Debian Mate 32 bit for this old desktop PC?

[asifnaz]

Hi,
A friend of mine donated me this Pentium 4 PC with 1024 MB of RAM .It was not working and giving me beep . I had to clean RAMs with pencil eraser and had to reset CMOS(remove CMOS battery and remove power cable press power button to discharge any stored current) .

I was thinking I dont have a Linux machine as I am working on iMac and Windows PC . I want to make this PC as my Linux machine .
I am looking to install Debian 32 Mate on this PC .I really liked Gnome 2 BTW .
Please provide me link to download .

Will it work on that old PC...?

Thank you

[darry1966]

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... 6-mate.iso

[sickpig]

Will it work on that old PC...?

any DE will most likely struggle with so low RAM.
May be lxde or lxqt would be better than Mate.
Also, stretch would be comparatively less resource hungry than Buster.

[cuckooflew]

I wouldn't use a DE on that, you will get better performance with a Window Manager, but yes I think Debian 10 could run on it, the more modern browsers might be a problem as well. I would start with a base install:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... 86/iso-cd/, minimum , add Xorg and a WM, see how it goes...
That is partly how I got started using a window manager instead of the bloated Desktop Environments,..I had a older laptop, and with Mate it was slow, heated up to much as well, when I removed the DE, it was fine, then I decided to try a WM, it still was ok, Fluxbox is what I choose. after a while I started liking the WM better then a DE, and never looked back. Even on newer hardware with more memory I still like a WM better.
https://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/#stable

[andre@home]

For simple work on such PC's I use Slax, Debian based now at version 9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slax

This latest edition is heavily rewritten and is based on Debian, and relies on APT to add packages. The default builds (both 32-bit and 64-bit) contain Fluxbox window manager with a terminal, Chromium web browser, LeafPad text editor, calculator, pcmanfm file manager, and wicd network manager.[11][12]

It is very basic, but you can use quite well.
I've put it on our machine in the thrift shop. It using one of the newest Chrome and its speed is reasonable to browse.
It even recognized out of the box the USB WLAN stick, a common TP-Link 2.4GHz version.

As we do not need it, I did not try to post-install e.g, Libre Office or other applications.
Our people are very glad with it, as Windows 10 (as test) was so slow on that machine....not workable

So anything beyond such a very light distro of only 365 MB (!!!) I expect to work much slower... so it becomes very soon annoying.
If you do not want to be safe with at your own choice/risk... you could install an old Debian version from the Pentium 4 time, that one will work well, but it would not be my choice, maybe the browser has problems with the current internet and... as said.. it is unsafe....

You could also try Bunsenlabs, Debian based, much lighter than e.g. Stretch of Buster, but heavier than Slax.
There is a 32 bits version, read the requirements:
https://www.bunsenlabs.org/installation.html

Or you need to build it up from scratch, build the smallest kernel you really need based upon the needs.

[darry1966]

Build up from a net iso and use plain as varnish jwm. I don't even have a login manager like slim etc.. In my cas I'm using xfce, but for you probably jwm or Icewm.

[asifnaz]

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... 6-mate.iso

Thank you for the link . I will try this one first . If it does not work I will look for other suggestions . Thank you all

[stevepusser]

You'll probably be disappointed in modern web browsing on that machine, but it could be used for DVD and video playback, as long as it's not really HD, as well as basic stuff like email and word processing. I'd recommend using non-browser video streamers like Minitube or SMTube if you want to watch Youtube,

[asifnaz]

You'll probably be disappointed in modern web browsing on that machine, but it could be used for DVD and video playback, as long as it's not really HD, as well as basic stuff like email and word processing. I'd recommend using non-browser video streamers like Minitube or SMTube if you want to watch Youtube,

I understand that . I am not looking to watch HD videos on this machine .I will do some word processing , spreadsheets and some Sd videos etc

[andre@home]

It's now more a matter of trying some distro's ... and see how they behave and see if you like that... instead of....
Some help you may find at the neighbors..
https://www.linuxquestions.org/question ... butions-5/
and
https://www.techradar.com/news/best-lig ... nux-distro
https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/