
You might consider trying the legacy (32 bit) version of Bodhi Linux. I bought an Eee 900A netbook from Best Buy, with 2 GB of RAM and an Atom CPU. It came with Xandros Linux. It had a union file system--easy to go back to original state, but the first update totally filled the tiny SSD. For a while I went with what was then called Easy Peasey Linux, but settled on Bodhi and enjoyed it greatly. Its Moksha windowing environment is a fork of Enlightenment 17.
Debian with a lightweight desktop like LXQT or IceWM would probably be good. If you want to try without systemD, I've had good luck with Devuan and also tried antiX. If you really want to go lightweight, I've used both 2010-2014 era Puppy Linux and TinyCore Linux on even a probably older Pentium IV Dell laptop, as well as Atom-powered netbooks. There are several flavors of Puppy based on different base distros (Debian, etc.). TinyCore Linux's standard release is 32-bit but has a super-minimal desktop. (There's ARM and 64 bit versions too.)
8:33 most likely this is because the ram usage was maxed out. Modern browsers, especially when visiting heavier sites like RUclips, will use quite a bit (possible almost a gig or more in some cases). If you max out the ram and swap then the system would freeze up. Edited: I watched further and it shows you have 2 Gigs in ram and 2 Gigs in swap, which theoretically is enough. However, I also found a reddit post that talked about firefox around version 75 having 2-3 GiB usage when opening RUclips - which shouldn't have freeze because you have a swap, but maybe it wasn't able to offload the memory fast enough(?) 18:15 - shows a checksum fail which probably meant some kind of data corruption happened(?). Wouldn't be a surprise since this has a very old drive.
The Inspiron 1300 was the first laptop I bought from new, loved it at the time. I recently installed Kubuntu 18.04.5 on a Pentium M760 with an mSata SSD in an IDE adapter, was actually pretty good apart from web use which was almost bearable with Falkon.
I suggest one - Linux Mint (mostly stable) You can also dualboot with Clover, gives you a unique feel of dual booting with default boot with time if you wish to jump back to Windows / Linux.
@@couldnt.really.say. exactly, xfce is pretty much optimized for those old laptops in that era of WinXP/Vista so it pretty much gives enough longevity to use it for many tasks.
Arch linux is a stable OS if he wants to use it. However pearOS Nightc0re uses Arch Linux, so it does not matter if he uses Ubuntu or pearOS, he'll still be using linux which goes well with the laptop he's using.
Yeah but then you have to install it lol. As someone who uses Arch I'd gladly just install linux mint over arch any day honestly it's just not worth it unless you REALLY want the flexiblity of arch or you are someone who is already used to arch @@qm8782yt
@@qm8782ytSadly arch linux is hard and not user friendly, in my case setting up drivers for my camera and the bluetooth (and other basic stuff) in my laptop was a pain in the ass
If you have an old machine, I'd recommend Lubuntu If you had Windows 10 on that laptop, then it could likely run Lubuntu. I had a VM with 3gb RAM and 1 core and Lubuntu was not lagging or screen tearing and I could do web browsing on Chromium fine.
You didn't watch the whole video. He was installing Lubuntu 18.04 (which is the latest version that supports 32-bit processors). In general, for older PCs, we recommend Devuan (which still supports 32-bit processors) with the following options during installation: - "LXQt" instead of "Xfce"; - "runit" instead of "sysvinit", which will speed up the process of booting the distribution.
It looks like RUclips's extremely stupid anti-spam system deleted my comment again, so I'm going to duplicate it again with some changes, just in case. You didn't watch the whole video. He was installing Lubuntu 18.04 (which is the latest version that supports 32-bit processors). In general, for older PCs, it is worth choosing Devuan (which still supports 32-bit processors) with the following options during installation: - "LXQt" instead of "Xfce"; - "runit" instead of "sysvinit", which will slightly speed up the process of booting the distribution.
Replace the old aging hdd with either an SSD (using adapters if needed) or a more helathy HDD btw. It will help ALOT with those crashes, freezes and errors that might happen when it swaps to the dying disk
I wrote this comment too fast, but Unity and KDE just a FYI is one of the more demanding Desktop environments, I'd probably go with mate (my love) or lxde/lxqt or xfce. The youtube issue seems weird it shouldn't white screen if bad graphic drivers I'd assume it'd just not play, perhaps you didn't have the codecs installed or grabbing a newer Firefox version would help.
For its integrated graphics card, it is imperative to use the "h264ify" browser extension, which will significantly reduce the CPU load (since its integrated graphics card does not even have hardware support for H264. Otherwise, all the work on video playback could be transferred from the single-core CPU to the GPU in this way).
This was a really well done video. I absolutely laughed my head off when he said he quad booted the machine. I don't think I've ever heard of quad boot before... much less quad booting a nearly 20 year old machine with an 80GB HD! Hahahaha!
nice video) but next time try to use smtube instead of bloated browser version ) or at least free tube. Also , in smtube, in settings dont forget to set quality to 240-360p, it much much fair to this machine time period) i use this laptop for youtube vids up to the early 2010'th... damn i miss time when even pentium 3 and 4 can play youtube, such a shame what it became now
That's a great tip. I think for his 32-bit laptop, for better performance, he should also use the Devuan distribution (almost identical to Debian), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" when installing. DE can also be chosen, I think LXQt will be the best choice for this 32-bit laptop.
