raymac46 Posted July 3 Posted July 3 My oldest Linux setup is Arch Linux on a Toshiba NB305 netbook from 2010 - Intel Atom, 2 GB of RAM. While the basic system still runs well, I have had increasingly annoying problems with the aging hardware technology. First, the display managers for LXQt stopped launching the desktop. now, after recent updates the Falkon and Palemoon browsers crash and won't display text. I planned to keep Arch running as long as I can but I think I'm nearing the end of this machine as a useful instrument. For now I can still use Midori and GNOME Web browsers (and Firefox if I don't mind losing my sanity.) But after 8 years it's probably time to install Arch somewhere else. 1 Quote
Hedon James Posted July 3 Posted July 3 46 minutes ago, raymac46 said: My oldest Linux setup is Arch Linux on a Toshiba NB305 netbook from 2010 - Intel Atom, 2 GB of RAM. While the basic system still runs well, I have had increasingly annoying problems with the aging hardware technology. First, the display managers for LXQt stopped launching the desktop. now, after recent updates the Falkon and Palemoon browsers crash and won't display text. I planned to keep Arch running as long as I can but I think I'm nearing the end of this machine as a useful instrument. For now I can still use Midori and GNOME Web browsers (and Firefox if I don't mind losing my sanity.) But after 8 years it's probably time to install Arch somewhere else. 8 years is a good run. If you factor in the age of the hardware at the time of Arch INSTALLATION, I'll bet that number is downright impressive?! As a user of fixed-release distros (first the 'Buntu families, now Debian), I insist on at least a 5-year support window. I think 10 years is probably a "sweet spot" because after 10 years, I'm almost certainly looking to upgrade the hardware, especially the CPU. I recently installed Lubuntu on my Studio Desktop (music software) and was reminded that I have an Ubuntu Pro membership, which provides extended support and security updates for 10 years. I think I might have to reconsider my distro choice again? I also think I remember reading that CentOS provided a 10-year support window before Red Hat/IBM acquired them? Or maybe it was RHEL? Not sure about Alma or Rocky? But I digress. 8 years on outdated hardware is pretty impressive, IMO. Good on you Ray! 1 Quote
raymac46 Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 Agree that the netbook was a bad machine even when Arch was originally installed. The CPU was slow and the memory inadequate even then. I couldn't upgrade anything but the storage - which I did with a cheap SSD. It was the only machine I had available to install Arch on at that time. It was a 64 bit CPU at least. I've kept it going out of interest to see how good Arch is as a rolling release. Now the GPU is hopelessly out of date and the CPU doesn't have AVX extensions so a lot of modern software won't work. I can still browse with GNOME Web (Epiphany) and Midori so I'll keep it going until no browser works with it. I do have another 11 year old junker which is chugging along quite well with EndeavourOS (an Arch derivative pretty close to the real thing.) Quote
raymac46 Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 I think the reason Falkon won't render text is that the latest update requires Vulkan support which the netbook's GPU doesn't have. The reason Palemoon crashes is that it needs AVX support which the netbook's CPU doesn't have. Most mainstream laptops have had both of these features since Sandy Bridge or Bulldozer hardware. The netbook is an outlier. I'm posting this from a 2014 AMD machine that I just updated EndeavourOS on. Running the latest Google Chrome here without issue but I got 8 GB of RAM. My major interest is in running Linux on obsolete hardware but sometimes you just have to know when to fold up. Quote
raymac46 Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 [ray@ray-20377 ~]$ free total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 7023376 1441536 4676552 52104 1204536 5581840 Swap: 0 0 0 [ray@ray-20377 ~]$ Quote
raymac46 Posted July 9 Author Posted July 9 Really the only browser I can use on this old netbook now is Midori. I can surf OK with GNOME Web but it won't let me post to this forum. Quote
raymac46 Posted July 9 Author Posted July 9 (edited) Testing Gnome Web Browser from Thinkpad PC. It works well and I can save posts from it. Another example of why the aging hardware on the Netbook is failing. Edited July 9 by raymac46 Quote
Hedon James Posted July 10 Posted July 10 13 hours ago, raymac46 said: Testing Gnome Web Browser from Thinkpad PC. It works well and I can save posts from it. Another example of why the aging hardware on the Netbook is failing. is the aging hardware failing....or is the more modern software overpowering the aging hardware? 1 Quote
raymac46 Posted July 10 Author Posted July 10 The hardware isn't failing in the sense of burning out, just failing to do its job. The old GPU doesn't support Vulkan for example. Most modern browsers require hardware acceleration it can't provide. Remember how advances in software obsoleted hardware every 18 months or so back in 1995? Now it might take 18 years but it still happens. Add in the fact that Netbooks were really junk designs when new and it's not surprising. I have an old desktop from 2007 that has been massively upgraded and it's still fine. You are stuck in 2010 with this Netbook - something that could not even run a stock version of Windows 7 when it came from the factory. I am pretty sure I can run this Netbook on Arch indefinitely if I want to do it from the command line and avoid surfing the Web with a graphical browser. In spite of my love of Linux on ancient hardware it just isn't worth it. Quote
Bookmem Posted July 10 Posted July 10 Personally, other than pure nostalgia, I don't see putting the effort into old netbooks. Not when you can buy Win 7 and later laptops so cheaply on eBay. I won't bother with one that even has an optical drive!! 1 Quote
