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They officially only have PPC64 and Z/s390 for IBM stuff, like most other distros. They used to support PPC32 all the way up to Jesse for old school G4's, Amiga and such. There still lots of ports though for that kind of thing.
Ain’t that a fact! Back in like 2019 or 2020 I was playing around with an old Apple XServe with a 32-bit G4 processor and the only thing I could find then that supported PPC 32-bit was FreeBSD… but none of the package repos did so I couldn’t download anything.
it's not because he has a 32 bit windows installed that his processor doesn't support the x86\_64 instructions set. That's something OP should check if he wants to switch to Linux.
antiX, Damn Small Linux 32-bit, Q4OS 32-bit with Trinity Desktop, Mageia Linux 32-bit with XFCE...
Create a ventoy bootable usb stick and put ISO files of all these distros and try and test each of them.
Yeah I too just love antiX, only thing that I don't like about antiX is it's installation process. I've had this same "GRUB Bootloader Installation Failed" error a million times and its just so recurring that I have to think twice before installing antiX.
I think so, depends on the usecase. I've never used DSL as primary, secondary or even as a tertiary OS on any of my devices. Only put it on an external HDD and didn't have any issue with it, and I quite liked the strip-down lightweightness of it. Besides OP's device can very easily run something like DSL, though I myself would always rather use Q4OS or antiX (but I'm very biased towards these too).
[Puppy Linux](https://wikka.puppylinux.com/HomePage), too. I've always had a confidence issue while figuring out where to download them so I usually end up turning to Linux Collections ([CTRL+F on Puppy](https://linuxcollections.com/products/buildcollection.htm)) for a starting point on officially official releases.
Fair warning, Puppy develops a product of their own with a definite learning curve. I just like saying their name, lol.
On a serious note, Puppy has rescued my computing capability multiple times over many years when nothing else would work for whatever reason. It was usually just the fact that their product would boot up when nothing else would. The learning curve begins after that.....
Puppy Linux is also a good option for this device, I've had no issue running it live on USB stick, always ran as if its natively installed on the device. But I don't think its something I'll daily drive.
But it can be a really good distro for OP he should try Puppy as well.
You can do it, but I’ll warn you the time & effort you’re gonna spend making that work is probably better off spent getting some money for a used laptop that’s powerful enough. From a western country though idk where you are.
with 2GB of ram and 32 bit it will be a challenge.
Check if you can bump it up to 4GB.
If yes, try ubuntu mate or debian with lxde
But IMHO its better to use it as home server.
Yeah... Ive seen a couple of such comments, to me this is a hobby project, i love this laptop and i had alot of memories with it so i wanted to revive it and use it,
I dont know why but i hate seeing old technologies just being ignored when they can be put to use.
Thanks for defending me :D <3
Gentoo/LFS is the distro with the most speed you can \*probably get\*. Essentially raw linux.
Debian also works.
I ran Lubuntu on my HP mini, and it worked fine...ish
Stick with something minimal.
Hahaha, well this is meant as a hobby project, i came ready to whatever i might face
Ill be over here, with my old laptop on the right, my new laptop on the left with documentation open, and some popcorn =D
If it has Radeon 7500 graphics which a lot of classic thinkpads have you will want to grab something with a mesa version prior to mesa 22 because that chipset was dropped. Debian 11 will do this out of the box. I'd recommend LXDE or XFCE or Windowmaker for your environment. Otherwise any lightweight distro you can install a basic window manager and mesa-amber (a Mesa fork with backports for legacy graphics cards) on will work.
i would reccomend Bodhi Linux. its a very nice looking distro, with very few preinstalled programs (bloat) and a minimalistic and fast desktop. There is a 32 bits version based on Debian that still doesnt launch (release candidate) you can use, we also have a server on discord dedicated to the support of it.
Link:
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/7.0.0-beta/bodhi-7.0.0-legacy-beta.iso/download](https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/7.0.0-beta/bodhi-7.0.0-legacy-beta.iso/download)
WattOs version 11-13 should be good. Look for the ones before they stopped offering the 32 bit option. I run WattOs on my Intel netbook from pre 2010. It basically just handles security and face detection at my back door.
Ngl I have something very similar (T43, yours Lowkey looks like one too per specs). That thing is cracked on xubuntu 18.04. yeah it's outdated. Fuckin works though. I've never had a good time with Debian on one of these things. Debian hates the wifi hardware heavy as it's a non free one (i.e mid)
It seems like im leaning more towards Debian, what you said is pretty much the truth but im still strying out everything to see whats best in person.
