I need some help finding a distro for a very old machine.
It’s my family’s old desktop with 2001 components (bought in 2004) and a Pentium CPU that is NOT i686. I checked the exact model and architecture once but I don’t remember it now. The only thing I remember is that it’s not i686 so 99% of modern 32 bit distros don’t work on it (stuck right after grub).
The machine has 1 Gb of DDR1 RAM though so I think it may be useful or at least fun to play around with.
Now it’s on Windows XP that runs quite well but doesn’t support modern SSL certificates so it can’t browse the internet (idk how to fix it ok?).
A long time ago I tried to run multiple distros in live mode on it and got only one (Puppy) to work. Display, sound, ethernet and pretty much everything worked fine. GPU seemed to be an issue though because NVidia and I couldn’t install the driver (it was skill issue and I think it’s possible to do). But now it doesn’t work for some reason.
Are there any Linux distros or other operating systems (preferably not deprecated) that I can install on it? And btw it does have bootable USB support.
EDIT: There are way too many answers and a lot of ones that don’t mind the architecture limitations. I’m grateful to everyone who replied but I have to close this discussion now and I will not reply to further answers. I have received enough information and I cannot physically read so many replies.
Consider antiX. It’s very lightweight, supports 32 bit and you’ll have access to the Debian Repos.
antix never let me down…
looks like they have an i386 iso.
http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/mxlinux/isos/ANTIX/Final/antiX-23.1/Antix 23.1 is based on Debian bookworm, so I think it requires i686 now. Older Antix releases ( based on Bullseye or earlier ) should work.
haven’t testet, but looks like there are bookworm i386 isos.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/They are really i686 though ( from Bookworm on ).
On Debian, i386 is now i686.
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#i386-is-i686
Are you sure it’s not a 686? Because apparently the Pentium Pro from 1995 is already a 686, by 2001 the Pentium 4 was already out.
Ya, that’s exactly my thought. I had Penitum 1 and Pentium 3/4 during those years. Pretty sure they are 686 and beyond.
Tiny Core would probably run on it.
I have it on a PII 333MHz with 192MB of RAM from 1999. It grinds to a halt if I try to open pretty much any modern website though.
I just checked it and it seems to be an independent distro. Does it have a repo or do I have to compile everything I want to install?
It has a repo with programs you can install. The selection is fairly limited though.
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/doku.php?id=wiki:install_apps
That computer is in the basement and I’m not having any luck finding a list of what’s available.
Hmm I can’t find a browseable repo so idk if there’s anything useful for it but I might check it out. Thanks
the repos are browsable inside the package manager - I would imagine they are browsable outside as well, but I have never had cause to do so.
honestly, give tinycore a shot. fire it up in a VM and take a look around - it really is an amazingly useful distro.
My main Linux machine is too slow to run a VM of any kind
understood. tinycore is a live installable distro, so you can still test it on bare metal.
pick the GUI flavor and kick the tires for a while.
Just reading through the comments, and your post. You’d honestly have a much better time getting a Pi of some sort and just running that. This is antiquated hardware that is going to have all sorts of headaches even if you do get it running.
Retro computing is a fun hobby though. I enjoy keeping the PC I built in 2006 running and out of the landfill
Have an upvote from me
Technically, Ubuntu supports it’s LTS versions for something like 12 years I think?
Anyway, you can get Ubuntu 14.04 LTS still with the i386 32bit ISO.
https://www.releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/
I personally would install that and install something like FVWM95 or Blackbox WM or some other ancien desktop environment.