“Microsoft lately has been challenging Linux’s suitability for older hardware, so it seems like a good time to look at Linux distributions that can run on older machines. I took six distributions for a test run on an old machine, and also tried software that turns old hardware into a thin client. The bottom line: Linux is still quite suitable for older hardware. It might not turn your aging PC into a powerhouse, but it will extend its lifespan considerably.”
Microsoft has been challenging Linux to how well it runs on older hardware? I challenge Microsoft to see how well Vista runs on ~2-3 year old hardware. Performance-wise, I bet the current gnome or kde desktop at the time (6 months to a year from now) when vista is released will perform much faster.
Windows XP runs on an 8MHz computer with 20MB of RAM
http://winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm
Who says we cannot tweek XP. We can if we want.
Oops I do not want, I am happy with Arch/Ubuntu.
But nice to know that XP is so configurable.
Windows XP runs on an 8MHz computer with 20MB of RAM
That depends on you definition of “runs,” doesn’t it? Taking half an hour to boot and ten minutes to open a window is NOT “running” to me. It would be more accurate to say that Windows XP “works” on an 8MHz computer with 20MB, but is completely unusable. The point of the article wasn’t to show that linux “works” on low-end equipment, but to show it was usable.
So for suitability, would we just need to show that Windows XP can run “suitably” on some low spec hardware, or do we need to have a modern Linux kernel (2.4.30?) + kdrive X server + uclibc + busybox + *box (Maybe Enlightenment?) running on an 8 MHz 486 (take that!) with 16 MB memory, that boots in less than 30 minutes?
Or would that be unfair?
Edited 2006-02-26 19:08
30mn to boot and 100% system charge on idle state though… It works, but it is unsuitable as it is unusable.
I have actualy downgraded my PC’s and found they outperform any windows.
old AMD64bit 3000+$1200 windows 2k
Proliant ml570 2x 700MHz 512MB ram Centos4 $200 outperforms 3000+ in multitasking
ASUS m2a 1Ghz 192MB ram Debian $500
NetraX1 256MB ram Solaris10 $320
The laptop works fine with linux although I should upgrade the memory. I do not need a pc with a massive cpu any more I only need more ram. Quad core is my next upgrade or a CELL chip if they become cheep enough. Vector linux ran on my m2a like a dream intill the acpi problems happend to me. Strange Debian works fine with the acpi but sucky 800×600 comman problem that shouldnt happen. Microsoft have to remember older hardware uses much less power than most new systems. Look at VIA low power 1Ghz systems that most linux users are happy with if they chock up the RAM.
Linux users tend to run reliable systems more than most windows users. Mostly because linux users have slightly more money to spend on reliable hardware. $200 can buy you 1Gig of ram to speed up the system.
Edited 2006-02-26 17:25
I like to see numbers. For all this gentlemans thoroughness the whole article is completely subjective. I want graphs and statistics, memory usages, cpu load, application-user lactency, application benchmarks. Maybe the scientist in me is being to empericaly demanding, but telling me that this distro was “fairly usable, though not exactly snappy” is so meaningless, snappy for you is not snappy for me. Although, 2 seconds to you is 2 seconds to me. Please quantitative data next time. I’ll stop ranting now
If there was’nt so much variablity of HW, that might make sense, but I’m wary of lies, dammed lies & statistics.
I think the real merit of the article is the new tools that FOSS brings to resurect old boxes to do new tricks ie run in various ways without even needing a HDD.
I once installed win2k on a PII 366Mhz 64Mb ram pc. It was basic install with service packs and all. It ran pretty ok and I was a bit surprised as to how well it ran. Didn’t installed any linux though, that pc is now my router running freebsd.
I run Windows XP SP2 on an old 500 MHz Pentium 3 machine on daily basis and I can tell you that it outperforms both Kubuntu and Ubuntu on the same machine. Sure Fluxbox and friends would be faster but XP fulfills my needs on this better than KDE or Gnome.
I run ubuntu on a PII 266 with 192M ram and a 4Gig hard drive. Runs fine, with not much tweaking.
What about nano-X (probably deceased, http://www.microwindows.org) or PicoGUI (deceased, http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4764).
They shall run on low-end hardware, but they aren’t usable.
An apples v apples comparison of a HDD install of Linux v Windows configured with equiv services, comparable DE, cfg tools & apps etc, is largely subjective in responsiveness ?. It breaks down to which DEs & services & tools are you comparing.
An apples v oranges approach when revitalising old boxes is very appropriate because FOSS inherently opens up all kinds of innovations that can’t easily exist in the proprietry world. We get many new tools for new kinds of jobs.