@@NAKADZII completely agree, although in fairness such installation and system configuration may be difficult for the average user. At the same time, the result can be beyond praise... I have a T60 on which Devuan linux is installed with openrc, dwm, smtube and many games from 1999 - 2000, everything runs just flawlessly, even in multitasking mode. Even steam worked, although in truth, running it on this machine is more of a gimmick than a full-fledged feature.
this just an idea: install arch Linux in it, using the archinstall command makes it so much easier to install and you can follow tutorials, I recommend installing KDE over other desktop environments because I got KDE to run on a chromebook with insanely good fps for it being 2 gibs and 32 gb storage
Currently, MX Linux (Fluxbox ver would prob be the best for this), Puppy Linux, Antix and a few others still support 32 bit comps. Would love to see your reactions on MX Linux Fluxbox since its really lightweight.
mx is pure magic, I have an old asus ee pc netbook lying around, 1 core intel atom, 2gb ram, it actually works...I do not know what is fundamentally different in this distro but it was the only one that can make youtube watchable at 144p, everything else like puppy or antix is just an ultra lag fest when it comes to videos
I went with Devuan with mine and even got Minecraft 1.16.5 to work. Some cursed hackery is required such as running the windows version of Minecraft through wine because of missing 32 bit binaries but it does work.
@@RKNidinahui666 _"Arch Linux 32 bit поставил бы и пакеты поновее и стабильнее система"_ 😂😂😂 Что ещё расскажешь? 😂 Что Wayland на Intel GMA 900 запуститься и стабильно будет работать?😂😂 Ветка "ceres" (что называют ещё как "unstable") которая даёт свежие пакеты в Devuan будет куда более значительно стабильнее чем этот пресловутый Arch, за которым нужно по кд следить и разбираться чтобы не дай бог что-то сломалось при обновлении пакетов
I had to deal with a similar computer (It was a Toshiba Satellite, but same specs basically - a 1.86GHz Pentium M), and of all the up-to-date modern distros that still supported 32-bit, I found MXLinux and Mageia two of the most promising. Mageia is RPM, a bit Fedora-based, and I found it really beginner friendly (had a GUI for just about anything, and it was relatively well translated too), and MX is Debian based. Went with MX Linux in the end and heard no complaints since then. Note that these things will accept an SSD (there are even mIDE ones if you know where to look), which does help a little, though the CPU is the bottleneck in any scenario.
It was quite interesting to see if Linux indeed save old hardware, which does not seem (always) the case! Probably better than Windows, but everything has it's limitations. Thanks for the video!
If you do another video like this give Bodhi Linux a try. They offer a 32-bit non-PAE version based on Ubuntu 18.04. I was able to install Bodhi on a laptop from 2005 that only had 256mb of ram.
Linux Mint has stopped supporting 32-bit CPUs. The closest distributive that is similar in experience to Linux Mint and supports 32-bit CPUs, in my opinion, is "Q4OS".
Sadly for 32 support you need some of the following distros: debían, Arch, Gentoo. Gentoo even though is the most difficult one, is the best because is source based. I have a pentium-m 1.6Ghz single core with 1.5GiB of RAM. And It work perfectly on kernel 6.12 and everything updated. I recommend you to setup a distcc setup on a beefier computer and use Gentoo on the weak computer. And the environment recommended is i3wm.
The crash on Ubuntu while watching a RUclips video was probably because you ran out of RAM. Most distros don't handle low memory availability situations very well.
Only way I could see you do better is making a minimal install and then do a build your own distro kind of thing. The biggest issue is the lack of 32 bit support. Essentially ANY 64bit CPU would be just massively better, at the point I would prolly do pure Arch and go with basic XFCE and just install nothing unless you are 100% sure you absolutely NEED it.
Making your own distribution with a minimal installation is somewhat futile for non-corporate use, as there are such excellent distributions that support 32-bit CPUs: - Q4OS (Trinity); - Vanilla Dpup; - Devuan (when installing, it is worth choosing "runit" instead of "sysvinit", this will speed up the process of booting the distribution; as for DE, it is "LXQt").
Budget Laptop? This thing looks beefier than mine, I still have a Dell Inspiron E1505 from 2006. I'll have to install lubuntu on mine and see how that works out too.
Instead of the outdated Lubuntu 18.04, which is the latest version for 32-bit CPUs, you should choose the modern "Devuan" distribution (almost indigenous to the "Debian" distribution), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to the light "runit" during installation, which in turn speeds up the launch of the distribution. Also, during the installation, you can choose the DE "LXQt", which is currently used in the current version of Lubuntu - or you can choose "LXDE" if you want to get the "Lubuntu 18.04" experience
I prefer Debian over Ubuntu. When I tried to install Debian on my 2011 Mac Book Pro, it would boot but I had no WiFi (broadcom) and the graphics only worked for the installer. The only way I could use it was from the Shell through SSH from another computer. I couldn’t find any help online but A LOT of people asked the same questions about the WiFi and graphics on Mac Book Pros with no usable help. I finally installed Ubuntu. The graphics and WiFi worked with no problems. Since Raspberry Pi OS has a 64 bit version, they’ve released an intel version for Macs and PCs. It’s only 32 bit for this version. The install failed on the Mac.
If you want to install a modern linux distro for lightweight system, I suggest to avoid systemd based distros. There is a no-systemd web page to check. Also anorger bsd based os would be interesting
I have been using linux for 1.5 years i started with garuda and love it lol, i only copy paste in the terminal when i wanna try something weird that the chaotic aur does not offer, i would recommend it to anyone who has manually modded a game and wants to switch to linux, but i recommend swapping the layout to breeze do get a windows like layout its easy and a preloaded theme
try a debian netinst iso, it’ll let you choose different desktop enviormentw and runs ok on really old hardware with the right desktop environment (lxde, lxqt, xfce) or you can torture it (cinnamon, kde)
For even better performance, it is worth using Devuan (based on Debian), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" when installing. I think LXQt is the best choice for this laptop.
