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  Query William Lee Valentine <vsc@lobo.net> - 2022-02-07 17:20 +0100
    Re: Query Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-02-07 17:30 +0100
    Re: Query Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2022-02-07 17:40 +0100
      Re: Query gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2022-02-07 22:40 +0100
        Re: Query Tixy <tixy@yxit.co.uk> - 2022-02-08 08:40 +0100
    Re: Query "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-02-07 18:40 +0100
    Re: Query Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2022-02-07 21:20 +0100
    Re: Query Chuck Zmudzinski <brchuckz@netscape.net> - 2022-02-07 22:40 +0100
      Re: Query Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2022-02-07 22:40 +0100
        Re: Query Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2022-02-07 23:10 +0100
        Re: Query Chuck Zmudzinski <brchuckz@netscape.net> - 2022-02-08 00:10 +0100
          Re: Query Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2022-02-08 21:50 +0100
          Re: Query David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-08 22:00 +0100
        Re: Query Tim Woodall <debianuser@woodall.me.uk> - 2022-02-08 08:50 +0100

#245074 — Query

I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)

The computer is

    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
    Debian 6.0: Squeeze

If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?

I am not subscribed to this mailing list. I would appreciate advices.

-- William Lee Valentine


-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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#245075

On 2022-02-07 10:50, William Lee Valentine wrote:
> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> 
> The computer is
> 
>     Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>     memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>     IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>     Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>     Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 
> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
> the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?

My main worry would be performance if you use GUI applications. I don't 
know what apps you use, but browsers and desktop environments have 
probably gotten real greedy in terms of RAM since Squeeze and <1 GB is a 
very small amount of RAM these days.

> I am not subscribed to this mailing list. I would appreciate advices.

I have BCC'd you but please follow your thread on the archives (or via 
one of the news relays):

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2022/02/threads.html
and
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2022/02/msg00187.html

Bijan

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#245076

William Lee Valentine wrote: 
> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> 
> The computer is
> 
>    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 
> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
> the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?

I'm going to assume you already have squeeze installed.

You should be able to upgrade in place from 6 to 7 to 8 to 9 to
10 to 11. On a machine that old and slow, I suspect it would
take one day per upgrade.

However, it should work.

If you can find a SATA interface card and a cheap SSD, it will
improve performance immensely.

Depending on the part of the world you are in, you can probably
find a much faster machine being given away or sold second-hand
for under $100.

If this is your only machine, I recommend not upgrading it, but
finding a new one if at all possible, then installing on the new
one and transferring over data from the old one.

-dsr-

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#245080

On Monday, February 7, 2022 11:22:11 AM EST Dan Ritter wrote:
> William Lee Valentine wrote:
> > I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> > and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a
> > DVD.)
> > 
> > The computer is
> > 
> >    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
> >    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
> >    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
> >    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
> >    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> > 
> > If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it
> > preserve the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?
> 
> I'm going to assume you already have squeeze installed.
> 
> You should be able to upgrade in place from 6 to 7 to 8 to 9 to
> 10 to 11. On a machine that old and slow, I suspect it would
> take one day per upgrade.
> 
> However, it should work.
> 
> If you can find a SATA interface card and a cheap SSD, it will
> improve performance immensely.
> 
> Depending on the part of the world you are in, you can probably
> find a much faster machine being given away or sold second-hand
> for under $100.
> 
> If this is your only machine, I recommend not upgrading it, but
> finding a new one if at all possible, then installing on the new
> one and transferring over data from the old one.
> 
> -dsr-

Anything pentium below "family 10" in its boot log, has no firmware 
updates possible, and many have a halt bug that can only be recovered by 
a powerdown reset.  Dell makes pretty good stuff, but that is not 
fixable. I would read its boot log very carefully. The OP would probably 
be better off with a later off-lease machine with an i5 cpu, and 2Gigs of 
ram or more, simply because there is firmware fixes for all known bugs. 
Called microcode, the installer is smart enough to install the correct 
one for those cpu's that can be updated.

If the squeeze data is to be preserved, copy it to a big thumb drive, do 
the install, and copy it back.

The previous comments about SSD's are very valid advice. They are 
blazingly fast,

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

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#245090

On Mon, 2022-02-07 at 16:37 -0500, gene heskett wrote:
[...]
> > William Lee Valentine wrote:
> > > I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> > > and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a
> > > DVD.)
> > > 
> > > The computer is
> > > 
> > >    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
> > >    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
> > >    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
> > >    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
> > >    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> > > 
[...]
> Anything pentium below "family 10" in its boot log, has no firmware 
> updates possible, and many have a halt bug that can only be recovered by 
> a powerdown reset. Dell makes pretty good stuff, but that is not 
> fixable. I would read its boot log very carefully. The OP would probably 
> be better off with a later off-lease machine with an i5 cpu, and 2Gigs of 
> ram or more, simply because there is firmware fixes for all known bugs. 
> Called microcode, the installer is smart enough to install the correct 
> one for those cpu's that can be updated.

