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Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

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Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#101

Post by nickjj »

I run vanilla Arch with niri (Wayland), Waybar and a few other tools to create a desktop environment. I didn't do any special kernel or app specific tweaks for performance.

The machine boots using 1.1 GB of memory and total disk space after installing a bunch of apps is ~10 GB. Browser, Docker, video editor, image editor, LibreOffice, OBS, VMs, a ton of CLI tools and everything you'd expect to have a fully working and usable system is there.

It's a wonderful environment on 2014 era hardware. Granted I have 16 GB of memory but it would be fine with 8 GB even when running non-trivial Docker based projects and doing 1080p video editing.

Even Silksong runs at 60 FPS with a GeForce 750 Ti (2 GB) GPU. Although I splurged on a used AMD RX 480 (8 GB) to get more things to run nicely in parallel. Wayland is very picky with limited GPU VRAM, especially with NVIDIA cards.

I also run the same set up on a more modern laptop with way better hardware but things aren't much faster unless I'm very CPU bound.

Everything to get the system up and running in 1 command and 10-15 minutes is here: https://github.com/nickjj/dotfriedrice

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#102

Post by nbernard »

WCSTombs wrote: post #99

I don't know how a "complete" guide can completely fail to mention NVIDIA. It doesn't seem straightforward to support older NVIDIA cards (on any OS, to be fair, not just on Linux). That's currently one of the issues with my 2013 Dell laptop that has a Quadro K1100M.

Some Linux distributions (Debian for instance, so probably most Debian-based ones too) have sets of legacy drivers for older nvidia cards.

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#103

Post by anthk »

zahlman wrote: post #66
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #28

The reason this advice is bizarre is that old memory isn't actually that dear. The machines that would have had 2GB of RAM or less would be from the Core 2 Duo era or so, taking DDR2 or DDR3, and typically supported 8-16GB. 8GB of DDR3 is currently in the ballpark of $10 and the machines that take it can be found by the pallet in the "free e-waste" pile, so who is going to suffer <2GB instead of 8GB over $10?

> 8GB of DDR3 is currently in the ballpark of $10 Where would I find it sold? > and the machines that take it can be found by the pallet in the "free e-waste" pile Hey, I'm using one to write this :(

ZRAM does miracles under GNU/Linux:

       sudo modprobe zram 
       sudo zramctl --find --size 512M
       sudo mkswap /dev/swap0
       sudo swapon /dev/zram0 -p 99

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#104

Post by IgorPartola »

I love using older hardware in this way but browsing the web on an old laptop is PAINFUL. Even with a light browser and adblock websites are dog slow. Something like Google Maps or Google Docs becomes unusable. I am not against JavaScript on the web by any means but something needs to be done about basic document pages and forms and tables that by all means should fit into 1MB of RAM at most but take half a gig.

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#105

Post by theandrewbailey »

alaudet wrote: post #34

You don't even have to go that old. There are so many companies that upgrade tiny pc's its created a whole self hosting community with the tiny lenovo, hp and dell unit's. It's not only Windows that can be replaced with old hardware but also many online services with proxmox for cloud/nas/dns/vpn/multimedia etc. Of course these are not 2GB systems but you can do some pretty cool things with 8 and 9 year old systems t…

I work at an ewaste recycling company. Since I started working there over a year ago, over half the micro/tiny desktops I've seen come in are 7th gen i5 at least. In fact, I was using a Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro until about a month ago.

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#106

Post by teh64 »

forinti wrote: post #33
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #28

The reason this advice is bizarre is that old memory isn't actually that dear. The machines that would have had 2GB of RAM or less would be from the Core 2 Duo era or so, taking DDR2 or DDR3, and typically supported 8-16GB. 8GB of DDR3 is currently in the ballpark of $10 and the machines that take it can be found by the pallet in the "free e-waste" pile, so who is going to suffer <2GB instead of 8GB over $10?

Intel mobile chipsets for Core 2 Duo only supported 2 or 4GB. And not all the desktop chipsets supported 8 or 16GB. I have a laptop with 3GB: one of the slots only supports 1GB.

Some mobile Core 2 Duos are able to use more. I have a working macbook unibody (2008) with a core 2 duo with 8gb of ram. Apple added the support in a firmware update:

https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/9102-secret-firmware-lets-la...

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#107

Post by AnthonyMouse »

forinti wrote: post #33
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #28

The reason this advice is bizarre is that old memory isn't actually that dear. The machines that would have had 2GB of RAM or less would be from the Core 2 Duo era or so, taking DDR2 or DDR3, and typically supported 8-16GB. 8GB of DDR3 is currently in the ballpark of $10 and the machines that take it can be found by the pallet in the "free e-waste" pile, so who is going to suffer <2GB instead of 8GB over $10?

Intel mobile chipsets for Core 2 Duo only supported 2 or 4GB. And not all the desktop chipsets supported 8 or 16GB. I have a laptop with 3GB: one of the slots only supports 1GB.

It's not that machines that only support less exist. It's that machines that support more are essentially free. They sell for the "you're really just paying the shipping and handling" price on the various marketplaces and if you ask anyone in the IT department of any company that isn't run by Ebenezer Scrooge they're $0.

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#108

Post by saltcured »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #30

I had a similar experience trying to use an old laptop with 2GB of RAM. I was surprised how much it struggled with basic tasks. I remember my first computer with 32MB of RAM. Obviously we live in a different world now but still, it's not like I was trying to do anything more ambitious than what I used to do on that PC.

My first Linux PC was a 386DX-40 with 20 MB RAM and about 80 MB of HDD space.

I was able to run X Windows, Emacs, and gcc for university CS work. I had to use 8 bit psuedocolor graphics to have a decent sized desktop like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 (on a nice CRT).

But, I put it into a swapping frenzy by opening one JPEG that I had downloaded from an academic website. It was a high-resolution scan of some old manuscript, but probably lower pixel count than a typical smartphone photo from this decade.

Doing normal work also involved frequent swapping delays as you launched new programs and evicted old ones.

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#109

Post by ProllyInfamous »

Since 2026 began, I have turned a fifteen year old MacPro4,1 into a Ubuntu 24 powerhouse (using a 2019 GPU with HBM2). Before this, I knew little about computers not running macOS. Although I grew up on Macs, and have three modern Silicon machines... my old MacPro is again my daily driver (because: Linux).

It's incredible that this ancient machine runs Ollama3.1 faster than my M2Pro/M3/M4 machines (entirely due to the GPU, still "ancient" by modern standards).

Re: Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide

#110

Post by anthk »

drnick1 wrote: post #90
joe_mamba wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have currently 2 browsers open and my memory commit is 370MB.. In what context? >If I hear that Win11 uses 3GB of RAM idling Modern Gnome and KDE distros with batteries included also idea at around 2GB RAM which is a useless metric anyway as Windows 11 also preloads frequently used takes and apps on boot.

I recently installed Arch Linux on a fairly old (but not ancient) Intel T2 Mac, with the GNOME DE, and it uses less than 1.5GB of RAM. I went for the standard gnome package which as far as I can tell is "batteries included." That leaves about 6.5GB for programs, which I think is acceptable.

Add ZRAM

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ZRAM

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