Part of me wanted to see Ubuntu Mate on this laptop for the nostalgia but honestly I think a nice light Debian install with the Mate desktop would be the best, I'm not totally sure Mate would be better the Lubuntu but it's the desktop I started on with Ubuntu. But with Debian you can maybe get a smaller install, idk it might help with speed but might take a little more work
I've seen people saying Debian is better and I believe so too, but it requires more setup for it to get on the same level as Ubuntu and is not as user friendly to setup in that regard.
I think it might still run like crap, but theres a Raspberry Pi OS for desktop. Thats fairly lightweight even on older hardware. It should still work. If you're going to make a 3rd video, its at least worth the shot.
I had a wifi problem with my inspirion 1546. Idk what's with these specific machines and not having wifi but as soon as I put windows on it, it worked fine
I think it's the proprietary Broadcom wifi drivers they use. I've had this problem with a couple of machine and I switched the Wifi chips and it fixed the problem.
I had a laptop that looked just like that (don't know if the same model or one in the same family). I didn't have issues with Ethernet on Ubuntu 10.04 back then. Weird...
In last boot of Lubuntu your disk soiled the bed. Please, at least read what happens on the screan: its not like windows, where your read an error, goes to google it and stuck trying to not yell at your monitor off of suggestions from microsoft forum to reinstall your whole system.
*When I saw the specifications, I knew what happened, that's not a "budget" laptop, it's a lowest-end laptop even by those days standards, the cpu is just for minimal work, like office and basic web surfing*
I have it's bigger brother: the Dell Inspiron 2200 (Dothan 730) with 1.25gb RAM. I had to buy a replacement HDD on eBay. And the battery is long gone. Still works fine, complains about PAE when I use a 32-bit Ubuntu distro. I don't remember if the BCM Air Force Wifi Card works. I use it as a retro computer. 😊
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS would still work on this thing. At least it did in my case for very VERY old PC. With limited resources it can do limited tasks. Maybe there is distros that can squeeze more for current day tech or maybe even install older unsupported versions of Ubuntu to ease things up, but a line for usability must be drawn at some point.
Ubuntu has stopped supporting 32-bit CPUs since version 18.04. Therefore, for his 32-bit laptop, it is worth using the "Devuan" distribution (almost identical to the "Debian" distribution), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to the light "runit" during installation, which in turn speeds up the launch of this distribution from the HDD. Also, during the installation, it is possible to choose the DE "LXQt" (which is the best choice for weak PCs), which is currently used in the latest modern version of Lubuntu
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
older Ubuntu versions are fine tbh, but if you want a modern distro then debian would do the job and it comes with less preinstalled stuff
That's what i was thinking too. Even the newest debian releases support 32bit PCs and Debian is (very) similiar to Ubuntu (because Ubuntu is based on Debian).
Debian over Ubuntu every day. If you ever run into a problem Debain has better documentation. Ubuntus documentation changes by the release. Also other distros wikis generally works on Debian, but not always on Ubuntu
Debian 12 still supports 32bit and with LXQT DE might be a good option or antiX Linux
I second this, debian with LXQT/XFCE would be killer
Hachintosh
These cheap laptops from 20 years ago have better keyboards than $3000 laptops today.
Facts
Fr
yes, and now you need to check they have some commercial bs like "military grade" materials and construction or something like that because if not they're made of utter crap now
Right? The only keyboards on semi-modern laptops I can bear are professional line-up Thinkpads. Stuff like consumer HP laptops have SUCH terrible keyboards
@lepeepersauvage I've used those terrible keyboards so much that I've gotten used to them... I can't be bothered getting out an old dusty keyboard from the depths of my tech junk drawer so I'm just gonna bare with the cheap junk of a keyboard on my laptop
that Lubuntu text was errors reporting a corrupted filesystem, i suspect the hard drive may be dying
Even I got the same error in my old system then I researched on internet and somehow managed to fix that
Actually, LXQt desktop is notorious for doing exactly this on basically every distro you install it on. You get exactly one usable session post install, and then after reboot is broken.
@@PPKNexus Oddly nough i have never had this issue with it, the only reason i stopped using the old lubuntu versions is because of how dated it feels to use, sometimes installing software and having to battle in order to find it since it wouldn't automatically appear on the start menu.
So usually i ended up using xfce based distros back then and it was still super snappy
Usually the drive is dying is not though, running fsck will fix the issue(s).
@@PPKNexus actually this is LXDE, LXQt was introduced in Lubuntu 18.10. Anyway LXQt or LXDE has nothing to do with EXT4-fs error / filesystem corruption...
Lubuntu detected a file system error and asked for a fsck, as in a manual disk checkup.
IIRC OpenSUSE still has 32-bit builds, that are up-to-date. Maybe you could try this one.
Debian and Slackware also have their latest releases in both 32 bits and 64 bits.
@@Ptero4 I heared that debain is consdering droping its x86 platform though.
@@darkiceywolf2953 Yes. But it's going to be in the install media only. Upgrading from Debian 12 32bits to Debian 13 32bits will still be possible. It's Debian 14 where they will no longer allow even upgrading the 32bits version.
@darkiceywolf2953 debian 13 (which will release in 2025) will still support 32 bit architectures, and will drop i386 (though that term actually hasn't referred to the actual intel i386 for more than a decade now) 32 bit CPUs, i686 CPUs like pentium M on this laptop should be fine. Either way debian 12 is gonna be supported till 2025.
@thelakeman2538 so your saying there is more then one varient of the 32 bit.
