Very Old PC, Should I upgrade to Buster?

[bester69]

By Resuming, BUSTER >> NOT SUITABLE FOR LOW SPECS CPU

anticapitalista with antiX would not agree. Maybe it more your FrankenDebian's fault. How do any Live USBs you've tried perform?

It might be a thing of my intel graphic chipset , indeed I have the same problems I had when I upgraded ffmpeg and libdrm/mesa with Stretch to last baackported versions... furthermore, I coulnt run Swat4 (wine 1.4.1) in playonlinux... and mpv29 works worse than mpv28 in stretch and in buster... and the problems with kodi17 didnt know what could be about, just felt laggy the menus... the browser more or less the same than stretch, perhaps faster rendering, but I have the same bothering issue with vertical bar scroll, it scroll kind of laggy...I just could fix this issue with kernel 4.4.39..others kernels reproduce the issue....; dolphin and IO operations are very fast in buster, perhaps too much, feels unnaturl, sometimes dolphin do some extrange things with focus on folders, selecting more than one folder.. to me , the most importan thing weren ok in buster.:
- Vertical bar browser scroll (kind of laagy)
- Swat4-playonlinux (wasnt able to deploy the wine version required)
- mpv29 (smplayer) (eats more cpu, looks worse the codecs like darker, and have the same bug than in stretch, that doesn pick hd online streams but low ones)
- kodi17 (felt very heavy or clumsy)
- The kernel version I need 4.4.39, couldn build Virtualbox modules (tried some few different versions)
- dolphin (so quick it does extrange things with focus on folders)

So, In general is a step backguards for me, I guess, In other computer with a more powerfull or better graphical chipset, should not get all of theses weird and bothering issues.

[DebbyIan]

That's hardware is a fine spec even for today's bloated internetware.
I reduced the RAM consumption on my PC from 32GB down to 4GB by simply refactoring my workflow. This proves that even a 4GB is plenty enough in today's markets. I also maintain a usable fork of dwm that loads the system up inside of 100MB. Check it out. Your system will feel new again.

https://github.com/doa379/dwm-6.2-2

[Nili]

I also maintain a usable fork of dwm that loads the system up inside of 100MB. Check it out. Your system will feel new again.
https://github.com/doa379/dwm-6.2-2

It is not DWM that determines whether the system to start with 100MB above or below, but what have been installed, managed or optimized it is decisive.
dwm is a simple 500K WM resource.

I would advise the Op to check Alpine Linux (Standard) to me it is very efficient on old systems. Very small distro almost up-to-date apps.
Being a small system, one should use it with minimalistic configs. Those type of distro sill can provide fresh air for old hardware. Not only for 4GB but 2GB aswell.

The only uncertainty may come from Kernel that may have reduced support on drivers or code.
A distro-hop on this system is worth my opinion.

[DebbyIan]

He brings in the question of which DE he's using. KDE in this case.
It's always possible to install a reduced Debian system. Kernel drivers are mostly modules. As I was trying to explain it can all be done within 100MB.

[Nili]

KDE still can still be used on 4GB Mem, The DE using only 500MB memory, if heavy applications are listed after it, the journey can be difficult even to 4GB
Therefore the reduction in a WM will bring other benefits, ofcourse requires more manual adjusts and tweaks. In the end the result will have a good end.

Ofcourse it's possible to reduce Debian, starting with NETINST and configuring via prompt, using minimal selections or configs only adds air to the old hardware.
Regarding kernel , if a custom have been made of course everything brings only advantages, my only fear is cleaning up old code at source from Linus on version 5+.
Sooner or later there will be cleaning for hardware that date 2005 or 2008 as i read from unofficial sources.

Indeed still can be done not only 100MB, but even below personally i have reached up to 60MB.

[Bloom]

That's not old in my book. I have a Pentium IV system from 1999 with 1 GiB of RAM and an IDE ssd as boot disk. It runs Debian Bullseye with an XFCE desktop without any problem.

[bester69]

I also maintain a usable fork of dwm that loads the system up inside of 100MB. Check it out. Your system will feel new again.
https://github.com/doa379/dwm-6.2-2

It is not DWM that determines whether the system to start with 100MB above or below, but what have been installed, managed or optimized it is decisive.
dwm is a simple 500K WM resource.

I would advise the Op to check Alpine Linux (Standard) to me it is very efficient on old systems. Very small distro almost up-to-date apps.
Being a small system, one should use it with minimalistic configs. Those type of distro sill can provide fresh air for old hardware. Not only for 4GB but 2GB aswell.

The only uncertainty may come from Kernel that may have reduced support on drivers or code.
A distro-hop on this system is worth my opinion.

Didnt know about Alpine, It seems great to install a dedicated server or a kodi multimedia system...
Ive an i586 pentium 4 with just 500Mb i wonder which use i could give him before to throw it away... perhaps a NAS and dlna server..it also supports WOL (wake on lan), so It could be used for a 3 months backup server ,