Re: Query

[gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net>]

On Monday, February 7, 2022 11:22:11 AM EST Dan Ritter wrote:
> 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-

Anything pentium below "family 10" in its boot log, has no firmware 
updates possible, and many have a halt bug that can only be recovered by 
a powerdown reset.  Dell makes pretty good stuff, but that is not 
fixable. I would read its boot log very carefully. The OP would probably 
be better off with a later off-lease machine with an i5 cpu, and 2Gigs of 
ram or more, simply because there is firmware fixes for all known bugs. 
Called microcode, the installer is smart enough to install the correct 
one for those cpu's that can be updated.

If the squeeze data is to be preserved, copy it to a big thumb drive, do 
the install, and copy it back.

The previous comments about SSD's are very valid advice. They are 
blazingly fast,

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>