Single core, 32 bit CPU, can’t even do video playback on VLC. But it kinda works for some offline work, like text editing, and even emulation through zsnes! It’s crazy how Linux keeps old hardware like this running.

Thankfully though, this laptop CPU is upgradable, and so is the ram, so I’m planning on revitalizing and bringing this old Itautec to the 21st century 😄

  • 4shtonButcher@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    2 hours ago

    Pretty sure my dad’s secondary desktop I used for my first Linux install had a 1.2 GHz Duron or something and 512 MB. I’m pretty sure I got that funky compiz fusion 3D-cube desktop running on there 😅

  • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlMEnglish
    2·
    5 hours ago

    I’m planning on revitalizing and bringing this old Itautec to the 21st century

    I think it was born in the 21st century? From this it looks like the first Celeron M was in 2004, and the first at that clockspeed was 2005.

    Also, 2GB of RAM is plenty for many purposes - that’s more than any Raspberry Pi before the Pi 4 had!

    • merci3@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      3 hours ago

      Actually… You’re right about the 21st century lmao. I just wanted an excuse to quote Metal Gear Solid

      Also, the issue is not ram itself, of course, 2GB is enough for lots of fun on Linux, it’s the CPU that’s killing me

  • jj4211@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 hours ago

    can’t even do video playback on VLC.

    I remember back in the day when I downloaded the first divx file my K6-400 couldn’t smoothly play… I had been so used to thinking of that as a powerhouse coming from my Pentium 60, which was the first one I ran Linux on.

  • drathvedro@lemm.ee
    4·
    8 hours ago

    I have a 2001 compaq n600 still being used from time to time as a gateway for old tech as it has COM as well as LPT and analog video outs. It has 1.2ghz celeron, 512mb ram, 30 gig drive. Thing is kind of a beast for its time as my own desktop at that time was nowhere close to its spects. Thing was gifted to me after initially being given to install win7 on it. After telling the guy that this isnt going to happen and the best they couldd hope for is winxp and even then it’d struggle, they told me “oh, so linux is the only option then… well, it doesnt work for me. Have it, then, have fun with it!”. I put ubuntu on it, but still gnome ground the poor cpu to a halt, so I had to switch to Xfce. Luckily it turned good enough not to downgrade further to things like bare X or Kolibri OS. Worked as a solitaire machine for my dad for a few years, helped me fix and set up stuff on a few occasions, but nowadays mostly collecting dust in my drawer.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6·
    10 hours ago

    Stories from the “good” old days running Linux on a 386 machine with 4 MB or less of memory aside, in the present day it’s still perfectly normal to run Linux on a much weaker machine as a server - you can just rent a the cheapest VPS you can find (which nowadays will have 128 MB, maybe 256MB, and definitelly only give you a single core) and install it there.

    Of course, it won’t be something with X-Windows or Wayland, much less stuff like LibreOffice.

    I think the server distribution of Ubunto might fit such a VPS, though there are server-specific Linux distros that will for sure fit and if everything fails TinyCore Linux will fit in a potato.

    I current have a server like that using AlmaLinux on a VPS with less than 1GB in memory, which is used only as a Git repository and that machine is overkill for it (it’s the lowest end VPS with enough storage space for a Git repository big enough for the projects I’m working on, so judging by the server management interface and linux meminfo, that machine’s CPU power and memory are in practice far more than needed).

    If you’re willing to live with a command line interface, you can run Linux on $50 worth of hardware.

    • vvvvv@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      only give you a single core

      And boy would that core be shitty and over-provisioned.

  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 hours ago

    Those Tualatin core CPUs were absolutely fantastic. They doubled them and made the Core2. I had one running for 10+ years. I don’t know what it was about the bios but it was the fastest boot PC I ever built.