Re: Query

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

William Lee Valentine wrote: 
> I am wondering whether a current Debian distribution can be installed
> and run on an older Pentium III computer. (I have Debian 11.2 on a DVD.)
> 
> The computer is
> 
>    Dell Dimension XPS T500: Intel Pentium III processor (Katnai)
>    memory: 756 megabytes, running at 500 megahertz
>    IDE disc drive: 60 gigabytes
>    Debian partition: currently 42 gigabytes
>    Debian 6.0: Squeeze
> 
> If I install Debian 11.2, will it run on this machine? Will it preserve
> the files and directories that I have on Squeeze?

I'm going to assume you already have squeeze installed.

You should be able to upgrade in place from 6 to 7 to 8 to 9 to
10 to 11. On a machine that old and slow, I suspect it would
take one day per upgrade.

However, it should work.

If you can find a SATA interface card and a cheap SSD, it will
improve performance immensely.

Depending on the part of the world you are in, you can probably
find a much faster machine being given away or sold second-hand
for under $100.

If this is your only machine, I recommend not upgrading it, but
finding a new one if at all possible, then installing on the new
one and transferring over data from the old one.

-dsr-