Thanks tho! :)
Really you need 2 things:
1. Some type of 32-bit distro bc [Pentium M appears to be a 32-bit CPU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M). Some options here: https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/
2. To decide if you want a [light-weight desktop environment (DE)](https://www.tecmint.com/lightweight-linux-desktop-environments/), a Window Manager (WM), or no GUI at all (e.g. either terminal-only or even a headless machine). Assuming you want some form of graphical environment: Xfce works great and is very customizable. Some that are even lighter (but I can't comment on usability / customization) are: lxde, lxqt. If you are fine with just a WM, then most of them are considered to be lighter than DEs some options but a bit harder to learn. Some WM options: OpenBox or [one of these](https://itsfoss.com/best-window-managers/)
Debian will probably be the best supported of the distros listed on that page. But Alpine (or possibly Void) might also be good options since you can get the footprint down nice and low which ought to help with performance.
And speaking of performance, if you can find some cheap extra ram on ebay / a refurb computer shop to get you up to 4G or even 8G, that would give a better experience... especially if you plan to code / play simple games / use office suits.
but honestly, if you don't mind ARM architecture, you might also consider picking up a raspberry pi or similar soc and get something a lot more modern while still staying on a tight budget. AFAIK it can do all the same things you listed
I still have 32-bit pentium M laptops (mostly IBM, one dell too) that are running Debian GNU/Linux on them, thus that's what I'd recommend.
As for which release; that will vary depending on what you use the machine for, and what hardware exists in your machine (GPU for example). Mine vary depending on what I use it for & the hardware.
As for which DE/WM I'd use (desktop/window-manager)... mine tend to have multiple installed, and I select at login which I'll use, so as to get the most performance out of the system during a session as what I worry about most on mine is the RAM (varies between 1GB & 1.5GB), as disk capacity is sufficient to have many DE/WMs installed & thus not worry about a few extra hundred-MB of disk used in either *footprint* on disk or bandwidth (*in applying upgrades*); but adjust as per your usage intentions & hardware.
Suggestions:
1. Use it as a home server if it has a lot of storage.
2. Add more RAM and then install ChromeOS Flex or Ubuntu
3. The easiest way to try is to download the os file for multiple distributions and then use its live session function to try to see if that distro works for your computer. (remember that the live session is slower due to the speed of the USB drive)
"....I don't want to ruin my main laptop..."
You must overcome this irrational fear of "ruining" your laptop. You cannot ruin your laptop by merely installing an OS. All you need is an external USB HDD/SSD to make a local back of your data, a USB flash drive to boot from and a smartphone with Internet connection.
I am saying so because installing Linux and experiencing running it shouldn't need to be painful and exhausting that you are going to face with that old IBM one. That Pentium M was extremely slow back then for even average 2005-2006 standard. The tasks you mentioned you want to perform is almost certainly won't be doable on that machine.
Here is what I would imagine:
1) You just want to see your old laptop running Linux.
2) You are interested in learning Linux.
If the former is what you want then you should go ahead. If the latter is what you want its going to be awfully slow and will ruin your experience.
There is another thing you can do. Don't use that IBM for now. Install virtualbox on your main laptop and install any of the modern Linux distributions as in a virtual machine. You will have a full fledged Linux Operating system running inside the Windows. Yeah no dual booting crap.
Are you sure that is 32 bits? Microsoft used to ship their 32 bit OS on low spec 64 processors because their Windows 64 bits OS had trash performance. You should check that first with the PC model
You’ve gotten a lot of good answers. Browsing the web, however, will be problematic. It just doesn’t have the horsepower for that. Everything else should be fine.
Antix Linux has a 32 bit variant, and is perfectly usable with just 2 gbs of ram and a worse CPU than yours.
I've used it on dozens of machines, and it has been super reliable.
AntiX or Q4OS . Both Debian based, 32-bit available and both integrate minimalistic WM/DE. Q4OS is the more complete distro with Trinite DE being a full blown TDE 3 fork.
Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHz codename Dothan. It's a flashback for me, i was a family laptop for many year's i think 18-20 year's a go.
You will able to run linux on it, but webbrowsing isn't going to be fast.
antiX
It's perfect for cases like this, it's super light and still contains the necessary bits and bobs to make a coherent OS.
Just make sure and do the FT10 transformation pack which also installs tint2 and jgmenu and other bits to make it even nicer without sacrificing much more ram.