Are you sure? The intel-microcode package is in the non-free section,
so I wouldn't expect this to be installed by the standard Debian
installer.

Also, touting the possibility of CPU bugs doesn't seem the most
compelling reason to upgrade upgrade hardware. The fact that it's a
1999 CPU with 768MB RAM and the tendency of software to bloat and
consume CPU and memory resources as time goes by should be enough. ;-)

-- 
Tixy

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#245077

On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 08:50:36AM -0700, William Lee Valentine wrote:
> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> 
> The computer is
> 
>    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 

Debian 32 bit should run on this architecture: it will be slow - this 
is now a minimum of a 17 year old machine - the Pentium III Katmai
was discontinued in 2004.


> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
> the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?
> 

It should run. By default, it is likely to overwrite the previous partition
layout and thus overwrite Squeeze. Squeeze is well and truly out of support
by now and security patches are unavailable: Please do not connect the
machine to the internet until you have brought it up to date / installed
an up to date Debian on the machine..


> I am not subscribed to this mailing list. I would appreciate advices.
> 
> -- William Lee Valentine
> 
All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater
> 
> -- 
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
> 
> 

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#245078

On Mon, 7 Feb 2022 08:50:36 -0700
William Lee Valentine <vsc@lobo.net> wrote:

> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a
> DVD.)

And have something usable? With the default GNOME desktop? Probably
not. With a lightweight desktop like XFCE? Maybe.  With a window
manager only? Better chance, but still iffy.  Main problem is lack of
RAM and slow CPU. You'll need the 32-bit version of Debian.

Here's a real example with equivalent hardware from around 2004 or 5:
1GHz Duron (PIII equivalent), 1 GB or so RAM, Fedora Core 6, GNOME
desktop.  My system at the time. After numerous upgrades from FC2,
system had become sluggish, particularly with menus -- a second or so
pause before appearing. I was able to get a usable system for another
year or so by a very custom install of Debian Wheezy. Started with a
terminal-only install, then added a minimal X with a window manager
(Openbox), a few utilities and lastly apps. However, I doubt if
Debian 11 would run well on it, even if you abandoned a desktop and
went with a window manager.

All you can do is try and see what happens. Good luck.

> The computer is
> 
>     Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>     memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>     IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>     Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>     Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 
> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it
> preserve the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?

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#245079

On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
>
> The computer is
>
>    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>    Debian 6.0: Squeeze

Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian 
desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with 
such an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for 
old hardware. See, for example this page:

https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

A quick look at the 16 distros would make me try antiX-19 first:

http://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-19/FAQ/index.html

and

https://antixlinux.com/blog/

It advertises support down to as low as Pentium II and uses Debian 
buster as the base. Perhaps a later version will be based on bullseye. 
Its 32-bit version does not need to use a pae kernel, and it is systemd 
free, and these are probably some of the hacks that are needed to keep 
such an old system working well with modern software.

There are also antiX 21 packages, but the blog page does not advertise 
version 21 as a release, perhaps it is a development or beta version 
based on bullseye.

Good luck,

Chuck

>
> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
> the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?
>
> I am not subscribed to this mailing list. I would appreciate advices.
>
> -- William Lee Valentine
>
>

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#245081

On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
> > I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> > and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> > 
> > The computer is
> > 
> >    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
> >    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
> >    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
> >    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
> >    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 
> Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
> desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
> an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
> hardware.

Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.

But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.  That's
where the truly massive memory demand is.

756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.

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#245082

Greg Wooledge [2022-02-07 16:36:32] wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
>> On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
>> > I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
>> > and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
>> > 
>> > The computer is
>> > 
>> >    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>> >    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>> >    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>> >    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>> >    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
>> 
>> Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
>> desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
>> an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
>> hardware.
>
> Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
> Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.

Mostly agreed.  I use XFCE with Debian stable on a 1.2GHz Pentium III
with 1GB RAM (a Thinkpad X30) and it works OK.  It's not fast
but it's usable.

> But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.
> That's where the truly massive memory demand is.

Yes, with 1GB of RAM, I can run Firefox but it's fairly painful and
I have to be careful to stick to web sites with very simple pages.

