My P4 server is quite old like 2.4 Ghz Processor with 1Gb ram, still video is ok
for the most part on this one.

Thanks for this very helpful link, I learned about Joli OS and QEMU from this link. Can explore and learn even more in the future.

Hi,

Your Welcome!

I posted that a while back in hopes of providing new members with alternatives to XP and the like. Knowing that 32 bit machines still exist around the world that people still wish to use.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

My mousepad was super dirty and I cleaned the surface today, it is still wet, so I
looked for alternatives and found this helpful link:
http://carlcheo.com/mouse-pad-alternatives

I have a P4 2.4ghz with 2gb memory and it has a decent screen so is perfect for browsing and playing videos an music.

xwindows on P4 server kept on crashing. Cursor was also moving on its own sometimes. Shutdown PC and cleaned the insides with hair dryer on cold air setting, lots of dust and even some roach eggs insides. Was really a quick process.

At this rate I feel that this P4 server may even outlive me, interesting thought.

This just came out, quite a shock for me:
https://itsfoss.com/manjaro-drops-32-bit-support/

Other alternatives:
https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

I don't like tinycore as the settings, software etc., are all lost on shutdown.

This Legacy OS seems really nice, wish I had tried it before, it is based on
puppy Linux with older Kernel:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LegacyOS

There is a list of distros here that support i386 systems:
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ar...re=i386#simple

Most OSes above are based on Debian/Ubuntu, few are for firewall etc., However,
by 2021 it seems a P4 can be used only offline conveniently. Even a C2D sounds
ancient by that time.

A Pentium 4 machine? As long as it has at least 128MB of RAM, it'll run Debian just fine. Debian isn't going to drop support for 686 any time in the foreseeable future. Debian will support Pentium 4 machines in 2021. Remember that brand new 32 bit Atom machines were commonplace not that long ago.

I'd guess that the minimum practical RAM requirements for Debian might increase to 256MB by 2021, but that's easily within the RAM expansion capabilities of a typical Pentium 4 machine.

As for Core 2 Duo - a typical Core 2 Duo machine is actually about as powerful or more powerful than a low end new laptop. The trend in low end laptop CPUs has been to sacrifice computing power for reduced power consumption. This went way too far with the early Atom CPUs, but performance of more modern low end laptop CPUs has improved to the point of being okay.

So, a Core 2 Duo is generally quite usable - particularly in comparison with a typical Pentium 4 machine. We're talking typically twice the CPU power, twice the RAM, at about the same price (due to DDR2 vs DDR, and most used components being about the same price for P4 systems vs C2D systems).

While a C2D system will be quite old in 2021, it will likely be pretty usable - and a lot more usable than a P4 system.

My bigboy has a core 2 duo and I consider it pretty fast.

In any case newer multicore machines are only useful if the software actually uses the extra cores - which most doesn't.

This I didn't know. Tx for sharing.

Debian 8 you’ll get 32-bit support until 2020. That is just 3 more years, time flies. Hope some debian based independent distros continue to support 32 bit after this, but with time the hopes are declining for this as we share here.

Source:
https://itsfoss.com/manjaro-drops-32-bit-support/

No, Debian 9 supports 32 bit just fine. The person in that link does not know 32 bit from 64 bit. Debian 9 requires i686 or better for 32 bit x86. That means Pentium Pro or better:

Pentium Pro
Pentium II
Celeron (all!)
Pentium III
Pentium 4
Atom

as well as all amd64 compatible processors in 32 bit mode.

Like I said, Debian is going to continue supporting Pentium 4 for a long time.

Support doesn't mean that 32bit will stop working, it just means there will be no further updates, same as with XP which is still the widest used Windows OS.

This is a very good point that didn't strike me as I don't use windows.