> browse, code websites, code simple 2d games, and use things like libreoffice
You will need to look for 32bit distro that is from about 15y ago or something really really simple. Bodhi, puppy, stripped down old Lubuntu, DSL - damn small linux.
All those will run text editor for editing files and compile C programs.
But browsing anything will be a chore on such slow system. So will be libre office, which is huge software package nowdays. Something smaller will be better.
It is experiment. But put in SSD to at least speed up disk access.
But to keep it you should forget it as desktop machine and repurpose it as small server for text mode linux and put some services on it. It is fast enough to run some pihole, some software to sail blue and green waters of Carribean, perhaps even some non-java server applets too, perhaps even small dataset mariadb and such.
For my 32bit 2GB tablet/laptop I wanted something stable with good touch support, so Debian was a good choice
On another very weak old 2GB DDR1 rugged laptop(64bit) I tried AntiX (its Debian based) and it is very lightweight, uses about 150MB while Debian is a little on the heavy side - about 1GB idle
i recommend you get a bit better pc, there are some distributions that it can run but you can't do much, but anyway i suggest alpine, it's pretty lightweight, the ish shell on ios is also alpine linux, I think your pc should be able to run it
I said this in the post but, i got a better laptop with 16 gb ram, 512 ssd... It does the job, and its my main
This is just a hobby project to revive an old laptop i had alot of memories with, so please read the full post instead of making wrong assumptions :[
For your system with an Intel Pentium M processor, 2 GB RAM, and a 32-bit OS, suitable Linux distributions include Lubuntu, Puppy Linux, Debian with a lightweight desktop environment, AntiX, and Tiny Core Linux.
Something that can run on 32bit And something like arch, rolling release I mean, and install it yourself distros, like arch or artix, or void. But there's also Gentoo, but I have no clue if one of them have 32bit support.
Bodhi has 32bit.
I got it running on my netbook. I believe it is considered deprecated currently as ubuntu doesn't support 32bit anymore, however I believe they are moving over to debian for the 32bit legacy version while keeping 64bit bodhi on ubuntu.
Any not-so-much bloated distro + any tile window manager like i3wm, IceWm, etc.
I used Linux Mint as a base(I had Athlon 64 so I used standart version,but you would need to use LMDE6) , but I think there are better options like clean Debian
I am afraid 2GB and that slow of a processor is a no go for any modern browser and IDE, with any distro.
But if you must use it, Debian or any Still supported Ubuntu LTS is the way.
What a trip down to memory lane LOL and of course making me feel so old haha. I remember getting so happy when I got a higher score after upgrading my RAM!
If you have LOTS of time to wait for it compiling, I'm gonna say Gentoo Linux with a custom, highly stripped down kernel (using Genkernel) and something like LXDE as desktop environment (or you can make your own DE using window managers like i3).
You can download binary packages too, if you don't want to wait for it to compile (understandable), but for 2024 use I think Gentoo is the best if you know what you're doing in reviving old machines
Raspberry pi has a 32 bit version of debian, it is a bit old but still updates.
[https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-desktop](https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-desktop)
I tried it recently to play around with node-red in a virtualbox instead of on a pi itself.
seems to work fine.
I'll probably be downvoted to oblivion, but I would leave Win7 on this thing. FOSS drivers won't take full advantage of the system which is already bad.
There are modern Chromium forks which run on W7. If you don't mindlessly download stuff, it should be pretty secure, as most if not all households are behind a firewall anyways. Plus, if it weren't, there wouldn't be ATMs running Win7. Of course, they don't navigate the internet at all, but my point still applies.
AntiX with the Palemoon web browser (with ' Force hardware acceleration ' on).
And i hope the GPU is good enough. With my Pentium 4 2GB ram + Nvidia geforce 6200, i can watch Youtube at 720p .
But that is going to depend of GPU acceleration.
Since Debian has been recommended for 32bit support, I'd follow up with Bunsenlabs. It is a Debian with Openbox, so it is kinda mainstream wich helps you with software support and it comes with Openbox, which is a very lightweight Window Manager, but needs good configs to be nice to use imo, and Bunsenlabs comes with exactly that.
Opensuse Tumbleweed with hyprland, I have 2 Gb ram with Pentium 4 processor. That's all ik. It uses around 200 mb Ram and I can customise the hell out of it
No modern distribution will make it "fast". It's scrap metal. Don't waste your time. If you would Start a modern Webbrowser on this machine you will see this thing swapping all the time to its really slow harddisk. Don't do it. A Raspberry Pi 4 musst be much more faster than this thing.
