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Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

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IzayoiFlandre
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Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#1 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

Hi,

Will Debian 9 Stretch i686 (32-bit) work on the following specifications? I'm looking to perform a dual boot operation on this machine with Windows XP.

Intel Atom N270 (1.6Ghz)
1 GB RAM DDR2 SDRAM
Intel GMA 945
160 GB SATA HDD

The machine in question is a netbook - specifically a Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA. I bought it for school work and such and would like to dual boot in order to use it with modern software. :)

I plan to have LXDE desktop environment installed, since I am a newbie and need a desktop environment ^^

Thanks,
IzayoiFlandre

Acer Aspire ES1-531-C0XK (Intel Celeron N3050 1.6Ghz, 4 GB RAM DDR3 L, Intel HD Graphics 6000) - Debian 9 Stretch (LXDE)
Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA (Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 SD, Intel GMA 945) - Windows XP

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#2 Post by 4D696B65 »

IzayoiFlandre wrote: Will Debian 9 Stretch i686 (32-bit) work on the following specifications?
Yes

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#3 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

That was quick! :) Thanks :3
I've heard 32-bit Linux is being discontinued for a lot of distros, does anyone know the date of 32-bit discontinuation planed for Debian, or is there no planned date?
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Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA (Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 SD, Intel GMA 945) - Windows XP

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#4 Post by 4D696B65 »

386 and 486 have been depreciated. 686 will be around for a while I would think.

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#5 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

That's a relief. It all works fine, by the way :)
IzayoiFlandre

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Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA (Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 SD, Intel GMA 945) - Windows XP

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#6 Post by Lysander »

OP you are I are both running Debian on very similar hardware.

My netbook is:

Intel Atom N270 (1.6Ghz)
2 GB RAM DDR2 SDRAM
Intel GMA 950
250 GB SATA HDD

I, like you, am also running LXDE and find Stretch to be very smooth.

I am trying to find the best browser and am currently switching between Vivaldi and Chromium since Opera has been deprecated for 32bit.

If you find Libre Office Writer has problems opening, this should help

https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question ... 90-solved/

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#7 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

We're also not that far physically from each other - your location says you're from London, I live in another part of the southeast (Margate, Kent). :D

I'm also thinking of upgrading the RAM in my netbook to 2 GB, though does this mean I have to alter my swap partition?

Have you tried Pale Moon? I've heard it's lighter than Firefox, although might not display all web pages correctly. But it is definitely a big improvement over Firefox and is pretty convenient in that it comes with an installer file (in my opinion, might not be for more enthusiastic Linux users). Even the unofficial XP builds (New Moon) are better than official FF 52 ESR in terms of the general feel of them, from what I've found.
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Acer Aspire ES1-531-C0XK (Intel Celeron N3050 1.6Ghz, 4 GB RAM DDR3 L, Intel HD Graphics 6000) - Debian 9 Stretch (LXDE)
Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA (Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 SD, Intel GMA 945) - Windows XP

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#8 Post by Lysander »

IzayoiFlandre wrote:We're also not that far physically from each other - your location says you're from London, I live in another part of the southeast (Margate, Kent). :D
As in Dreamland [I bet that's what everyone says]! I went there a while ago.
IzayoiFlandre wrote:
I'm also thinking of upgrading the RAM in my netbook to 2 GB, though does this mean I have to alter my swap partition?
You don't have to alter it. How much SWAP do you have currently, 1GB? I would personally leave it, partly because I'm lazy and partly because if I'd be less likely to spill over into SWAP if upgrading RAM [it's not like you'll be doing anything that demanding on your machine].
IzayoiFlandre wrote:might not display all web pages correctly
That's the issue. I've had a go with Pale Moon before and jettisoned it for the same reason. There's also the NetSurf browser which is very fast for simple web pages, but not so for anything heavier.

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#9 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

Yep! :)

Indeed I have 1 GB. And you're right, I don't do demanding tasks like multimedia on the netbook, I mainly use it for school work and things, and surfing forums and lesser demanding web pages. So yeah... it might make sense not to bother modifying the swap partition and I don't really want to damage my installs of XP or Debian somehow by doing so :P

Lightweight browsers usually start out lightweight, but then get heavier as features are added... I don't think you'll find really a decent lightweight browser as of now, especially considering the Hipster Web is on its determined path to wipe out Internet usage on anything other than a 3ghz+ processor and 8GB RAM... see: anything with a ton of ads, most modern IM services, etc. (which is why I want to stick to IRC)
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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#10 Post by Lysander »

IzayoiFlandre wrote: I don't think you'll find really a decent lightweight browser as of now
I was about to agree with you until I tried QupZilla. It works on most sites absolutely fine and it is able to display them with great speed. In-browser operation like adjusting settings etc is also very smooth and comfortable.

Youtube you can forget about though - I tend to use two browsers these days anyway - one for literary content and one for streaming videos. No browser is a one-stop-shop for me.

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#11 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

Cool. I'll give it a whirl tomorrow because I have to go pretty soon. :)
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Acer Aspire ES1-531-C0XK (Intel Celeron N3050 1.6Ghz, 4 GB RAM DDR3 L, Intel HD Graphics 6000) - Debian 9 Stretch (LXDE)
Compaq Mini CQ10-101SA (Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 SD, Intel GMA 945) - Windows XP

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#12 Post by Lysander »

EDIT: It's good apart from the fact that it can't use Gmail. Great.

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#13 Post by stevepusser »

On a lower powered machine, try a browser extension that allows embedded video to play in an external player such as mpv. That'll use less CPU cycles for a given resolution. Or use a separate Youtube browser/downloader such as smtube or qmplay2 which accomplish the same thing. Kodi also has Youtube addons, but might be too heavy for 1 GB.

I maintain the "approved by PM developers" third-party apt repository for Ubuntu and Debian Pale Moon packages after nobody was willing to add it to a PPA, as well as the packages in the MX Linux repos. PPAs don't support Debian, anyway.
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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#14 Post by IzayoiFlandre »

Am now using Qupzilla 2.1.2 and it works a bit better I guess. :)

@stevepusser I also found your i386 build of Debian Stretch Qupzilla 2.x, lol.
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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#15 Post by stevepusser »

Yeah,,started off with the Pale Moon repos and since then have been weaving a tangled web of others. My other big one is a multimedia one (SMTube and QMPlay2) where I also have gimp-2.9.7 and the latest Inkscape and Krita.
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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#16 Post by steve_v »

Lysander wrote:EDIT: It's good apart from the fact that it can't use Gmail. Great.
I find using a real mail client (e.g. Claws) with an imap connection to gmail works rather well on my (almost identical to the one being discussed here) netbook.
It seems all modern web browsers are shameless resource hogs. I have 2GB of RAM in my HP Mini, and it's snappy as hell... until one opens a browser.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

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Re: Will Debian 9 work on these specs?

#17 Post by Lysander »

steve_v wrote:
Lysander wrote:EDIT: It's good apart from the fact that it can't use Gmail. Great.
I find using a real mail client (e.g. Claws) with an imap connection to gmail works rather well on my (almost identical to the one being discussed here) netbook.
It seems all modern web browsers are shameless resource hogs. I have 2GB of RAM in my HP Mini, and it's snappy as hell... until one opens a browser.
Quite good advice. I didn't think of that. Thanks. I tend not like mail clients but in this case I don't mind considering an exception.

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