On Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 02:05:05PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
- start by reinstall Debian using a 64bit system this time
If it had been done 10 years ago it wouldn't need to be done now. :) If you just don't want to bother that's fine, but not great advice for anyone starting out.
In my experience VMs running in a 32bit Debian system on a Core 2 processor (i.e. one of the first amd64-compatible CPU from Intel) offer adequate performance. I probably wouldn't use that for a server under any real load, but VMs can be useful in all kinds of situations.
VMs running on a core 2 definitely have unfixable security issues and aren't great performers. That certainly limits the use cases.
It's certainly possible to run software-only virtualization on an ancient CPU, but at that point (since it would clearly just be to scratch an itch, not for any practical reason) why ask for opinions instead of just playing around if playing around is the only goal?I get the impression that by "if playing around is the only goal" you mean something like "if it's not within the context of a commercial deployment". Sometimes the need is very real (not just for playing around) but doesn't have anything to do with maximizing hardware utilization in a datacenter.
Since faster and more efficient hardware can literally be found for free these days, running on something that old has a strong component of personal choice. Which is fine, but not a strong argument. Put a different way, it's fine if that's what you want to do, but terrible advice for others.