Re: Query

[Tixy <tixy@yxit.co.uk>]

On Mon, 2022-02-07 at 16:37 -0500, gene heskett 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
> > > 
[...]
> 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.

Are you sure? The intel-microcode package is in the non-free section,
so I wouldn't expect this to be installed by the standard Debian
installer.

Also, touting the possibility of CPU bugs doesn't seem the most
compelling reason to upgrade upgrade hardware. The fact that it's a
1999 CPU with 768MB RAM and the tendency of software to bloat and
consume CPU and memory resources as time goes by should be enough. ;-)

-- 
Tixy