It'd be really cool to see something like AntiX installed on this laptop because that's where AntiX really shines
antiX does great on a Pentium M. It won't work wonders with video, but it's full featured and very responsive.
Yess AntiX runs great on old computers, ran very smoothly on my Pentium 4 laptop.
@@computercatgaming02 I run antix on a e6600 dual core with 4GBytes of ram. Nothing else seemed to work.
I have Lubuntu (a lightweight official build of Ubuntu) installed on an AMD Turion 64 X2 system from 2007. It works pretty well, especially after a 4 GB RAM upgrade, though 2 GB would have worked as well.
I'm getting Bringus vibes from your channel, I love it. Keep it up!
This was a real good watch, really damn good job! :3
cute pfp :3
@@neobree thank you! :3
Had the same Broadcom issues on similar age Dell Vostro, Broadcom use proprietary drivers (non open-source) so are not included in distros. Seemed an easy fix after a little research, and so I downloaded the necessary files. A card swap avoids the whole issue, well done.
Pretty nice video ngl
I was jokingly thinking through the whole thing "install gentoo" but in all seriousness it's nice to see ubuntu 16.04 running on it, reminds me of my first moments using linux.
Keep up the good work man
As for the freezing with RUclips, I think it was more you getting stuck in Swap after you ran out of RAM.
That being said, I'd like to see Puppy Linux on this thing.
My guess was that it was using the poor CPU to decode the video. The GPU might not have support for more modern video codes.
I use to install Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell (adds the Windows 7 Start button) and it worked fine for PCs having dual-core and 4GB of RAM. Windows 8.1 is known for its lower power usage, fast startup and a lower use of RAM than Windows 7 or Windows 10 and it had support until last year.
lubuntu, it's meant for older hardware and uses almost NOTHING resource wise you can run it on 512mb of ram and it will only use like 280mb it is extremely lightweight
this guy's channel is so underrated... I discovered it recently in my recommended section, and he is an amazing yter.
Just discovered your channel while i was browsing random yt vids, i really enjoyed this video and you deserve more subs, keep going with the amazing content and also congrats for 1K subs, i also subbed to your channel since i'm looking for more content :)
You need to try Haiku OS. It's a modern BeOS compatible operating system. It's still in beta but it is pretty functional as is and very lightweight.
Yes! Haiku is awesome!
HAIKU!!!
try it on VM and always get graphic glitch every repository and system update and sometimes the window freeze for no reason, (i still prefer linux over this)
Exactly what i was going to suggest. Haiku is amazing!
@@bnrid8086 Try it on hardware, will be much better, if it works with that hw
Honestly base debian would be a much better experience with this hardware, with ironically more updated packages due to them still maintaining a 32 bit release (for now). Aside from that stuff like puppy linux which are meant for this kinda hardware would also be good. DEs like gnome or kde expect 4 gb ram and more importantly a competent 64 bit CPU to run well, especially KDE with all it's fancy effects (which was probably why kubuntu was a terrible experience even with lower ram usage), so sticking to lxqt or xfce is a good idea if you wanna use a full DE, there are far more good options on the window manager side of things.
The error was literally right there on the screen. It needed a manual filesystem check.
I love the cinematic shots at the start.
AntiX is probably the defacto optimized 32-bit Linux distro and is Debian based.
Netbsd will probably never drop 32-bit support and has a plethora of DE's and window managers that are super lightweight. You can have lxqt (like lubuntu), but there is a ton of even more lightweight options for even older computers (think 486). So you can choose your level of performance/eye candy.
There is a ton of emulators retroarch and mednafen for example, so you could have dedicated system for retro gaming.
The software suite is more mature than Haiku on 32-bit, otherwise Haiku would be a great choice, but the 32-bit software suite is very limited.
I was going to say the same thing about AntiX... I've install it on my own Pentium M laptop.
@@aaaalex1994 pentium M's are nice 32 bit chips. :)
I think Slackware might still continue with the 32 bit support even if Debian will drop it at some point.
@@aaaalex1994 Pentium M's and the whole Yonah architecture are nice 32 bit chips. :)
Lmao first lines on page are "proudly anti-fascist". I want an OS not a political statement
@@spookyghost3209I know a lot of people hear the word "fascist" and think of it as a generic insult, but the maintainer of antix is from greece where there is an actual fascist party. Regardless of if you agree 100% with his politics, I think its fair to give him a pass given his circumstances.
My mom had a similar dell Inspiron 1014 it uses Linux mint xfce and still works well it's only used for data transfer DVD files to USB drives and few browsing on chromium.
Wow, you're pretty close to 1K. Happy to be part of the road!
Void Linux with a light desktop like xfce seems to be the best option for old pc's if you want a light fast distro with more cutting edge and casual user mentality than Debian, it also still supports 32-bit.
Or Devuan, which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" and choose any famous DE, I think LXQt will be a better choice than Xfce for his 32-bit laptop. Also, this distribution has an almost identical Debian package base, which is a significant advantage over Void.
Void documentation is a major turn off for me though. Still, it's great to have it combined with a window manager like i3, but it's a big step up in difficulty compared to Ubuntu, Debian or any of the other popular distros
criminally underrated channel, keep up the amazing work!
I was running Ubuntu 20 on a dual core Lenovo laptop. When I tried to upgrade to 22 it crashed mid upgrade and i had to reflash my bios. Havent used Ubuntu since.
How the f... can an OS install corrupt the BIOS?
@@BilisNegranot sure honestly. But when it rebooted none of the firmware was working properly. No keyboard, touch pad, DVD drive or HDMI working after it happened. I had to use a different PC to track new copies of all of it before the PC would even boot properly again. I've never seen anything like it.
