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An old box running Debian 8

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  An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-11 18:50 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2020-11-11 19:10 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-12 23:50 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2020-11-13 00:20 +0100
          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-13 15:20 +0100
            Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 16:00 +0100
              Re: An old box running Debian 8 David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-11-13 21:30 +0100
                Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-14 17:50 +0100
                  Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-15 09:50 +0100
                    Re: An old box running Debian 8 David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-11-17 16:30 +0100
                      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-17 16:50 +0100
                        Re: An old box running Debian 8 David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-11-18 16:50 +0100
                          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-18 17:00 +0100
                          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-18 18:20 +0100
                            Re: An old box running Debian 8 Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-11-18 19:10 +0100
                              Re: An old box running Debian 8 David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-11-18 21:40 +0100
              Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-14 17:50 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-11-11 19:10 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-12 23:50 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-11 19:50 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-12 23:50 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Doug McGarrett <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> - 2020-11-13 02:40 +0100
          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-13 15:20 +0100
            Re: An old box running Debian 8 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2020-11-13 15:40 +0100
              Re: An old box running Debian 8 Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 16:20 +0100
                Re: An old box running Debian 8 Dan Ritter <Dan@randomstring.org> - 2020-11-13 16:30 +0100
                  Re: An old box running Debian 8 Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 17:30 +0100
                    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2020-11-14 00:20 +0100
                  Re: An old box running Debian 8 Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 17:50 +0100
                    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2020-11-13 18:10 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-11-11 21:50 +0100
      Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8) Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-11 22:30 +0100
        Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8) Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-11-12 04:50 +0100
        Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-13 15:20 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-11-11 22:10 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-11 22:30 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com> - 2020-11-12 03:40 +0100
          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Michael Lange <klappnase@freenet.de> - 2020-11-12 10:00 +0100
            Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-14 17:50 +0100
              Re: An old box running Debian 8 Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2020-11-14 18:50 +0100
                Re: An old box running Debian 8 Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-11-14 20:30 +0100
                  Re: An old box running Debian 8 John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-11-14 21:50 +0100
                    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-11-14 22:40 +0100
                      Re: An old box running Debian 8 John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-11-14 23:20 +0100
              Re: An old box running Debian 8 Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-14 20:40 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> - 2020-11-12 23:50 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2020-11-13 00:00 +0100
          Re: An old box running Debian 8 Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2020-11-13 00:40 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-11-13 01:00 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 13:10 +0100
        Re: An old box running Debian 8 Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-11-13 13:40 +0100
    Re: An old box running Debian 8 Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 00:10 +0100
      Re: An old box running Debian 8 Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-11-13 13:10 +0100

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#228605

On 11/11/20 7:42 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

> 
>> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running
>> ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after
>> starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at
>> all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?
> 
> Which WM or DE is your GUI running? Some use/need a lot more RAM than others. If
> you want a full DE you might wish to try TDE, a fork of KDE3 initially created
> when KDE went to version 4, 10 years ago. Its latest release is available for
> Squeeze, Wheezy, Jesse, Stretch and Buster.
> <https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Debian_Trinity_Repository_Installation_Instructions>
> 

It is MATE (cannot remember the version). At first I removed all 
graphics, so it remained CLI-only Jesse. Then I installed Mate from the 
repository. Just for occasional use, not 24/7.

Btw, I did not even think of KDE or Gnome because they both were 
terribly slow even in Wheezy.

Did not much test MATE vs. Xfce or LXDE, regarding the speed.


Misko

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#228614

On 11/12/20 4:52 PM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> On 11/11/20 7:42 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
>
>>
>>> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running
>>> ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after
>>> starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at
>>> all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?
>>
>> Which WM or DE is your GUI running? Some use/need a lot more RAM than 
>> others. If
>> you want a full DE you might wish to try TDE, a fork of KDE3 
>> initially created
>> when KDE went to version 4, 10 years ago. Its latest release is 
>> available for
>> Squeeze, Wheezy, Jesse, Stretch and Buster.
>> <https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Debian_Trinity_Repository_Installation_Instructions> 
>>
>>
>
> It is MATE (cannot remember the version). At first I removed all 
> graphics, so it remained CLI-only Jesse. Then I installed Mate from 
> the repository. Just for occasional use, not 24/7.
>
> Btw, I did not even think of KDE or Gnome because they both were 
> terribly slow even in Wheezy.
>
> Did not much test MATE vs. Xfce or LXDE, regarding the speed.
>
>
> Misko
>
I have been only cursorily following here, since I don't use debian, but 
I wonder if you might
consider upgrading your mother board to a new one the same size and 
shape, with
a faster processor and probably more ram. Then the latest version of deb 
would surely work
and well. It's a full afternoon's worth of work, more than likely, but 
you would have to see
if you think it's worth it. A lot cheaper than replacing the whole 
machine, surely.
--doug

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#228627

On 11/13/20 2:36 AM, Doug McGarrett wrote:

> I have been only cursorily following here, since I don't use debian, but 
> I wonder if you might
> consider upgrading your mother board to a new one the same size and 
> shape, with
> a faster processor and probably more ram. Then the latest version of deb 
> would surely work
> and well. It's a full afternoon's worth of work, more than likely, but 
> you would have to see
> if you think it's worth it. A lot cheaper than replacing the whole 
> machine, surely.
> --doug
> 
> 

I see. But I think that any such hardware changes (CPU, RAM) are not 
worth. The idea is using that box until its EOL when something major 
dies. (And upgrade the OS & software until it becomes impossible.)

