Running Linux on Real Junk

[raymac46]

I remember a few years ago I tried to classify the sort of candidate machines for running Linux into a few categories, namely:

• Leading Edge - latest laptops from Dell, Lenovo, System 76 etc. - some gaming rigs in this category would have the latest Ryzen and Intel CPUs, AMD 6000 GPUs, Nvidia 3000 GPUs - but they are mostly vaporware with the silicon shortage and cryptomining going on.
• Trailing Edge - Earlier gen "Lake" CPUs and Ryzen CPUs, last gen GPUS, DDR4, NVME - pretty new stuff.
• Aging - Intel "Bridge" CPUs, pre-Ryzen AMD, DDR3, SATA3 but no NVME or M.2, a few gens back on the GPU.
• Junk - C2D or Phenom II, old GPUs, DDR2, Intel Atom 64 bit, integrated graphics.
• Real Junk -32 bit Pentium 4, AMD Athlon 2800 or so 32 bit without SSE2, DDR or early DDR2, SATA1 or IDE... you get the idea.

Lately I've seen some YouTube vids on running Linux on real junk. Caution..it's painful.

Aside from brutal boot times and slowness, most browsers won't even launch. I know Linux is supposed to be excellent for refurbishing older hardware, but some times you need to know when to fold up, as The Gambler would say.

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by raymac46

[saturnian]

I think this one qualifies as "junk":

 

Compaq Presario CQ57-489WM
HDD - 320.1GB; RAM - 2 GB; CPU - Dual core AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-)
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03316666

Running Debian Buster (LXQt with Openbox) on this one. It's slow, but I can work with it.

[raymac46]

For sure. Real Junk is something that many distros won't support, or lacking in some instruction set that a current browser like Chromium needs to launch. Might even upgrade it to "Aging."

Edited March 23, 2021 by raymac46

[sunrat]

Awww, you classified my daily driver as "Junk" - C2D 8500. It works great with siduction for email, browsing, music and videos. I'll concede my much newer "production" system is "Trailing Edge"; i5 6500 works great for music production and heavy duty stuff.

I'd consider my EeePC900 netbook to be "Real Junk" - it sits on the shelf although it runs AntiX just fine including videos. Right next to it also gathering dust is a ThinkPad Yoga 11e which occasionally sees some electrons run through it.

[raymac46]

Junk is good. My granddaughter's Dell Inspiron 530 desktop is junk. I installed LInux on it in 2012 when it was already in bad shape with a botched Windows 7 upgrade. It served a 90+ year old lady for years. After she passed away I upgraded processor to an E8400, DDR2 to 8GB, added SSD and new wifi dongle. Now it's a daily driver for remote learning.

[securitybreach]

Old or not, still neat stuff.

[raymac46]

Speaking personally, I have one trailing edge, 4 aging, and 2 junk machines in the computer museum here. My real junk stuff got recycled a few years ago. My two junkers are either impossible to upgrade or not worth the aggravation. They both run OK with Linux.

[Hedon James]

16 hours ago, saturnian said:

I think this one qualifies as "junk":

 

Compaq Presario CQ57-489WM
HDD - 320.1GB; RAM - 2 GB; CPU - Dual core AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-)
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03316666

Running Debian Buster (LXQt with Openbox) on this one. It's slow, but I can work with it.

 

If you grow frustrated with LXQt on that machine, you can login to a "naked" OB session, autostart the LXQT panels (located at /.config/lxqt/panel.conf), and it will LOOK and act like LXQT, but with half the RAM usage.  FWIW...

[Hedon James]

If something won't support AntiX, yeah, it's junk.  If AntiX runs on the machine, you've got viable hardware, IMO!  LOL!

[raymac46]

The main problem with these old underpowered machines like my Toshiba netbook is not that you can't get some flavor of Linux to work, but that they don't have the technology or memory to run a browser unless it is one of the very lightweight ones like Midori. And no, I don't want to surf the Net with Lynx or Dillo.

Edited March 24, 2021 by raymac46

[saturnian]

7 hours ago, Hedon James said:

If you grow frustrated with LXQt on that machine, you can login to a "naked" OB session, autostart the LXQT panels (located at /.config/lxqt/panel.conf), and it will LOOK and act like LXQT, but with half the RAM usage.  FWIW...