@@rmcdudmk212 I believe in what you're saying, and have no idea how that could even happen.
@@BilisNegra yeah if I knew what happened I'd be making the big bucks doing IT. 😂
if you're trying to watch youtube on a ooooolllllllddddd laptop you better have the h264-ify extension installed 😅 nice upload 🫶
If you have ancient hardware Ubuntu is as bloated as Win 10, I should know as I have a 2011 AMD EEE PC netbook and the only thing I found that would run snappy was Sparky Linux. With Sparky I can run 720p video with only a few dropped frames while Ubuntu chugged worse than Win 10 did.
I guess the best current beginner friendly option for a 32 bit machine would be Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), or if you feel more adventurous Debian itself
Congratulations on an incredibly well maintained nearly 20 year old laptop… as on Jan 2025. And on start of your Linux journey.
I have a 2006-7 Dell Latitude D520, 2 GB Ram, Intel 1.7 Ghz processor but 64 bit dual core. Hardly as well maintained btw…
In case you haven’t tried- changing hard drive and replacing with a SATA SSD.. biggest TLC upgrade you can get for these beauties. A nice cleanup of insides- fan + re apply thermal paste for cpu are other two upgrades I made.
As for Linux distributions recommendations, there have been plenty of reccos in comments. 😊 but another vote for Debian.
Best wishes!
I looked up the Inspiron 1300 and it has an IDE HDD. As SSDs for IDE aren't widely available, you will either need another IDE HDD or SATA HDD/SSD with adapter. You have wifi 3/G internally, so try a Linux compatible usb 2.0 wifi adapter that is somewhat more modern (4/N 300/600, possibly 5/AC if your kernel supports it) to speed up internet access some. Enjoyed the video and good luck 😀!
Lubuntu likely ran much faster than Ubuntu 16.04 because Ubuntu 16.04 uses Unity which was really heavy (and discontinued now) and Lubuntu uses LXDE (lxqt? i forget).
That was so dramatic, I love it!
Especially the part when you turned it on😊
The biggest problem I've always had with Linux on old computers is the graphics. Drivers aren't an issue, but opengl support is since the newer opengl support either wasn't around yet or the GPU focused more on directx.
The weakest link in those old laptops is the hard drive. The best way to improve the speed is to swap out the spinning disk with a cheap 250G SSD, and if it will support a memory upgrade, maxing out the RAM, which should be cheap on eBay nowadays. Then, at least it will boot and load programs quicker. I have an old Acer laptop in my shop that I use to occasionally look up schematics and such on my NAS, or browse the webs for info on whatever I'm working on, and it's fine for that. I think I put Lubuntu on it, but it might be Ubuntu MATE.
Yeah, I got an old Vario laptop from my cousin, put a 500Gb SSD in it and a 16GB sodimm upgrade for 40 euros and it runs POPos perfectly..
You can get the "propper" graphic drivers for that laptop on windows 10, using modded drivers usually shell or phdgd. For older chipsets like the gma x3100, gma950, they are also avaiable.
Only requiring to disable driver siginature verification, installing on safe mode, than re-enabling it and rebooting. After that using a registry hack to add all the graphic driver's IDs on a blacklist so windows 10 won't remove the propper drivers.
I've done this to a 32bit dell latitutude D420 to run windows 10 with an SSD.
Honestly, given your success with lubuntu, I think your best bet might be to try either Antix, which has XFCE stripped down to the bare essentials to be as lightweight as possible, or the xfce/lxqt version of Debian. And Spiral Linux not only makes downloading Debian with your preferred desktop environment a breeze, but it also is pre-configured to be way more functional out of the box. Kind of like Ubuntu, except without the bloat. There isn't an LXDE version of Spiral, but you can probably make it work with regular Debian. LXQT is basically LXDE, but switching to the QT framework that Kubuntu/plasma uses instead of the GTK framework. You can think of it like a sequel or spiritual successor, but it might not be as lightweight.
I searched for 32-bit Linux distros and found that pure Debian, without Ubuntu on top, makes for a more lightweight desktop environment. This would allow applications to run quicker by not overloading resources so easily. This is the best you're going to get, yet still easy to use, install, and update software as needed.
this person is funny and quite calming to listen
You can install any desktp interface if you want. Just install, log out and after login with installed GUI.
Hey! Thanks for your great input of linux distro's on that I can see how they run on old hardware. I can now get my old Toshiba back in service.
Mint is not bad but it's a bit sluggish on hardware from 2010. Great demo! thankyou...
The thing that makes Lubuntu run that smooth is LXDE ,which you can install on any modern machine and it still uses only around 411 mb of ram idle.Opensuse is a modern distro that still offers LXDE if you want that
You can use a competitor's driver sometimes provided it's the same chip.
About ubuntu versions, if i'm not mistaken, you can get an older 32bit version and go upgrading through apt up to the latest version. There's just not only a 32bit iso anymore
For using youtube on anything older than 6th gen intel, i would say to use the extention h264ify (or any other that forces h264 on youtube) so you use the older codec that is widelly supported and easier on the CPU, more chunky in filesize, but lighter for playing back.
15:00
kubuntu - settings, display and monitor, compositor - force lowest latency
kubuntu - settings, workspace behaviour, animation speed minimum
kubuntu - settings, workspace behaviour, desktop effects, turn off most of the unwanted effects
I have a similar vintage dell laptop with Linux Mint can't remember what version, the best Linux version for older laptops was Linux Mint 9 (and the Ubuntu version it was built on). This version should have been maintained for legacy computers.
