Older pcs -- down for the count?
 

Ever since the first days of linux, one of the biggest boasts was that we no longer had to throw our old machines into the trash. Linux will run on anything!
Since then I have enjoyed gathering old and used pcs and making them viable again (at least for me).
Now all the distros seem to be moving to gnome3 or unity, and if your hardware can't handle 3d then you must use the lesser alternative.

Does all this mean that the olders computers are to be forced to run old versions of linux (just like windows users had to stick with XP or buy a new computer)

I must say that if I'm forced to buy a new computer I'll probably go with the newest version of windows (just saying)

Can anyone offer me some good news about what I am missing here. Will there be a solution for this lack of 3-d acceleration?

You don't have to use older distributions, and you also don't have to use Gnome 3 or Unity. Just use XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment or one of the many WMs on a recent distro. For example, you can use Xubuntu, Lubuntu or Bodhi, all based on Ubuntu.
There are also distributions aimed at older hardware, that use recent versions of the installed software.

Hello,

The good news is that Linux is all about choices. The choices you make. Although the more recent distros use Gnome3, Unity, KDE all in the latest possible versions, there are still a lot of distros around that use more lightweight desktop environments and still be based on the latest technology and use the latest kernels. You can even start from a Debian netinstall and only install what you need. Go with Xfce, OpenBox, LXDE, Blackbox. Have a look at Crunchbang for example, Puppy Linux or Salix. I'm sure you'll be surprised! You don't need to follow anything or anyone if you don't want to. It's all up to you to make the choice. Gnome and KDE tend to make a distro pretty 'bloated' in my opinion which weighs heavy on your resources.

Kind regards,

Eric

If by 'all the distros' you mean *buntu, then you are right. Otherwise, it's not true.

Try slackware, debian, centos, gentoo, they can all be installed on older machines. Do be aware, tho that it depends on how old is old. Ancient machines will be problematic.

Thanks for the advice. I should have mentioned that I have tried a LOT of distros and wms and realize that, yes that is probably the direction I will have to take.
I was bemoaning the fact that I liked gnome better than the rest and that while xfce is pretty good, it is still not gnome.
oh well, such is life.
thanks again.

Gnome Foundation made the decision to release Gnome 3 and drop support for Gnome 2, and there is nothing that any of the different distributions can do about it.

There are plenty of distros that still support Gnome 2 (Ubuntu LTS, Debian Stable, Red Hat, CentOS, Mint, etc.) if you prefer. Eventually they will drop support as well, once their release cycle comes around again.

I also like putting a Debian netinst on older machines, I've recently installed Squeeze on two machines, one with 90mb of memory and the other one with 384mb of mem. I also put LXDE on them since I like Gnome 2 and want a lighter DE. IMO, lxde is close to Gnome and uses some of its library files.

I think that about sums it up, you PREFER Gnome. As has been mentioned the bigger desktops are moving to be bigger and fancier. The good news is that there are plenty of other great choices out there. You now need to make a decision, either use a lighter environment or buy newer hardware. Linux is still a great choice to get some more life out of aging hardware, especially for a server type of installation which uses only the command line.

Linux is still great for older systems. The thing is, a 500mhz PIII with 64mb of RAM is no longer an older system, it is an antique that is pretty much a waste of electricity to do anything with. Today an older system is at least a 1.5ghz single core with 512mb of RAM and most will have some form of 3D capable video card in them too.

Technically, not really. My firewall is an old Pentium III with 256 MB of RAM, and it does the job just fine. It originally had 128 MB of RAM, so I upped it, and I use it for my ACL's on my network, along with routing and the DHCP server. I'm running two firewalls, one for IDS, and then of course that one. It has never let me down....

Hmmm - I recently needed to check the hard disk on an old (I mean *old*) laptop. Didn't support cmov.
None of the normal (FSVO "normal") distros had a kernel that would boot a liveCD.

Eventually the only one I could find was Tinycore. Even it had issues with the video, but I eventually got it done.

So yes, it looks like even Linux is treating old kit as disposable.

Any idea how much electricity it is using? I'd guess at least 100 watts. A little Atom based system would do at least triple the amount of work at 1/10 the power. Look at those new Rasperry Pi things coming out, it can run Ubuntu and consumes 1 watt at full load.

You could potentially save money buying newer hardware.

I know not a lot.... It's headless, and the PSU is no where near that much....

Every PIII I've ever had produced a lot of heat, so I assume they are pulling a decent amount of power.

An Atom uses so little power can be passively cooled, the fan went out on my Atom powered EeePC 901 and it took me at least 3 days to even notice. It is on all the time and it is my main computer, it hit 70C when compiling for half an hour, still 20C under the alarm. It doesn't even have a real heatsink, just a thin piece of aluminum between the motherboard and the keyboard.

Anything over 10 watts for a home router is way too much.

True that. Speaking of which, my main router for my wireless network is the WRT350N, and it does the job well with DD-WRT.

But on the topic of old computers, I have one that has an actual tape drive in it..... I really want to get it up and running :)

You might be suprised at how little most P3s consume-

http://saf.bio.caltech.edu/saving_power.html#rawbox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...on#Pentium_III

Apart from a few of the dodgy models (e.g. P3-600 'katamai') the P3s are under 35watts TDP, which is pretty cool compared to most 'normal' desktop CPUs

You can passively cool P3s as well, if you dont mind downclocking a little or have access to a nice big 'socket a' cooler.

Atoms can be 'low power' but they arent all like that. The original atoms came with dodgy interl chipsets that chewed though far more power than the CPU (early Atoms with a cooling fan normally have the fan over the chipset, not the CPU....as the chipset is far hotter than the CPU is (22watts TDP chipset IIRC))

Hardly. Basing that from your guess about P3 power consumption are you?

Sure, newer computers will run faster...but they can also use more power than the old P3 systems (and apart from intel atom/AMD fusion systems, newer system will eat more power even at idle than the P3).

AFAIK cmov is an x86 instruction that only appeared with i686 CPUs.

If you try to run an i686 compiled disro on a i586/i486/i386 class CPU this is one of the issues you can hit.

Try finding a distro that isnt compiled for i686, probably an i586 distro.

Theoretically you can passively cool anything if you have a big enough chunk of copper. My Atom and chipset were passively cooled by an approximately 3x7 inch sheet of aluminum that is under 1/8 inch thick.

Mine is one of the Intel 945GSE based ones, the chipset is 6W TDP, the processor is 2.5W TDP. According to powertop, my whole system is using less than 10W while browsing with a few things in the background, which may not be totally accurate, but since my battery monitor is fairly accurate, I'd assume it is close enough. I can get it down to 8W if I dim the screen. That is including a wireless chipset too. Streaming a 1080p video from my file server maxes it out at 13W.

I guess I was a little off on my estimate of a PIII, I remember my 1ghz PIII used to run really hot.

I can confirm that Slackware 13.37 (latest stable release) runs on i586 CPUs if you use the single processor kernel. (Slackware is compiled with CONFIG_X86_MINIMUM_CPU_FAMILY=5 and optimised for i686 CONFIG_M686=y). The installer will require >64MB of RAM to boot successfully.
The above machine has 128MB RAM and will run a light window manager (I use Windowmaker). You would likely need a strong bladder as you can drink a lot of coffee waiting for things to happen.