 

Actually, on any installation where I have Openbox and a DE, I log into the Openbox session at least as often as I log into the DE. Started doing this a long time ago (around 2006 or 2007) with Kubuntu and another old laptop/notebook (another piece of junk!). Except in that case, I added Fluxbox, not Openbox. That machine struggled terribly under KDE, but I found that I could log into Fluxbox and then I could use the KDE apps with no problems.

 

All these years later, I've currently got Kubuntu LTS 20.04 installed, and I added Fluxbox to that. I happen to be typing this from the Fluxbox session.'

 

As for the Buster LXQt/Openbox installation on the piece of junk CQ57, I can't say that I ever grow frustrated with LXQt. I simply like Openbox better. LXDE only used Openbox, but you can use other WMs with LXQt; still, I go with Openbox just because I like having the session available to use. I have lots of saved config files and stuff, so setting up my Openbox desktop is a breeze these days.

[Hedon James]

I like Openbox for it's lightweight characteristics, but I loathe it's configuration in html format, with tags, brackets, etc...  I need a helper like ObMenu-generator just to tolerate it.  After that, I'm golden.

 

I MUCH prefer Fluxbox and PekWM, both easily configurable in plain text format; and both having tabbed windows.  I hide the Flux toolbar though.  I still use the Tint2 toolbar I stole from you(?) a LONG time ago, but for me it's a combination workspace switcher & open application toolbar.  Tint2 is SOOO configurable, the options are almost overwhelming.  Naked WMs and Tint2 for the win!

 

If I can ever figure out how to get jgmenu to "import" the Flux, Pek, and Openbox "native" config/settings dialogue, I'll roll all 3 WM menus into a single jgmenu.  Right now, I maintain 3 separate but nearly identical and homogeneous root menus, and it sure would be nice to just have to maintain only 1.  Anyone else using jgmenu?

[securitybreach]

Well I went from KDE to Gnome to Fluxbox(and blackbox) to Openbox to XMonad to i3. 

[raymac46]

Ah, you frugal window manager types LOL.

I just install GNOME Shell, crank up the Shell Extensions and take 2 GB just to run the system. Let the good times roll, I always say. 

[saturnian]

Hedon James, I still use tint2 with Fluxbox! Except in the installation I'm typing from at the moment, I decided to keep the Fluxbox toolbar, horizontal across the bottom, just for kicks. I feel like I have a more comfortable workflow with my tint2 setup, but I must have been in some kind of funky mood when I did this Fluxbox setup, wanted do a few things I hadn't been doing.

 

I used Fluxbox before I knew about Openbox. One reason I started using Openbox more than Fluxbox was obmenu, that very simple menu editor. I kinda fell in love with obmenu, and haven't wanted or needed anything else for setting up the Openbox menu.

 

Sadly, looks like obmenu will no longer be available in Debian as of Bullseye. In Arch, I'm still able to get obmenu from AUR.

 

But that's okay; I've been at this for a long time now, and I can take an old menu.xml file that I've saved (I've even still got some from CrunchBang!), pop it in, edit for a few minutes, done.  

 

I am not feeling it for jgmenu. And, by the way, I don't think I've tried obmenu-generator. Nothing against it, just haven't felt that I needed it. I read up on it a little more when I found out that obmenu wouldn't be in the Bullseye repos. I'll revisit everything when I start using Openbox in Bullseye, but I think I'm most likely to stick with the copy/paste/edit routine for the menu.

 

I'll have to take a look at PeKWM sometime. Another one I've used in the past, don't recall seeing it mentioned here, was AwesomeWM. A number of others besides that, but in the end kept only Fluxbox and Openbox. I can't say that I have a favorite between those two. I've done a lot more stuff with Openbox themes than I've done with Fluxbox "styles". The tabbed window thing in Fluxbox, always thought that was very cool; as it turns out, I almost never use that feature anymore.

Edited March 24, 2021 by saturnian

[wa4chq]

I used to run Linux on a Toshiba Satellite 110ct...I think I used Netscape (dillo and links too) for browsing.  Man, what a clunky machine.  Back then I thought it looked cool...lol

Edited November 4, 2022 by wa4chq
wrong model

[raymac46]

The cruddiest machine I ever put Linux on was a Fujitsu Lifebook 635Tx from 1997. Pentium 133, 96 MB RAM, no ethernet, no optical drive. It did have a PCMCIA slot and a floppy disk so I was able to plug in an ethernet PC card and install a running Deli Linux system by getting the base off a floppy and then the rest via the Internet. And yes it ran Dillo.

These things probably cost $3500 when new. Boggles the mind.

