Linux for old Hardware

krautmick · 27-05-2011 09:43PM #1

I have an old beast of a Compaq Deskpro with a Pentium III -800MHz here, which I would like to turn into a linux box (for stuff like radius, airsnort etc).

It currently has Win2K Server on in, which runs fine with 386Meg RAM and a 40Gig HD.

I downloaded Debian Netinstall, i386 build, to install a minimum Linux build, but it doesn't let me past any install options without showing a screen glitch and stalling completely, so this doesn't seem to work or is incompatible.

What other distro/build should I consider throwing at this?

henbane · 28-05-2011 12:11AM

Arch should install & run on that hardware.

krautmick wrote: »

I have an old beast of a Compaq Deskpro with a Pentium III -800MHz here, which I would like to turn into a linux box (for stuff like radius, airsnort etc).

It currently has Win2K Server on in, which runs fine with 386Meg RAM and a 40Gig HD.

I downloaded Debian Netinstall, i386 build, to install a minimum Linux build, but it doesn't let me past any install options without showing a screen glitch and stalling completely, so this doesn't seem to work or is incompatible.

What other distro/build should I consider throwing at this?

Stuxnet · 28-05-2011 10:54AM

if your into that social engineering, have a look at latest backtrack linux, lts built on LTS ubuntu 10.04
should work fine on old hardware with gnome env, you'll hardly be using it as a workstation !!

has all the tools you could dream of pre-installed

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

10-10-20 · 28-05-2011 11:04AM

I've Ubuntu 9.10 server running on a Dell Dimension D300 (300 MHz Dechutes) with 384MB of memory.
I've also got 9.10 running on a small HP thin client with a 700MHz Transmeta with 128MB.
So, no issues installing Ubuntu on all of this old stuff here.

Try run the installer with the "cli lowmem=1" option. You can also change the VGA settings for the installer by pressing the F1 key to see the various options.
After that, try installing another VGA/AGP card as these can be the sticking points if the install hangs.

krautmick · 28-05-2011 12:02PM

I use BT5 on my laptop for analysis work etc, but I find it acts very diffently when installed on the HDD. Additionally, the package builds and kernel are rather customised and I feel I may need to recompile the kernel to address some HW issues etc, which I don't fancy doing with BT kernel build.

I got Archlinux running fine on it. I'll try Ubuntu too, although I remain skeptical that this isn't a bit of overkill for this old system

Sidenote:
Its amazing, that the 2 old Compaq Deskpros I have here are still running fine, while 2 old Dell Optiplexes, with much newer and better hardware are after showing up with leaking capacitors and are only fit for the scrapheap now.
I guess that's the price of cheap PCs now, components are clearly not designed to last long anymore.

krautmick · 28-05-2011 12:35PM

Classic case of RTFM. Using vga-mode=771 and reducing it to a lower VGA level did the trick. Debian seems to be running through just fine now.

Walnutcracker · 27-06-2011 08:20AM

Puppy Linux is often recommended for old hardware. It is very good but i think Slitaz is better. It's super lightweight and very capable.

rismak7 · 27-06-2011 08:34PM

I have lubuntu on my 2005 era Dell Dimension 5000. The hardware is slightly better on that, but I imagine lubuntu would have little issues with your hardware since it is quite light on resources.

Johnboy1951 · 28-06-2011 09:56AM

New ISOs released yesterday ... LXDE versions so they are light on resources ..... this is the link to the full release ...

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/live-cd/pclinuxos-lxde-2011.06.iso

and a 'mini' version, which has very few apps in the ISO, leaving it to the user to install what they want .....

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/live-cd/pclinuxos-lxde-mini-2011.06.iso

Linux for old Hardware

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