> 756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.

Lots of applications have grown hungry for more memory, tho.
I wouldn't be surprised if reading email in a GUI application like
Evolution or Thunderbird were a bit sluggish as well.


        Stefan

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#245086

On 2/7/2022 4:36 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
>> On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
>>> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
>>> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
>>>
>>> The computer is
>>>
>>>     Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>>>     memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>>>     IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>>>     Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>>>     Debian 6.0: Squeeze
>> Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
>> desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
>> an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
>> hardware.
> Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
> Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.

Which windows manager for an extremely resource-limited system? Debian's 
wiki page on window managers lists more than 30 possibilities. Its not 
silly to take a look at a distro based on Debian that is tailored for 
low resources as a starting point to try and build a Debian 11.2 system 
that will work OK on a Pentium III with less than 1 GB of memory. Debian 
provides so many packages, and such distros like antiX can give one an 
idea about which packages to use when trying to build a Debian 11.2 
system that will work well on an older system with such a small amount 
of memory and such an old CPU.

>
> But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.  That's
> where the truly massive memory demand is.
>
> 756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.
>

Yes, it will be important to try to find a web browser that is the least 
bloated as possible. Again, looking at the browser choices of distros 
tailored for old hardware can help build a Debian 11.2 system that will 
work well on old hardware.

In any case, it will need to be a carefully crafted selection of Debian 
11.2 packages to have a decent experience, and most definitely start 
with a small netinst installation with only the text console to start, 
and then build the GUI environment carefully from the ground up.

Again, good luck to the OP in trying out Debian 11.2 on his system.

Chuck

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#245112

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

Chuck Zmudzinski writes:

> On 2/7/2022 4:36 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
>>> On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
>>>> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
>>>> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
>>>>
>>>> The computer is
>>>>
>>>>     Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>>>>     memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>>>>     IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>>>>     Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>>>>     Debian 6.0: Squeeze
>>> Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
>>> desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
>>> an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
>>> hardware.
>> Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
>> Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.
>
> Which windows manager for an extremely resource-limited system? Debian's

One could use one of e.g. the following list:

 - IceWM
 - i3
 - Fluxbox

All of them are packaged for Debian and work on low-resource computers. I  
have successfully deployed i3 on a system with similar specs to the OP's.  
Mine is still on Debian 10 and not upgraded to Debian 11 yet, though.

> wiki page on window managers lists more than 30 possibilities. Its not silly  
> to take a look at a distro based on Debian that is tailored for low  
> resources as a starting point to try and build a Debian 11.2 system that  
> will work OK on a Pentium III with less than 1 GB of memory. Debian provides

Of course, its a valid approach :)

> so many packages, and such distros like antiX can give one an idea about  
> which packages to use when trying to build a Debian 11.2 system that will  
> work well on an older system with such a small amount of memory and such an  
> old CPU.

The other option is to ask here for recommendations. Debian is one of the  
last large/mainstream distributions to still support i386 architecture hence  
it is not unlikely that some people will be running old hardware here (I do  
for instance :) ).

>> But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.  That's
>> where the truly massive memory demand is.
>>
>> 756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.
>
> Yes, it will be important to try to find a web browser that is the least  
> bloated as possible. Again, looking at the browser choices of distros  
> tailored for old hardware can help build a Debian 11.2 system that will work  
> well on old hardware.

Independent of the other distros one will need to do a compromise here  
because:

 * Any browser supporting all the modern features (mostly JS and CSS3) will
   be too slow for such old a machine.

 * Any other browser will be too limited in features to satisfy a modern
   user's needs. E.g. try to access Gmail or Youtube over any lightweight
   browser and see how it goes (I suspect it will not work _at all_!)

> In any case, it will need to be a carefully crafted selection of Debian 11.2  
> packages to have a decent experience, and most definitely start with a small  
> netinst installation with only the text console to start, and then build the  
> GUI environment carefully from the ground up.

On such an old system one should only install what is needed because any  
additional background service will reduce the already very limited  
computational capacity. Rather than crafting a set of applications it might  
be easier to start with the question what the machine is going to be used  
for and then figure out if this is even possible for the hardware and only  
afterwards check which applications will fit the purpose _and_ resource  
constraints.

E.g. I regularly run `maxima` as a "calculator" app. On an old machine it  
takes many seconds to run and to compute even simple expressions. Hence I  
switched to `sc-im` (a lightweight spreadsheet program) on old machines for  
such tasks.

HTH and YMMV
Linux-Fan

öö

[...]