You should try a frugal install of Puppy Linux the Latest Version. It can run most Ubuntu apps from the repository, just trim the fat when installing.
Puppy Linux the OS boots and runs in ram. The setup, apps etc are all installed on a frugal file. This is the lightest os you can run, that should work better than Ubuntu, give it a try.
I recommend using Lubuntu. I use a Acer 1810t with 4gb ddr2 and a 128 ssd, plus a driver graphics support. Although, there will be some issues on video playback when on youtube. I also tried LXDE desktop of Debian 12, it works like a charm, other than Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is unusable even though it had drivers installed. But, RUclips uses its gpu for decoding, a very big step up on that. Oh, I'm still very new to Debian, and other linux distros (I already tried fedora, and linux mint.)
In Kubuntu, if you go to the system settings and disable compositing it runs WAY faster on low powered systems because it significantly lowers the number and quality of desktop effects.
Lubuntu's Filesystem got corrupted
You might consider trying the legacy (32 bit) version of Bodhi Linux. I bought an Eee 900A netbook from Best Buy, with 2 GB of RAM and an Atom CPU. It came with Xandros Linux. It had a union file system--easy to go back to original state, but the first update totally filled the tiny SSD. For a while I went with what was then called Easy Peasey Linux, but settled on Bodhi and enjoyed it greatly. Its Moksha windowing environment is a fork of Enlightenment 17.
Debian with a lightweight desktop like LXQT or IceWM would probably be good. If you want to try without systemD, I've had good luck with Devuan and also tried antiX. If you really want to go lightweight, I've used both 2010-2014 era Puppy Linux and TinyCore Linux on even a probably older Pentium IV Dell laptop, as well as Atom-powered netbooks. There are several flavors of Puppy based on different base distros (Debian, etc.). TinyCore Linux's standard release is 32-bit but has a super-minimal desktop. (There's ARM and 64 bit versions too.)
8:33 most likely this is because the ram usage was maxed out. Modern browsers, especially when visiting heavier sites like RUclips, will use quite a bit (possible almost a gig or more in some cases). If you max out the ram and swap then the system would freeze up.
Edited: I watched further and it shows you have 2 Gigs in ram and 2 Gigs in swap, which theoretically is enough. However, I also found a reddit post that talked about firefox around version 75 having 2-3 GiB usage when opening RUclips - which shouldn't have freeze because you have a swap, but maybe it wasn't able to offload the memory fast enough(?)
18:15 - shows a checksum fail which probably meant some kind of data corruption happened(?). Wouldn't be a surprise since this has a very old drive.
The Inspiron 1300 was the first laptop I bought from new, loved it at the time. I recently installed Kubuntu 18.04.5 on a Pentium M760 with an mSata SSD in an IDE adapter, was actually pretty good apart from web use which was almost bearable with Falkon.
I suggest one
- Linux Mint (mostly stable)
You can also dualboot with Clover, gives you a unique feel of dual booting with default boot with time if you wish to jump back to Windows / Linux.
yeah I use mint xfce to resell older systems xfce is great for older laptops, 2010s era at least
@@couldnt.really.say. exactly, xfce is pretty much optimized for those old laptops in that era of WinXP/Vista so it pretty much gives enough longevity to use it for many tasks.
Arch linux is a stable OS if he wants to use it. However pearOS Nightc0re uses Arch Linux, so it does not matter if he uses Ubuntu or pearOS, he'll still be using linux which goes well with the laptop he's using.
Yeah but then you have to install it lol. As someone who uses Arch I'd gladly just install linux mint over arch any day honestly it's just not worth it unless you REALLY want the flexiblity of arch or you are someone who is already used to arch @@qm8782yt
@@qm8782ytSadly arch linux is hard and not user friendly, in my case setting up drivers for my camera and the bluetooth (and other basic stuff) in my laptop was a pain in the ass
If you have an old machine, I'd recommend Lubuntu
If you had Windows 10 on that laptop, then it could likely run Lubuntu.
I had a VM with 3gb RAM and 1 core and Lubuntu was not lagging or screen tearing and I could do web browsing on Chromium fine.
You didn't watch the whole video. He was installing Lubuntu 18.04 (which is the latest version that supports 32-bit processors).
In general, for older PCs, we recommend Devuan (which still supports 32-bit processors) with the following options during installation:
- "LXQt" instead of "Xfce";
- "runit" instead of "sysvinit", which will speed up the process of booting the distribution.
It looks like RUclips's extremely stupid anti-spam system deleted my comment again, so I'm going to duplicate it again with some changes, just in case.
You didn't watch the whole video. He was installing Lubuntu 18.04 (which is the latest version that supports 32-bit processors).
In general, for older PCs, it is worth choosing Devuan (which still supports 32-bit processors) with the following options during installation:
- "LXQt" instead of "Xfce";
- "runit" instead of "sysvinit", which will slightly speed up the process of booting the distribution.
Replace the old aging hdd with either an SSD (using adapters if needed) or a more helathy HDD btw. It will help ALOT with those crashes, freezes and errors that might happen when it swaps to the dying disk
I wrote this comment too fast, but Unity and KDE just a FYI is one of the more demanding Desktop environments, I'd probably go with mate (my love) or lxde/lxqt or xfce. The youtube issue seems weird it shouldn't white screen if bad graphic drivers I'd assume it'd just not play, perhaps you didn't have the codecs installed or grabbing a newer Firefox version would help.
For its integrated graphics card, it is imperative to use the "h264ify" browser extension, which will significantly reduce the CPU load (since its integrated graphics card does not even have hardware support for H264. Otherwise, all the work on video playback could be transferred from the single-core CPU to the GPU in this way).