Edited March 25, 2021 by raymac46

[raymac46]

Just to update my thoughts on this topic, I am now convinced that although it's possible to run some form of Linux on real junk, for practical purposes it is a waste of time.

Old 32 bit Atom CPU netbooks, 10 year old cheap laptops that aren't worth upgrading or have maybe 2 GB of RAM, junker desktops with IDE HDDs - all this stuff should just be recycled.

I'm not even going to try unless the subject machine has a multicore CPU, an SSD, and at least 8 GB of RAM.

There are exceptions - a 10 year old Thinkpad T430 for example. That is a pleasure to use with Linux, even though it has an Ivy Bridge i5. The SSD and wifi adapter it has are superb.

[securitybreach]

Agreed. I mean you might be able to install and run linux apps but as soon as you open up the browser, the old machines lock up. Linux is efficient with maximizing the memory and such but browsers are full of javascript and are memory hogs. A lot of this started years ago when they made each tab a process but I guess the net has evolved to the point that you need somewhat up to date hardware to even use it. When mobile devices are faster and have more memory than your computer, it might be time to retire the computer and recycle it. Unless you repurpose it for one function, like an RPI project or a firewall.

[raymac46]

Oh I suppose there is a solid old 2008 Dell desktop that I keep running in memory of a couple of old ladies I helped over the years. It is a labor of love - maxed out DDR2 RAM, replaced the CPU with as good as the mobo will allow, added a cheap SSD. But it has only SATA 1, an old timey GTX 950 GPU, won't boot from a USB stick. Useless for gaming but it does OK with MX Linux and you can surf or watch videos I guess. But only an idiot would keep something like that in service. 

[abarbarian]

My 2007 Tough Book still runs MX-21 and I can surf and stream ok with it. It is a tad slow but it is still ok for occasional use. I have just bought a new battery for it as I am going to use it to watch anime whist I wait for patients at hospitals.

My 1017 Skylake build is still running very well with Arch installed.

I have a 32 bit Dell 4700 that did run ok but I have not fired it up in a while. I think I am going to put some linux on it and give it away if it still surfs and streams at an acceptable level.

I also have my old main pc, CPUAMD PHENOM 2 X4 965 Black Edition 3.4 GhzMotherboardAsus M2N32-SLI Deluxe I keep this around as it runs W7 so I can update my Garmin sat nav.

Also I have my old old main pc, CPUAMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz Socket AM2 65WMotherboardAsrock 960GC-GS-FX. I really will have to have a sort out this winter.

 

Thinking about it my Skylake cost around £1000 and is seven years old so has cost £142 a year which is around £3 a week. I recon it has saved me tons more than that in on-line bargins over its lifetime. 

[raymac46]

My daughter and her family are what I would describe as typical Internet users these days. In 2004 they had a single Dell Pentium 4 desktop system - now long gone. The only desktop they now have is an older Acer commercial system that I installed Linux on for my youngest grandchild to do remote learning. The rest of the family has an array of notebooks, iPads, Chromebooks, mobile phones, Switch consoles - all wifi connected. Even the old desktop uses wifi.

They don't upgrade or maintain anything - just replace every few years.

I believe that dweebs like us who keep old hardware around and upgrade it so that it lasts for 10 years or more are a vanishing species.

[colin.p]

I have 2 old (circa 2008/9 Vista/win7) laptops that run Mint 20.3 with no big issues (to speak of anyway). However my computing needs are rather modest - no gaming/CAD/rocket design/, or creating animated films for the likes of Kathleen Kennedy here.

 

Others would have tossed these baby's into the landfill but I saved them from being worm fodder. But just think of all the useless garbage, throw away  hardware that will be dirt cheap in October 2025 when all the win 10 computers won't be able to update to 11,12 or whatever MS has in store...

[securitybreach]

3 hours ago, colin.p said:

But just think of all the useless garbage, throw away  hardware that will be dirt cheap in October 2025 when all the win 10 computers won't be able to update to 11,12 or whatever MS has in store...

 

Doubtful, I just put windows 11 on a vista laptop yesterday for someone. It was a little slow but worked fine.

[raymac46]

@Josh can you get Windows 11 updates on older unsupported hardware?

Edited November 7, 2022 by raymac46

[Hedon James]

23 hours ago, raymac46 said:

My daughter and her family are what I would describe as typical Internet users these days. In 2004 they had a single Dell Pentium 4 desktop system - now long gone. The only desktop they now have is an older Acer commercial system that I installed Linux on for my youngest grandchild to do remote learning. The rest of the family has an array of notebooks, iPads, Chromebooks, mobile phones, Switch consoles - all wifi connected. Even the old desktop uses wifi.