In no particular order:
live-cds, many bundled apps, on the fly decompression, running entirely from RAM, install to USB drives, selectable DE, installing apps without needing HDD install, persistent storage on multi-session CDROMS and the list goes on.
Thankyou Puppy, DSL, Vector, and for my more capable boxes a big thankyou to PCLinuxOS!
Most of the recent distros use X servers from Xorg and a few use Xfree4.x …. both of which dropped support for many of the older graphics chipsets (you remember – the ones on ISA video cards).
This means that for machines of a certain vintage GUI become tricky. One solution to this is to revert to Xfree3.3.x where the old graphics chipset support is still present.
OpenBSD has a package for Xfree3.3.x and one of these days my 486dx/25 with 20MB of memory will roar back into life, if I find the time to set it all up.
Linux did used to run on old gear. I remember a 6MHz 386 (4 bogomips) with 4mb RAM running two kernel compiles (1.2.13 and 1.3.x) – concurrently ….and …. slowly. Without a GUI it was a responsive box in its day.
It is great to have one or two of these things around to keep the youngsters moans in proportion.
>>OpenBSD has a package for Xfree3.3.x and one of these days my 486dx/25 with 20MB of memory will roar back into life, if I find the time to set it all up.<<
Buy an old version of NT4, and office-97. From my experience, that will be faster, and more functional than any linux of bsd.
I like F/OSS, but X-Window is a hog.
>>OpenBSD has a package for Xfree3.3.x and one of these days my 486dx/25 with 20MB of memory will roar back into life, if I find the time to set it all up.<<
>Buy an old version of NT4, and office-97. From my experience, that will be faster, and more functional than any linux of bsd.
>I like F/OSS, but X-Window is a hog.
Yikes! I would never run NT on any less than a Pentium with 32 MB RAM. If you were to run Windows on such a thing, 95 or 3.11 would be much better (Win95’s original minimum spec was 386+4MB RAM).
X may be a bit of a hog on old hardware, but so is NT.
1)RAM: the first question I’d like to ask is: is it possible at all to add more RAM? If you can even double the amount of RAM that is going to make a hell of a difference in linux.
I’d also like to know if it is possible to replace the HD with a bigger one: increasing the RAM and replacing the HD isn’t going to break the bank.
2)Debian: the author didn’t give Debian a fair chance. Instead of using the desktop task that, as every Debian user knows, installs KDE and Gnome, why not apt-get install Fluxbox, Xfce, IceWM, whatever light DE/Window Manager you prefer?
How about TinyLinux? I used it in past and i liked it. It doesn’t have GUI though. Only command line.
I have Slackware 10.1 loaded on an old laptop, 233mhz 96megs of RAM, and it runs pretty well. As far as software goes, it has X on it, used to have OpenBox but have since switched to enlightenment (E16) and that works well also. Other software would be gaim, xchat, and probably an older version of firefox. So its no speed deamon, but it does work. I never tried open office on it tho, too afraid to install it on that laptop.
You might get Linux on old hardware, but you’ll also get a disparate collection of toolkits and UIs and second-tier applications. It would be great if one the teams behind these lightweight distributions put some effort into polishing them with consistent iconsets, consistent font rendering and consistent colour schemes and when possible, a standardised toolkit.
I don’t think that this is something that will ever get done, considering the large amount of work it would take.
That said, it doesn’t really bother me. Windows has lots of toolkits and widget styles as well, and no one seems to complain.
Hello
While scalabilty, the ability to adapt to a wide range of hardware, depends on many things one important issue and one that windows can never match is the fact that one can custom build a kernel in linux and build a hardware-specific and very thin system maximizing resources.
Before the flames start I am aware that there is more to it than kernel. After all the OS most scalable is likely IBM’s OS/2 which was designed from the ground up to run on everything from mainframes to laptops. It’s scalabilty is largely based on the fact that the whole system was/is (eComSystem has taken up the torch) built on Assembly code instead of C, as well as extremely conservative default settings. Although one can’t compile your own kernel there are somewhat customized kernels available for download.
It has been my experience that OS/2 is the fastest on any given hardware, new or old (though support for some hardware now requires a newer system ie eCS or paid-for drivers) then Linux and then Windows and especially if any networking is involved due to superior TCPIP stack. Conversely, to give the devil his due, nothing is as easy to install on an incredibly wide range of hardware or as easy to use as windows and that comes at a cost. So it is only logical that making it everything to everybody (and all hardware) which requires considerable bloat is going to make it slower than Linux on older hardware even on default kernel. Add in custom kernel and any argument must degenerate into a popularity contest, not the facts.
Jimmy