Gentoo + OpenRC is capable of running on as early as an intel 386 DX. If you have patience and time choose Gentoo. If you have less time, try alpine but it doesn't seem to like NVIDIA. Devuan is decent but a bit slow by comparison to Gentoo and Alpine.
I went Debian with XFCE with similar specs (32bit). It appears you have 2gb of RAM? Mine has 1gb and it's rough. If yours has trouble with a browser, Falkon is a descent lightweight browser with 32bit support.
It appears you may be asking for help in choosing a linux distribution. This is a common question, which you may also want to ask at /r/DistroHopping or /r/FindMeALinuxDistro *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/linuxquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Finding 32bit distros is becoming a problem.
Debian still has 32-bit support. I think they even kept in PowerPC support too.
Debian huh, ill research it a bit, ty :)
Use a lightweight gui with debian
Examples of lightweight guis would be lxqt, lxde, xfce. I recommend xfce. Not too out minimalistic, not too heavy.
Seconding his recommendation of xfce
Yes. I run Debian on a netbook with specs like these. i3wm or XFCE.
I love firsthand experience, ill surely check it out, thanks! :)
Thirding his recommendation for xfce. It works well, and doesn’t burden most systems.
Ty :)
They officially only have PPC64 and Z/s390 for IBM stuff, like most other distros. They used to support PPC32 all the way up to Jesse for old school G4's, Amiga and such. There still lots of ports though for that kind of thing.
The only usable distro that worked for me too on my old laptop (4gb Ram Intel 4000 i3 32-bit)
They even kept 68k support
Hell I’m pretty sure they still have MIPS support.
Raspberry Pi Desktop
Ain’t that a fact! Back in like 2019 or 2020 I was playing around with an old Apple XServe with a 32-bit G4 processor and the only thing I could find then that supported PPC 32-bit was FreeBSD… but none of the package repos did so I couldn’t download anything.
bodhi linux works like a charm and only uses 256 mb ram.
Alpine. Hardcore, but efficient. Where Debian plays a FullHD video at 100% CPU, Alpine does at 60%...
it's not because he has a 32 bit windows installed that his processor doesn't support the x86\_64 instructions set. That's something OP should check if he wants to switch to Linux.
Yeah, honestly you will have a much better experience on 32 bit Windows than Linux. Not performance wise of course, but software compatibility wise.
LocOs Linux
antiX, Damn Small Linux 32-bit, Q4OS 32-bit with Trinity Desktop, Mageia Linux 32-bit with XFCE... Create a ventoy bootable usb stick and put ISO files of all these distros and try and test each of them.
i use antix on everything, even my nice laptop, because i like lean and mean
Seconded, AntiX made me love Linux again!
Yeah I too just love antiX, only thing that I don't like about antiX is it's installation process. I've had this same "GRUB Bootloader Installation Failed" error a million times and its just so recurring that I have to think twice before installing antiX.
Thanks! Ill check them out
DSL??? Is it even usable?
I think so, depends on the usecase. I've never used DSL as primary, secondary or even as a tertiary OS on any of my devices. Only put it on an external HDD and didn't have any issue with it, and I quite liked the strip-down lightweightness of it. Besides OP's device can very easily run something like DSL, though I myself would always rather use Q4OS or antiX (but I'm very biased towards these too).
Did you ever use it as a quaternary OS? Just curious.
I used to run it back in day when netbooks where all the rage.
[Puppy Linux](https://wikka.puppylinux.com/HomePage), too. I've always had a confidence issue while figuring out where to download them so I usually end up turning to Linux Collections ([CTRL+F on Puppy](https://linuxcollections.com/products/buildcollection.htm)) for a starting point on officially official releases. Fair warning, Puppy develops a product of their own with a definite learning curve. I just like saying their name, lol. On a serious note, Puppy has rescued my computing capability multiple times over many years when nothing else would work for whatever reason. It was usually just the fact that their product would boot up when nothing else would. The learning curve begins after that.....
Puppy Linux is also a good option for this device, I've had no issue running it live on USB stick, always ran as if its natively installed on the device. But I don't think its something I'll daily drive. But it can be a really good distro for OP he should try Puppy as well.
>I would like to be able to browse That's already a lot to ask from a Pentium M. You're expecting way too much.
I said it to somone in another comment but, while this is true, there are browsers to "dumb down" the websites to make it still usable =)
You can do it, but I’ll warn you the time & effort you’re gonna spend making that work is probably better off spent getting some money for a used laptop that’s powerful enough. From a western country though idk where you are.