This was a really well done video. I absolutely laughed my head off when he said he quad booted the machine. I don't think I've ever heard of quad boot before... much less quad booting a nearly 20 year old machine with an 80GB HD! Hahahaha!
nice video) but next time try to use smtube instead of bloated browser version ) or at least free tube. Also , in smtube, in settings dont forget to set quality to 240-360p, it much much fair to this machine time period) i use this laptop for youtube vids up to the early 2010'th... damn i miss time when even pentium 3 and 4 can play youtube, such a shame what it became now
That's a great tip.
I think for his 32-bit laptop, for better performance, he should also use the Devuan distribution (almost identical to Debian), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" when installing.
DE can also be chosen, I think LXQt will be the best choice for this 32-bit laptop.
@@NAKADZII completely agree, although in fairness such installation and system configuration may be difficult for the average user. At the same time, the result can be beyond praise... I have a T60 on which Devuan linux is installed with openrc, dwm, smtube and many games from 1999 - 2000, everything runs just flawlessly, even in multitasking mode. Even steam worked, although in truth, running it on this machine is more of a gimmick than a full-fledged feature.
this just an idea: install arch Linux in it, using the archinstall command makes it so much easier to install and you can follow tutorials, I recommend installing KDE over other desktop environments because I got KDE to run on a chromebook with insanely good fps for it being 2 gibs and 32 gb storage
Currently, MX Linux (Fluxbox ver would prob be the best for this), Puppy Linux, Antix and a few others still support 32 bit comps. Would love to see your reactions on MX Linux Fluxbox since its really lightweight.
mx is pure magic, I have an old asus ee pc netbook lying around, 1 core intel atom, 2gb ram, it actually works...I do not know what is fundamentally different in this distro but it was the only one that can make youtube watchable at 144p, everything else like puppy or antix is just an ultra lag fest when it comes to videos
I went with Devuan with mine and even got Minecraft 1.16.5 to work. Some cursed hackery is required such as running the windows version of Minecraft through wine because of missing 32 bit binaries but it does work.
Это дистробутив с устаревшим ПО? нет спасибо лучше уж Arch Linux 32 bit поставил бы и пакеты поновее и стабильнее система
@@RKNidinahui666 arch linux 32 bit failed to boot after install and after fix it was super buggy
@@crashniels странно
@@RKNidinahui666 _"Arch Linux 32 bit поставил бы и пакеты поновее и стабильнее система"_ 😂😂😂
Что ещё расскажешь? 😂 Что Wayland на Intel GMA 900 запуститься и стабильно будет работать?😂😂
Ветка "ceres" (что называют ещё как "unstable") которая даёт свежие пакеты в Devuan будет куда более значительно стабильнее чем этот пресловутый Arch, за которым нужно по кд следить и разбираться чтобы не дай бог что-то сломалось при обновлении пакетов
I had to deal with a similar computer (It was a Toshiba Satellite, but same specs basically - a 1.86GHz Pentium M), and of all the up-to-date modern distros that still supported 32-bit, I found MXLinux and Mageia two of the most promising. Mageia is RPM, a bit Fedora-based, and I found it really beginner friendly (had a GUI for just about anything, and it was relatively well translated too), and MX is Debian based. Went with MX Linux in the end and heard no complaints since then. Note that these things will accept an SSD (there are even mIDE ones if you know where to look), which does help a little, though the CPU is the bottleneck in any scenario.
It was quite interesting to see if Linux indeed save old hardware, which does not seem (always) the case! Probably better than Windows, but everything has it's limitations.
Thanks for the video!
I appreciate the usage of Bejeweled Twist music, god tier game and series.
If you do another video like this give Bodhi Linux a try. They offer a 32-bit non-PAE version based on Ubuntu 18.04. I was able to install Bodhi on a laptop from 2005 that only had 256mb of ram.
Honestly, try Linux Mint someday. Heard from even my dad that it's one of those good distros that also can be operated from a live CD/USB.
Linux Mint has stopped supporting 32-bit CPUs.
The closest distributive that is similar in experience to Linux Mint and supports 32-bit CPUs, in my opinion, is "Q4OS".
Whatever you run on it, it will run a million times better with an SSD. It's honestly worth it.
I have a Pentium M 2 GHz and it runs Q4OS with the Trinity desktop pretty well. It’s based on Debian 11.
Damn bro what skin did you use to get Ubuntu looking like that
Would love to see a BSD OS next as they generally are even lighter than linux distros, but they require more technical knowledge to set up
There's even a guy on youtube who ran modern OpenBSD on one of the first Macs, and it worked surprisingly well
This laptop makes my Dell Inspiron 15 5567 look like a 2025 laptop LOL
Sadly for 32 support you need some of the following distros: debían, Arch, Gentoo.
Gentoo even though is the most difficult one, is the best because is source based.
I have a pentium-m 1.6Ghz single core with 1.5GiB of RAM.
And It work perfectly on kernel 6.12 and everything updated.
I recommend you to setup a distcc setup on a beefier computer and use Gentoo on the weak computer.
And the environment recommended is i3wm.
I recently discover there is an official 32-bit x86 port of the Raspberry Pi OS. I installed it on a similarly underpowered laptop with good results.
The crash on Ubuntu while watching a RUclips video was probably because you ran out of RAM. Most distros don't handle low memory availability situations very well.
True
i like cheese
Only way I could see you do better is making a minimal install and then do a build your own distro kind of thing. The biggest issue is the lack of 32 bit support. Essentially ANY 64bit CPU would be just massively better, at the point I would prolly do pure Arch and go with basic XFCE and just install nothing unless you are 100% sure you absolutely NEED it.