They don't upgrade or maintain anything - just replace every few years.

I believe that dweebs like us who keep old hardware around and upgrade it so that it lasts for 10 years or more are a vanishing species.

 

Agreed.  This includes cell phones and automobiles.  But our failure to ban plastic straws & packaging, or switch away from plastic grocery bags is going to destroy our planet.  We need to get with the program and do OUR part to save the earth. 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Quote

I believe that dweebs like us...

 

...are a vanishing species.

 

 

Yup. That's probably true. Most products these days (automobiles, cell phones, stereo systems, televisions, computers, etc.) have become nearly impossible for the average workshop tinkerer to fix or repair. This has been the "business plan" for quite a while already; cheaply produce cheap products that don't last, making them not worth the $ or effort to repair. This eliminates "service" overhead for manufacturers and increases profits for them and everyone on down the chain to the retailers.

 

Ain't progress great! /sarcasm

[Hedon James]

I wonder how ChromeOS Flex would make out on some of these "junk" machines?

 

I've only recently learned of newer Chromebooks' ability to install and run native Linux applications (i.e.  firefox, thunderbird, libreoffice, gimp, etc...) through a terminal CLI, as well as downloaded DEB packages.  This might be exactly what I need for a laptop station, to work outside or on my boat in the middle of my lake on nice days.  A way to enjoy the beautiful day while still getting some work done towards an inflexible due date?

 

So I've started looking at Chromebooks.  And filtered through my "native OS" perspective (both Windows and Linux specs), these Chromebooks seem woefully under-specced, and somewhat homogeneous.  Processors running around 1.1 to 1.6 GHz; with 4GB RAM; and hard drives with only 32GB or 64GB of storage, with ability to expand through SD card slot.  Sounds like those old Netbooks with Atom CPUs that struggled to run Windows (and even many popular Linux DEs).  But they seem to run Chrome just fine, or even in a "snappy" fashion on these spartan-specced Chromebooks.

 

Unfortunately, many Chromebooks can't be upgraded due to components being soldered in place.  Of course, there are exceptions, but those Chromebooks tend to be pricier, often approaching or exceeding Win/Lin laptop prices.  That's when I discovered ChromeOS Flex.  A linux-based operating system designed to be installed from a "live media" and overwrite a device's hardware with new OS to extend the useful life with a stable and secure OS:

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/chrome-enterprise/chromeos-flex-ready-to-scale-to-pcs-and-macs

What does that sound like?

 

So now I'm on the lookout for a refurbed Windows laptop with at least 2.0GHz CPU, 8GB RAM and approx 128GB SSD, or ability to be upgraded to something similar.  I fully intend to install ChromeOS Flex on that machine, for portability of internet connection when traveling; and flesh it out with the Linux applications I use for work productivity.  While I will continue to use Linux (Debian, for me) on my desktop, the represented functionality of ChromeOS Flex might be the sweet spot for a linux-user who needs a portable laptop.  Stay tuned, and I'll let you know how things turn out...

 

Or maybe someone else here has already done that?  If so, how did that turn out for you?  To bring this post back on topic, how does ChromeOS Flex run on a real piece of junk?  I wonder...

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Well, y'all seem to be having fun playing with your "junk". Unfortunately, the only junk I have around here these days is my old shop system (ericsbane05 - 2012) and my main machine in here (ericsband07 - 2016). Both are old and decrepit like me; yet, still working fine running Slackware. Although, the shop system has been down for a couple years (bad PSU).

 

So, no tinkering for me these days. I do enjoy reading about you folks' escapades, though.

[sunrat]

5 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

Well, y'all seem to be having fun playing with your "junk". Unfortunately, the only junk I have around here these days is my old shop system (ericsbane05 - 2012) and my main machine in here (ericsband07 - 2016). Both are old and decrepit like me; yet, still working fine running Slackware. Although, the shop system has been down for a couple years (bad PSU).

 

Holy crap Eric, 2016 is still recent and is when my current machine is from. Core i5 6500, GTX970, 16GB RAM, and a more recent WD Blue 1TB SSD. It's on it's second PSU but current Corsair one seems totally reliable. Still flies as far as I care.

I seem to have built a new machine every 8 years or so, 2 to go.