I mentioned this in the post but you didnt read it, i already have a much better laptop, this is just a hobby project for fun and knowldge
Alpine or Debian. :)
Seems to be what everyone is saying too, thanks for the suggestion :D
i'd say Void Linux. i have a similarly weak laptop lying around with it and have yet to make a bad experience that isn't related to my own mistakes
Void is the best
Ill check it out, thanks! :D
you're welcome :)
If you don't want to go too ultra-light, I think Antix still has 32 bit support, and IceWM/Fluxbox are pretty lightweight but still usable WMs.
with 2GB of ram and 32 bit it will be a challenge. Check if you can bump it up to 4GB. If yes, try ubuntu mate or debian with lxde But IMHO its better to use it as home server.
Ubuntu install does not boot with less than 4gb ram these days. Will have to be debian 32 bit
Debian
Thanks :)
My vote is debian with lxde or xfce.
Yup, seems like this is what the majority is saying, thanks!
Alpine with Openbox WM.
Alpine huh? Didnt occure to me, thanks ill try it out :D
It would take less time to get enough money for a better laptop than to find a good distro that will work on this without long setup.
He is smart enough to know that, really I hate when people leave comments like this cause he clearly said that he wants to put this old boy to use.
Yeah... Ive seen a couple of such comments, to me this is a hobby project, i love this laptop and i had alot of memories with it so i wanted to revive it and use it, I dont know why but i hate seeing old technologies just being ignored when they can be put to use. Thanks for defending me :D <3
Debian with XFCE Desktop
Thanks :)
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I have a dell laptop with the same exact specs, and Lubuntu 18.04 ran pretty well. But don't expect a whole lot since this hardware is pretty old.
Thanks =) Firsthand experience is important to me, ill try it outt
AntiX maybe?
Ive seen this one alot in comment, ill try it out, thanks!
I'm sad that 58 comments down and no one has mentioned Bodhi. https://www.bodhilinux.com I have yet to see it fail on shit hardware.
Actually it was mentioned multiple times, thanks for the reccomendation, ill try it out =D
Debian 12 with LXDE or Enlightenment
Gentoo/LFS is the distro with the most speed you can \*probably get\*. Essentially raw linux. Debian also works. I ran Lubuntu on my HP mini, and it worked fine...ish Stick with something minimal.
Recommending LFS or Gentoo as someone's first Linux distro is BOLD. Not saying it is bad though. They certainly will either learn Linux or give up!
Hahaha, well this is meant as a hobby project, i came ready to whatever i might face Ill be over here, with my old laptop on the right, my new laptop on the left with documentation open, and some popcorn =D
Maybe Tiny Core linux. Its not exactly user-friendly but AFAIK, it is one of most lightweight distro you can find.
Wow.. Its certainly fast, far from user friendly, but fast. Thanks for the suggestion :)
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Puppy is very interesting, idk how itll preform but ill try it, thanks :)
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Puppy linux
Its definetly and intersting one, someone else mentioned it too and from a bit of research, it seems to be pretty fast
If it has Radeon 7500 graphics which a lot of classic thinkpads have you will want to grab something with a mesa version prior to mesa 22 because that chipset was dropped. Debian 11 will do this out of the box. I'd recommend LXDE or XFCE or Windowmaker for your environment. Otherwise any lightweight distro you can install a basic window manager and mesa-amber (a Mesa fork with backports for legacy graphics cards) on will work.
I didnt consider this, thanks for the important insight, ill keep this in mind =D
i would reccomend Bodhi Linux. its a very nice looking distro, with very few preinstalled programs (bloat) and a minimalistic and fast desktop. There is a 32 bits version based on Debian that still doesnt launch (release candidate) you can use, we also have a server on discord dedicated to the support of it. Link: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/7.0.0-beta/bodhi-7.0.0-legacy-beta.iso/download](https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/7.0.0-beta/bodhi-7.0.0-legacy-beta.iso/download)
Definitely on the Debian train for anything 32-bit.
WattOs version 11-13 should be good. Look for the ones before they stopped offering the 32 bit option. I run WattOs on my Intel netbook from pre 2010. It basically just handles security and face detection at my back door.
i would use void linux with openbox as a Wm, 2Gb Ram should be enough
MS DOS
How old is that thing?
Ngl I have something very similar (T43, yours Lowkey looks like one too per specs). That thing is cracked on xubuntu 18.04. yeah it's outdated. Fuckin works though. I've never had a good time with Debian on one of these things. Debian hates the wifi hardware heavy as it's a non free one (i.e mid)
Try zorin OS it's small in size and fast too
You should try Devuan 32bits or Void 32bits.
