Re: Old Computers

[Gary Dale <garydale@torfree.net>]

On 01/06/15 10:10 PM, Martin Read wrote:
> On 02/06/15 01:56, Jose Martinez wrote:
> > The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If
> > not, can I still get a debian distro that will?  I expect that the
> > processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I
> > also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem
> > will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals.
>
> https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en says:
>
> "However, Debian GNU/Linux jessie will not run on 486 or earlier 
> processors. Despite the architecture name "i386", support for actual 
> 80386 and 80486 processors (and their clones) was dropped with the 
> Sarge (r3.1) and Squeeze (r6.0) releases of Debian, respectively. The 
> Intel Pentium and clones, including those without an FPU 
> (Floating-Point Unit or math coprocessor), are supported. The Intel 
> Quark is not supported, due to hardware errata. "
Where you will also find problems is with various distros that 
supposedly support Pentiums but that require PAE, which is missing from 
a lot of them.

Another huge issue is finding a windowing system that will be 
lightweight enough to run in the memory older Pentium-based computers 
are likely to support.

Debian is good starting point but you may want to start with as minimal 
an install as possible and only add things as you need them.