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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Linux distro for an ancient Pentium PC (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] LeFantome 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

What 32 bit distros have you tried? I would think most would still support Pentium as kernel support has not been removed.

AntiX and Q4OS are both decent choices.

For a machine that limited, I would probably give Damn Small Linux a shot:

https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

It is Debian based ( actually AntiX ) and so it has access to the full Debian universe ( 32 bit at least ) but has a curated list of applications well tailored to low-resource environments.

Some have said Debian is i686 only but this is what Debian says:

https://www.debian.org/ports/#:~:text=Debian%20supports%20all%20IA%2D32,)%2C%20Cyrix%20and%20other%20manufacturers.&text=Port%20to%20the%20little%2Dendian,ISA%20and%20hardware%20floating%2Dpoint.

Edit: I take it back

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#i386-is-i686

Debian, AntiX, DSL, MX, and Q4OS are all Debian based and so no longer support i586. What a shame.

Edit edit:

That said, this is a recent change ( Debian Bookworm ) and so Debian 11 ( Bullseye ) still supports Pentium. Debian 11.9 was just released in February.