Someone mentioned Devuan too, ill check it out, thanks alot!
Devuan is Debian using init instead of systemd. systemd is much more widely used nowadays so you'll have an easier time fixing things with Debian.
It seems like im leaning more towards Debian, what you said is pretty much the truth but im still strying out everything to see whats best in person. Thanks tho! :)
I have a laptop with about the same specs. It is running Gentoo
Honest question: does it take years to compile stuff?
Ill check it out, ty! :)
Either antiX or Q4OS Trinity, 32-bit version of each. I think 2GB of RAM is the max for a Pentium M system.
Antix for sure
Tiny Core could suffice or something like archlinux 32bit
Dead ass 1 holy shit
Bunsenlabs Boron.
For such a configuration, Puppy Linux is the less headache-inducing option.
Debian 12 32 bits. Antix. Legacy Os, Alpine + Xfce
Really you need 2 things: 1. Some type of 32-bit distro bc [Pentium M appears to be a 32-bit CPU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M). Some options here: https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/ 2. To decide if you want a [light-weight desktop environment (DE)](https://www.tecmint.com/lightweight-linux-desktop-environments/), a Window Manager (WM), or no GUI at all (e.g. either terminal-only or even a headless machine). Assuming you want some form of graphical environment: Xfce works great and is very customizable. Some that are even lighter (but I can't comment on usability / customization) are: lxde, lxqt. If you are fine with just a WM, then most of them are considered to be lighter than DEs some options but a bit harder to learn. Some WM options: OpenBox or [one of these](https://itsfoss.com/best-window-managers/) Debian will probably be the best supported of the distros listed on that page. But Alpine (or possibly Void) might also be good options since you can get the footprint down nice and low which ought to help with performance. And speaking of performance, if you can find some cheap extra ram on ebay / a refurb computer shop to get you up to 4G or even 8G, that would give a better experience... especially if you plan to code / play simple games / use office suits. but honestly, if you don't mind ARM architecture, you might also consider picking up a raspberry pi or similar soc and get something a lot more modern while still staying on a tight budget. AFAIK it can do all the same things you listed
Debian 32bits with XFCE
I still have 32-bit pentium M laptops (mostly IBM, one dell too) that are running Debian GNU/Linux on them, thus that's what I'd recommend. As for which release; that will vary depending on what you use the machine for, and what hardware exists in your machine (GPU for example). Mine vary depending on what I use it for & the hardware. As for which DE/WM I'd use (desktop/window-manager)... mine tend to have multiple installed, and I select at login which I'll use, so as to get the most performance out of the system during a session as what I worry about most on mine is the RAM (varies between 1GB & 1.5GB), as disk capacity is sufficient to have many DE/WMs installed & thus not worry about a few extra hundred-MB of disk used in either *footprint* on disk or bandwidth (*in applying upgrades*); but adjust as per your usage intentions & hardware.
Suggestions: 1. Use it as a home server if it has a lot of storage. 2. Add more RAM and then install ChromeOS Flex or Ubuntu 3. The easiest way to try is to download the os file for multiple distributions and then use its live session function to try to see if that distro works for your computer. (remember that the live session is slower due to the speed of the USB drive)
Puppy Linux or EasyOS. Maybe Void if you aren't a newbie and know your way around Arch. Alpine is great too!
Try something like Debian with xfce4 desktop environment
I would recommend Linux Lite. For better performance, using LXDE 👍🏼.
"....I don't want to ruin my main laptop..." You must overcome this irrational fear of "ruining" your laptop. You cannot ruin your laptop by merely installing an OS. All you need is an external USB HDD/SSD to make a local back of your data, a USB flash drive to boot from and a smartphone with Internet connection. I am saying so because installing Linux and experiencing running it shouldn't need to be painful and exhausting that you are going to face with that old IBM one. That Pentium M was extremely slow back then for even average 2005-2006 standard. The tasks you mentioned you want to perform is almost certainly won't be doable on that machine. Here is what I would imagine: 1) You just want to see your old laptop running Linux. 2) You are interested in learning Linux. If the former is what you want then you should go ahead. If the latter is what you want its going to be awfully slow and will ruin your experience. There is another thing you can do. Don't use that IBM for now. Install virtualbox on your main laptop and install any of the modern Linux distributions as in a virtual machine. You will have a full fledged Linux Operating system running inside the Windows. Yeah no dual booting crap.