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#245114

On Mon 07 Feb 2022 at 18:08:41 (-0500), Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> On 2/7/2022 4:36 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> > > On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
> > > > I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> > > > and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> > > > 
> > > > The computer is
> > > > 
> > > >     Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
> > > >     memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
> > > >     IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
> > > >     Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
> > > >     Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> > > Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
> > > desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
> > > an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
> > > hardware.
> > Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
> > Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.
> 
> Which windows manager for an extremely resource-limited system?

I had no difficulty running buster's fvwm on a Pentium III Coppermine
from 2000, until the PSU expired. 650MHz, and 512MB memory. Your
memory is probably more use that my speed. But 60GB might limit its
usefulness: my minitower would hold four PATA drives, and I have
three 500GB still left, and had a 200GB until it expired.

You have to have a reason to keep running it, of course. Mine was
that drive capacity, plus nostalgia: it was the desktop machine
I retained when I retired.

This run of "top" is from a modern system after a while reading
my email. To trigger fvwm into top place, I switched between
several of the open viewports. (Mutt is obviously sleeping.)

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                       
 2730 auser     20   0  373960  67100  36148 S   5.6   0.8   0:03.20 Xorg                          
 2782 auser     20   0   84244  13084  11144 S   0.7   0.2   0:00.25 fvwm                          
 2790 auser     20   0   81296  12360  10704 S   0.7   0.2   0:00.16 FvwmPager                     
   10 root      20   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.15 rcu_sched                     
  614 nobody    20   0    5080   2820   2580 S   0.3   0.0   0:00.06 thd                           
    1 root      20   0   22276  10304   7748 S   0.0   0.1   0:01.01 systemd                       

> Debian's wiki page on window managers lists more than 30
> possibilities. Its not silly to take a look at a distro based on
> Debian that is tailored for low resources as a starting point to try
> and build a Debian 11.2 system that will work OK on a Pentium III with
> less than 1 GB of memory. Debian provides so many packages, and such
> distros like antiX can give one an idea about which packages to use
> when trying to build a Debian 11.2 system that will work well on an
> older system with such a small amount of memory and such an old CPU.

I install all the software that I do on any other machine, I just
don't run it if the machine's not up to it. (It had the disk space
not to worry, of course.) So I wouldn't open libreoffice or firefox,
for example. Speed wasn't an issue (/home was encrypted), just memory,
even with 1GB swap (encrypted).

> > But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.  That's
> > where the truly massive memory demand is.
> > 
> > 756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.
> > 
> 
> Yes, it will be important to try to find a web browser that is the
> least bloated as possible. Again, looking at the browser choices of
> distros tailored for old hardware can help build a Debian 11.2 system
> that will work well on old hardware.

So that I could read email, I used lynx (with -localhost) for HTML.
Mind you, I do that on all my current machines too.

> In any case, it will need to be a carefully crafted selection of
> Debian 11.2 packages to have a decent experience, and most definitely
> start with a small netinst installation with only the text console to
> start, and then build the GUI environment carefully from the ground
> up.
> 
> Again, good luck to the OP in trying out Debian 11.2 on his system.

One exception: I do run firefox on a 1.5GHz 500MB laptop, which is
painful. When I installed bullseye, it took 3 minutes for FF to
display the (empty) startup page. But it's useful to have a system
with zero monetary worth that I could trash or lose without worrying
about it.

Cheers,
David.

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#245091

On Mon, 7 Feb 2022, Greg Wooledge wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 04:31:51PM -0500, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
>> On 2/7/2022 10:50 AM, William Lee Valentine wrote:
>>> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
>>> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
>>>
>>> The computer is
>>>
>>> ?? Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>>> ?? memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>>> ?? IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>>> ?? Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>>> ?? Debian 6.0: Squeeze
>>
>> Based on what others are saying, it looks like a typical modern Debian
>> desktop environment such as Gnome or Plasma KDE will not work well with such
>> an old system. I suggest you look for a Distro that is tailored for old
>> hardware.
>
> Bah, silly.  Just use a traditional window manager instead of a bloated
> Desktop Environment.  Problem solved.
>
> But the *real* problem will come when they try to run a web browser.  That's
> where the truly massive memory demand is.
>
> 756 MB is plenty of RAM for daily use of everything except a web browser.
>

I successfully run Debian on a 701 eeepc although I'm still on buster
for now using xfce. It's slow but not unusable, even firefox. updates do
take a while, allow at least 4-6 hours per dist-upgrade.

I mostly now use a kindle fire for 'walkabout' vpn and ssh access but
every now and again when something wifi won't work I return to the eeepc
for its better logging and debugging tools.

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