By the way ...

When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the 
next 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I 
purchased it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, 
incl. CRT display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from 
Deb 8 to 9, and the only issue was that after upgrade it did not want to 
boot in GUI at all (just stayed at blank screen). I resolved that by 
booting in CLI, and then startx to Mate (when needed).

Misko

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#228628

> When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the next
> 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I purchased
> it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, incl. CRT
> display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from Deb 8 to 9,

I also like to use my machines "as long as possible" and my game plan to
maximize their life expectancy is to max-out their memory (since a slow
CPU will just be slow, but a lack of memory will result in thrashing
which renders the system much slower than just "slow").

An Athlon XP 2500+ should still be quite usable nowadays, but 512MB is
on the small side, tho it's probably still adequate for most non-GUI
uses (my oldest machine is a Thinkpad X30, with a 1.2GHz Pentium III and
its 1GB of RAM is the main limitation (along with a silly "fallback on
30MB/s in absence of 80wire cable" on the PATA port which makes it
access its M.2 SSD at a rather pedestrian 30MB/s)).

The price of RAM tends to go down over time but only for some years.
After that, you'll find that the price starts rising again (because
the kind of RAM you need has become old&rare).  So you want to keep an
eye on the price of your memory and max it out before its price starts
rising again.


        Stefan

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#228631

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few unending
beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's for
and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-) Same
thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
wrong?

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:35 AM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> > When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the next
> > 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I
> purchased
> > it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, incl. CRT
> > display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from Deb 8 to 9,
>
> I also like to use my machines "as long as possible" and my game plan to
> maximize their life expectancy is to max-out their memory (since a slow
> CPU will just be slow, but a lack of memory will result in thrashing
> which renders the system much slower than just "slow").
>
> An Athlon XP 2500+ should still be quite usable nowadays, but 512MB is
> on the small side, tho it's probably still adequate for most non-GUI
> uses (my oldest machine is a Thinkpad X30, with a 1.2GHz Pentium III and
> its 1GB of RAM is the main limitation (along with a silly "fallback on
> 30MB/s in absence of 80wire cable" on the PATA port which makes it
> access its M.2 SSD at a rather pedestrian 30MB/s)).
>
> The price of RAM tends to go down over time but only for some years.
> After that, you'll find that the price starts rising again (because
> the kind of RAM you need has become old&rare).  So you want to keep an
> eye on the price of your memory and max it out before its price starts
> rising again.
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>

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#228632

Nicholas Geovanis wrote: 
> I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few unending
> beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's for
> and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-) Same
> thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> wrong?
> 

Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?

-dsr-

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#228633

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
message. BSD-derived OS's running on the very same commodity Intel hardware
dont have that problem. Why does linux?

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter <Dan@randomstring.org> wrote:

> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few
> unending
> > beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's
> for
> > and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> > real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> > like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-)
> Same
> > thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> > wrong?
> >
>
> Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?
>
> -dsr-
>

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#228644

> The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
> gets used or over-used, and the machine locks.

AFAIK this is not a common problem.  There's a known problem in ZFS that
exhibits this behavior, and IIRC there could be similar problems in the
past if you tried to swap over NFS (not sure if that problem was fixed
since; it was many years ago), but I don't know of such problems for the
"normal setup".

> Without even a warning message.  BSD-derived OS's running on the very
> same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem.  Why does linux?

AFAIK it's usually just a bug, tho sometimes it's one that's not easy to
fix because it's not result of bad code or bad design but of
incompatible designs in two different parts, so fixing it implies
a redesign of at least one of the sides.  I can't remember what was the
underlying issue in the swap-over-NFS case but it was non-trivial to fix
satisfactorily, IIRC (and I seem to remember that the problem was
fundamental enough that it likely affects all possible implementations,
so all a "fix" could hope to do was to reduce the incidence rate and
improve the debug-log to help diagnose the problem).  In the ZFS case
the problem is likely that the ZFS code was not designed with the right
assumptions for use in the Linux kernel.


        Stefan

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#228634

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
message. Linux always behaved that way. BSD-derived OS's running on the
very same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem. Among my fellow
system admins the rule-of-thumb became "Don't swap". Give it enough RAM to
prevent that or re-distribute application load to prevent it. If you cant
afford that, well....  Why does the linux kernel lock the machine without
messaging when it experiences virtual memory pressure?