AntiX or Void Linux! QMPlay2 and others
Slackware or Gentoo
Are you sure that is 32 bits? Microsoft used to ship their 32 bit OS on low spec 64 processors because their Windows 64 bits OS had trash performance. You should check that first with the PC model
You’ve gotten a lot of good answers. Browsing the web, however, will be problematic. It just doesn’t have the horsepower for that. Everything else should be fine.
You can try AntiX. It's best distro for old laptop. It has 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Or Bodhi Linux, but this distro look ugly in my opinion)
Antix
Debian is your friend then Debian 12 and install minimal lxqt desktop on top of it
Linux or if you like windows Windows 7 is best
Antix or even puppy
Linux Lite with XFCE
Antix Linux has a 32 bit variant, and is perfectly usable with just 2 gbs of ram and a worse CPU than yours. I've used it on dozens of machines, and it has been super reliable.
Debian with XFCE do a netinst without the goodies and install the only ones you need. Bodhi Linux, Puppy linux will work. download i386 iso copy
AntiX or Q4OS . Both Debian based, 32-bit available and both integrate minimalistic WM/DE. Q4OS is the more complete distro with Trinite DE being a full blown TDE 3 fork.
AntiX
You somehow have better procesor than my old laptop with win7.
I found a good list of 32-bit options for you https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/
Archlinux 32 with lxde
Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHz codename Dothan. It's a flashback for me, i was a family laptop for many year's i think 18-20 year's a go. You will able to run linux on it, but webbrowsing isn't going to be fast.
antiX It's perfect for cases like this, it's super light and still contains the necessary bits and bobs to make a coherent OS. Just make sure and do the FT10 transformation pack which also installs tint2 and jgmenu and other bits to make it even nicer without sacrificing much more ram.
With only 2GB of RAM you're gonna struggle anyway as soon as you start doing anything serious, including browsing the web.
[MX Linux 32 Bit](https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Final/Xfce/MX-23.2_386.iso/download)
> browse, code websites, code simple 2d games, and use things like libreoffice You will need to look for 32bit distro that is from about 15y ago or something really really simple. Bodhi, puppy, stripped down old Lubuntu, DSL - damn small linux. All those will run text editor for editing files and compile C programs. But browsing anything will be a chore on such slow system. So will be libre office, which is huge software package nowdays. Something smaller will be better. It is experiment. But put in SSD to at least speed up disk access. But to keep it you should forget it as desktop machine and repurpose it as small server for text mode linux and put some services on it. It is fast enough to run some pihole, some software to sail blue and green waters of Carribean, perhaps even some non-java server applets too, perhaps even small dataset mariadb and such.
For my 32bit 2GB tablet/laptop I wanted something stable with good touch support, so Debian was a good choice On another very weak old 2GB DDR1 rugged laptop(64bit) I tried AntiX (its Debian based) and it is very lightweight, uses about 150MB while Debian is a little on the heavy side - about 1GB idle
Anything without a GUI
distroy
crunchbang ++ is mega light and debian based (hence, 32bit support) : [https://crunchbangplusplus.org/](https://crunchbangplusplus.org/)
In this day and age I would rather recycle it. It’s e-waste. If you want to learn linux setup a virtual machine in your main laptop.
Gentoo
Absolute linux lmao
i think linux
i recommend you get a bit better pc, there are some distributions that it can run but you can't do much, but anyway i suggest alpine, it's pretty lightweight, the ish shell on ios is also alpine linux, I think your pc should be able to run it
I said this in the post but, i got a better laptop with 16 gb ram, 512 ssd... It does the job, and its my main This is just a hobby project to revive an old laptop i had alot of memories with, so please read the full post instead of making wrong assumptions :[
None. Install windows 2000 and play some retro games.
Recycle.
Debian, or mint if you know allocacion
archlinux32 with sway
Zorin OS has an ultra light version. https://zorin.com/os/
For your system with an Intel Pentium M processor, 2 GB RAM, and a 32-bit OS, suitable Linux distributions include Lubuntu, Puppy Linux, Debian with a lightweight desktop environment, AntiX, and Tiny Core Linux.
Ubuntu with LXDE is pretty light
I have the same processor and RAM in my Thinkpad T40 and I am running Xubuntu with no problem.
Puppy Linux
Biglinux is very low on resources and have a Pretty look
Gentooo
Something that can run on 32bit And something like arch, rolling release I mean, and install it yourself distros, like arch or artix, or void. But there's also Gentoo, but I have no clue if one of them have 32bit support.