Making your own distribution with a minimal installation is somewhat futile for non-corporate use, as there are such excellent distributions that support 32-bit CPUs:
- Q4OS (Trinity);
- Vanilla Dpup;
- Devuan (when installing, it is worth choosing "runit" instead of "sysvinit", this will speed up the process of booting the distribution; as for DE, it is "LXQt").
ur vids are the best but does alpine work on that laptop?
I love operating systems that today still manage to bring to life computers from 20 years ago, maybe even the oldest ones.
Budget Laptop? This thing looks beefier than mine, I still have a Dell Inspiron E1505 from 2006. I'll have to install lubuntu on mine and see how that works out too.
Instead of the outdated Lubuntu 18.04, which is the latest version for 32-bit CPUs, you should choose the modern "Devuan" distribution (almost indigenous to the "Debian" distribution), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to the light "runit" during installation, which in turn speeds up the launch of the distribution.
Also, during the installation, you can choose the DE "LXQt", which is currently used in the current version of Lubuntu - or you can choose "LXDE" if you want to get the "Lubuntu 18.04" experience
I've started putting HaikuOS on old machines like this, and it's surprisingly usable.
I prefer Debian over Ubuntu. When I tried to install Debian on my 2011 Mac Book Pro, it would boot but I had no WiFi (broadcom) and the graphics only worked for the installer. The only way I could use it was from the Shell through SSH from another computer. I couldn’t find any help online but A LOT of people asked the same questions about the WiFi and graphics on Mac Book Pros with no usable help. I finally installed Ubuntu. The graphics and WiFi worked with no problems. Since Raspberry Pi OS has a 64 bit version, they’ve released an intel version for Macs and PCs. It’s only 32 bit for this version. The install failed on the Mac.
If you want to install a modern linux distro for lightweight system, I suggest to avoid systemd based distros. There is a no-systemd web page to check. Also anorger bsd based os would be interesting
I have been using linux for 1.5 years i started with garuda and love it lol, i only copy paste in the terminal when i wanna try something weird that the chaotic aur does not offer, i would recommend it to anyone who has manually modded a game and wants to switch to linux, but i recommend swapping the layout to breeze do get a windows like layout its easy and a preloaded theme
AntiX works nice on 32bit. And is up to date. Also Kali still maintains a 32 bit and has great wifi support.
try a debian netinst iso, it’ll let you choose different desktop enviormentw and runs ok on really old hardware with the right desktop environment (lxde, lxqt, xfce) or you can torture it (cinnamon, kde)
For even better performance, it is worth using Devuan (based on Debian), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to a lightweight "runit" when installing.
I think LXQt is the best choice for this laptop.
Part of me wanted to see Ubuntu Mate on this laptop for the nostalgia but honestly I think a nice light Debian install with the Mate desktop would be the best, I'm not totally sure Mate would be better the Lubuntu but it's the desktop I started on with Ubuntu. But with Debian you can maybe get a smaller install, idk it might help with speed but might take a little more work
I've seen people saying Debian is better and I believe so too, but it requires more setup for it to get on the same level as Ubuntu and is not as user friendly to setup in that regard.
uBUntU???!?? dUDE ıF You dOnt iNsTAlL aRch you NoT dOIng It riGhT
Joking aside great video man!
I think it might still run like crap, but theres a Raspberry Pi OS for desktop. Thats fairly lightweight even on older hardware. It should still work. If you're going to make a 3rd video, its at least worth the shot.
I had a wifi problem with my inspirion 1546. Idk what's with these specific machines and not having wifi but as soon as I put windows on it, it worked fine
I think it's the proprietary Broadcom wifi drivers they use. I've had this problem with a couple of machine and I switched the Wifi chips and it fixed the problem.
It was. At the time, the workaround was reinstalling bcmwl-kernel-source using apt and a wired connection.
The video driver even for XP will still work old driver if you go the route I put down
Modern Debian with Xfce is surprisingly _okay_ on my Celeron M machine.
I had a laptop that looked just like that (don't know if the same model or one in the same family). I didn't have issues with Ethernet on Ubuntu 10.04 back then. Weird...
In last boot of Lubuntu your disk soiled the bed. Please, at least read what happens on the screan: its not like windows, where your read an error, goes to google it and stuck trying to not yell at your monitor off of suggestions from microsoft forum to reinstall your whole system.
*When I saw the specifications, I knew what happened, that's not a "budget" laptop, it's a lowest-end laptop even by those days standards, the cpu is just for minimal work, like office and basic web surfing*
I have it's bigger brother: the Dell Inspiron 2200 (Dothan 730) with 1.25gb RAM. I had to buy a replacement HDD on eBay. And the battery is long gone. Still works fine, complains about PAE when I use a 32-bit Ubuntu distro. I don't remember if the BCM Air Force Wifi Card works. I use it as a retro computer. 😊
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS would still work on this thing. At least it did in my case for very VERY old PC. With limited resources it can do limited tasks. Maybe there is distros that can squeeze more for current day tech or maybe even install older unsupported versions of Ubuntu to ease things up, but a line for usability must be drawn at some point.
Ubuntu has stopped supporting 32-bit CPUs since version 18.04.
Therefore, for his 32-bit laptop, it is worth using the "Devuan" distribution (almost identical to the "Debian" distribution), which allows you to change the bloated "systemd" to the light "runit" during installation, which in turn speeds up the launch of this distribution from the HDD.
Also, during the installation, it is possible to choose the DE "LXQt" (which is the best choice for weak PCs), which is currently used in the latest modern version of Lubuntu
Aaaa the wii weather channel music st like 5:30 and around then just is so goooodddd