Dan Ritter direct reply to your email addr bounces.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter <Dan@randomstring.org> wrote:

> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few
> unending
> > beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's
> for
> > and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> > real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> > like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-)
> Same
> > thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> > wrong?
> >
>
> Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?
>
> -dsr-
>

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#228635

Nicholas Geovanis wrote: 
> The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
> gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
> message. Linux always behaved that way. BSD-derived OS's running on the
> very same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem. Among my fellow
> system admins the rule-of-thumb became "Don't swap". Give it enough RAM to
> prevent that or re-distribute application load to prevent it. If you cant
> afford that, well....  Why does the linux kernel lock the machine without
> messaging when it experiences virtual memory pressure?
> 
> Dan Ritter direct reply to your email addr bounces.
> 
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter <Dan@randomstring.org> wrote:

Something ate it. Weird. dsr@randomstring.org is correct.

-dsr-

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#228582

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

   On Thursday, November 12, 2020, 1:45:18 AM GMT+8, Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> wrote:  
 
 I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running 
ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after 
starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at 
all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?

Misko YT7MPB

Use the top command to check memory usage. Performance will be poor if there is little free memory after starting X Window. New software (stretch) usually requires more memory.I bet your memory configuration is 224M=128M+64M+32M, Upgrade(increase) memory if possible.

PS: Pentium II and Celeron are two processors.
  

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#228585 — Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8)

Long Wind composed on 2020-11-11 20:44 (UTC):

>    On Thursday, November 12, 2020, 1:45:18 AM GMT+8, Miroslav Skoric wrote:  

>  I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running...

>...PS: Pentium II and Celeron are two processors.

Celeron is a budget family of Intel processors, based upon Pentium II, III, 4 and
newer Pentium processors. Pentium II Celeron means a Celeron based upon the
Pentium II family, the oldest family of Celerons.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
	is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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#228592 — Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8)

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

   On Thursday, November 12, 2020, 5:24:49 AM GMT+8, Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> wrote:  
Celeron is a budget family of Intel processors, based upon Pentium II, III, 4 and
newer Pentium processors. Pentium II Celeron means a Celeron based upon the
Pentium II family, the oldest family of Celerons.


OP probably means Pentium II-based Celeron 



  

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#228626 — Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium

On 11/11/20 10:24 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

> 
>> ...PS: Pentium II and Celeron are two processors.
> 
> Celeron is a budget family of Intel processors, based upon Pentium II, III, 4 and
> newer Pentium processors. Pentium II Celeron means a Celeron based upon the
> Pentium II family, the oldest family of Celerons.
> 

Yep. I purchased that machine (as then new) in early 1998  :-)

That's why I want to see its lifetime after full 'maturity' :-)

Misko

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#228584

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:40:50 +0100
Miroslav Skoric <skoric@uns.ac.rs> wrote:

> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM)
> running ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very
> slow after starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try
> (if possible at all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with
> such old boxes?

It is not clear whether you are merely observing that it is slow with a
GUI running, or whether you would like to have a GUI, and are asking
for advice specifically there.

Assuming the latter, what do you want out of a GUI? An absolute minimal
GUI such as FVWM might serve you well enough, but I would not expect
miracles. Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
be surprised if that solution helped.

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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#228586

Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):

> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
> be surprised if that solution helped.

Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
	is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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#228590

On 11/11/20, Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):
>
>> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
>> be surprised if that solution helped.
>
> Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk

A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).

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#228596

Hi,

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 23:36:07 -0300
riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/11/20, Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):
> >
> >> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
> >> be surprised if that solution helped.
> >
> > Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk
> 
> A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
> user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).
> 

>From my own experience I agree about that.
Still, the tricky part will be to choose other gui programs that are
still usable with the OP's hardware. For example, if they need a gui text
editor, nedit may be light enough for such a machine (that is, if one can
live without proper unicode support) and maybe xfe may still be a usable
gui file manager for them. The display command provides probably a usable
image viewer.
Web browsers will be especially tricky.
If dillo is good enough it will probably behave more or less smoothly.
Using firefox would very likely be not much fun.

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Madness has no purpose.  Or reason.  But it may have a goal.
		-- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7

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#228652

On 11/12/20 9:53 AM, Michael Lange wrote:

>>
>> A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
>> user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).
>>
> 
>>From my own experience I agree about that.
> Still, the tricky part will be to choose other gui programs that are
> still usable with the OP's hardware. For example, if they need a gui text
> editor, nedit may be light enough for such a machine (that is, if one can
> live without proper unicode support) and maybe xfe may still be a usable
> gui file manager for them. The display command provides probably a usable
> image viewer.
> Web browsers will be especially tricky.
> If dillo is good enough it will probably behave more or less smoothly.
> Using firefox would very likely be not much fun.
> 

In fact, some basic GUI on that old box would be of use for only me as a 
system admin, especially when some newbies knock the office door asking 
to see if there is any nice graphics in Linux. (Remote users who access 
their mailboxes by radio stations do not need me having any GUI at all.)

In any case, I understood from this thread that after distro upgrade 
from 8 to 9 shall work in CLI, and then look for a simple window manager 
& light mail processor.

Thanks to all.

Misko

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#228655

Miroslav Skoric wrote: 
> On 11/12/20 9:53 AM, Michael Lange wrote:
> 
> In any case, I understood from this thread that after distro upgrade from 8
> to 9 shall work in CLI, and then look for a simple window manager & light
> mail processor.


In my opinion, mutt is the best mail user agent of all. It's
also one of the most efficient.

-dsr-

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