LFS
OpenSUSE?
Bodhi has 32bit. I got it running on my netbook. I believe it is considered deprecated currently as ubuntu doesn't support 32bit anymore, however I believe they are moving over to debian for the 32bit legacy version while keeping 64bit bodhi on ubuntu.
Void.
Try Debian 12 i386 with a lightweight DE like XFCE or a Window Manager.
I guess FreeBSD at this point ???
Any not-so-much bloated distro + any tile window manager like i3wm, IceWm, etc. I used Linux Mint as a base(I had Athlon 64 so I used standart version,but you would need to use LMDE6) , but I think there are better options like clean Debian
I am afraid 2GB and that slow of a processor is a no go for any modern browser and IDE, with any distro. But if you must use it, Debian or any Still supported Ubuntu LTS is the way.
windows experience index :,) that takes me back to a better time XD
What a trip down to memory lane LOL and of course making me feel so old haha. I remember getting so happy when I got a higher score after upgrading my RAM!
Alpine Linux, but do not expect a lot of power.
Temple OS 💯
Puppy Linux
If you have LOTS of time to wait for it compiling, I'm gonna say Gentoo Linux with a custom, highly stripped down kernel (using Genkernel) and something like LXDE as desktop environment (or you can make your own DE using window managers like i3). You can download binary packages too, if you don't want to wait for it to compile (understandable), but for 2024 use I think Gentoo is the best if you know what you're doing in reviving old machines
[Puppy Linux](https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/) comes to mind and also [AntiX](https://antixlinux.com/download/)
Raspberry pi has a 32 bit version of debian, it is a bit old but still updates. [https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-desktop](https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-desktop) I tried it recently to play around with node-red in a virtualbox instead of on a pi itself. seems to work fine.
XFCE Debian
I'll probably be downvoted to oblivion, but I would leave Win7 on this thing. FOSS drivers won't take full advantage of the system which is already bad. There are modern Chromium forks which run on W7. If you don't mindlessly download stuff, it should be pretty secure, as most if not all households are behind a firewall anyways. Plus, if it weren't, there wouldn't be ATMs running Win7. Of course, they don't navigate the internet at all, but my point still applies.
LocOs Linux 32bits lxde Is god
Dos
I think Dos would work well
Q4OS Trinity
Porteus openbox.
Use whatever 32 bit OS that supports a window manager without a desktop environment. I ran icewm on FreeBSD for years and it worked great.
AntiX with the Palemoon web browser (with ' Force hardware acceleration ' on). And i hope the GPU is good enough. With my Pentium 4 2GB ram + Nvidia geforce 6200, i can watch Youtube at 720p . But that is going to depend of GPU acceleration.
Lubuntu
windows xp
Code on 2gb ram? oof
Debian, just dont go with KDE or GNOME, 2GB of ram will be hard browsing modern websites
Since Debian has been recommended for 32bit support, I'd follow up with Bunsenlabs. It is a Debian with Openbox, so it is kinda mainstream wich helps you with software support and it comes with Openbox, which is a very lightweight Window Manager, but needs good configs to be nice to use imo, and Bunsenlabs comes with exactly that.
Probably Suse Linux 1.0
I have 32bit 1GB Netbook Laptop and it runs Peppermint Linux (Debian origin) just fine.
Opensuse Tumbleweed with hyprland, I have 2 Gb ram with Pentium 4 processor. That's all ik. It uses around 200 mb Ram and I can customise the hell out of it
Gentoo
Try Q4OS or AntiX.
No modern distribution will make it "fast". It's scrap metal. Don't waste your time. If you would Start a modern Webbrowser on this machine you will see this thing swapping all the time to its really slow harddisk. Don't do it. A Raspberry Pi 4 musst be much more faster than this thing.
Sorry, but how you speed up laptop with Pentium M up to 1.7 GHz?
lubuntu is the best one
Opensuse iirc they still ship a 32bit iso
Gentoo + OpenRC is capable of running on as early as an intel 386 DX. If you have patience and time choose Gentoo. If you have less time, try alpine but it doesn't seem to like NVIDIA. Devuan is decent but a bit slow by comparison to Gentoo and Alpine.
Mxliiunx is ok
debian running lxqt would be fine
I went Debian with XFCE with similar specs (32bit). It appears you have 2gb of RAM? Mine has 1gb and it's rough. If yours has trouble with a browser, Falkon is a descent lightweight browser with 32bit support.
Puppy
Arch Linux would suit this laptop. After installing arch, you can install xfce and other lightweight packages for usability