Hedon James Posted July 10 Posted July 10 6 minutes ago, raymac46 said: The hardware isn't failing in the sense of burning out, just failing to do its job. The old GPU doesn't support Vulkan for example. Most modern browsers require hardware acceleration it can't provide. Remember how advances in software obsoleted hardware every 18 months or so back in 1995? Now it might take 18 years but it still happens. Add in the fact that Netbooks were really junk designs when new and it's not surprising. I have an old desktop from 2007 that has been massively upgraded and it's still fine. You are stuck in 2010 with this Netbook - something that could not even run a stock version of Windows 7 when it came from the factory. I am pretty sure I can run this Netbook on Arch indefinitely if I want to do it from the command line and avoid surfing the Web with a graphical browser. In spite of my love of Linux on ancient hardware it just isn't worth it. that's what I thought you meant! appreciate the clarification. I think we're all familiar with Moore's Law...."technology doubles every 2 years" (side note....absolutely noted in earlier days, but is it still comparatively true?). I think we can apply Moore's Law to software now....."hardware requirements double every 2 years". I exaggerate a little, but it illustrates the concept. JMO... Quote
raymac46 Posted July 10 Author Posted July 10 I got this netbook for free in 2015 from a neighbor who was frustrated with it. I used it to learn how to install Arch Linux and I've kept it running for years as proof of principle that modern distros can work on old hardware. I would never use it as a daily driver or give it to anyone else. It has provided an interesting test case and I've learned a lot from installing Arch on it. I agree it has never justified time spent on it. As mentioned above I have a more powerful laptop that runs an Arch derivative distro. I can carry on experiments with that machine which is "only" 10 years old. I had two 32 bit netbooks that were recycled years ago. Quote
raymac46 Posted July 10 Author Posted July 10 Maybe I've discovered Ray's Law. Old Hardware and new Software will work together until they don't. It isn't a gradual disintegration either. Things go swimmingly for years, then the software requires a non-existent feature in the hardware and **CRASH!!!!** just like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. Quote
raymac46 Posted July 10 Author Posted July 10 For now the old netbook seems to be OK with Firefox and Midori - at least as far as posting to this forum. I suppose I'll keep it stashed away until it won't work at all. Quote
raymac46 Posted Sunday at 01:30 PM Author Posted Sunday at 01:30 PM Well folks I think the end is here for this old netbook. And it's a hardware failure - namely the battery has stopped charging. Attempts to reset the battery charging have failed. I have to pull out the SSD and then it'll be off to Staples for recycling. I do think that experiments with this netbook have proven the point that Arch can be installed once and run for a long time, which was my original objective. Quote
raymac46 Posted Sunday at 05:35 PM Author Posted Sunday at 05:35 PM Well, I've removed the SSD and I'll recycle the old Toshiba. But I'm back in business. I have another laptop which runs Intel Broadwell. I had Mint Xfce installed but I prefer Arch. So I've used the archinstall script to do the installation. Very fast and easy. I have some tweaking to do but it looks pretty good so far. For simplicity I'm sticking with Xfce as I have tons of RAM compared to the netbook. I can use Firefox and don't have to mess with lightweight and glitchy browsers. [ray@archlinux-ray ~]$ inxi -Fxz System: Kernel: 6.15.6-arch1-1 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.1.1 Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.1 Distro: Arch Linux Machine: Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Pavilion Notebook v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <superuser required> Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 8092 v: 89.33 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Insyde v: F.82 date: 08/18/2016 Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 14.2 Wh (61.2%) condition: 23.2/23.2 Wh (100.0%) volts: 15.1 min: 14.8 model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: discharging CPU: Info: dual core model: Intel Core i5-5200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Broadwell rev: 4 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 3 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 898 min/max: 500/2700 cores: 1: 898 2: 898 3: 898 4: 898 bogomips: 17558 Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 Graphics: Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-8 bus-ID: 00:02.0 Device-2: Chicony HP Truevision HD driver: uvcvideo type: USB bus-ID: 1-3:3 Display: x11 server: X.org v: 1.21.1.18 driver: X: loaded: modesetting dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo/xrandr> resolution: 1366x768 API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast platforms: active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.1.5-arch1.1 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2) API: Vulkan v: 1.4.313 drivers: intel surfaces: N/A devices: 1 Info: Tools: api: eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: xfce4-display-settings x11: xprop Audio: Device-1: Intel Broadwell-U Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0 Device-2: Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 API: ALSA v: k6.15.6-arch1-1 status: kernel-api Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.6 status: active Network: Device-1: Broadcom BCM43142 802.11b/g/n vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: wl v: kernel bus-ID: 08:00.0 IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 09:00.0 IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter> Bluetooth: Device-1: Broadcom BCM43142A0 Bluetooth 4.0 driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB bus-ID: 1-7:4 Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: not found rfk-block: hardware: no software: no address: see --recommends Drives: Local Storage: total: 894.25 GiB used: 7.42 GiB (0.8%) ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Patriot model: Burst Elite 960GB size: 894.25 GiB Partition: ID-1: / size: 878.13 GiB used: 7.25 GiB (0.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 ID-2: /boot size: 1022 MiB used: 172.5 MiB (16.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 Swap: Alert: No swap data was found. Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 41.0 C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A Info: Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.67 GiB used: 661.2 MiB (8.4%) Processes: 173 Uptime: 0m Init: systemd Packages: 608 Compilers: gcc: 15.1.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.3.0 inxi: 3.3.38 [ray@archlinux-ray ~]$ Quote
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