There is a difference between a browser and the internet.
A browser may be too resource hungry to run on an old machine, so you use a different (perhaps older) browser that doesn't have all the unecessary bells and whistles.
Many sites , unfortunately, are designed badly with no real consideration for efficiency - though many nowadays have a "mobile" version which is simpler. Just use that.

It is marketting that has blown the resource usage out of all sensible proportions.

Try running chromium instead of firefox.

I have some old 32 bit machines with 512MB of RAM running Debian 9 with XFCE4. Firefox is definitely more sluggish (and Chrome is not available in 32 bit). Depending on the CPU speed, it may not be too bad.

My experience is that a CPU with a Passmark around 300 is still too sluggish even with Chromium. But a CPU with a Passmark around 450 is not too bad. You can comfortably use YouTube, for example (but only with the far more efficient Chromium, not Firefox).

Anything less than 256MB of RAM and/or slower than a Pentium III, though...really not worth running a GUI on that. I mean, what's the point? Even as a dumb X terminal or VNC client, it's going to be sluggish. Maybe use it as a retro gaming computer.

I do not understand the attraction of JS programming for web sites. I CAN understand the desire to offload processing onto the client, but it is just not viable when you have no control over the processing capability on the client end. I disable Javascript processing on every browser I use on every platform when I install the software, or run a JS blocker that I can use with a "whitelist" capability to allow ONLY certain sites to run JS on my client. Anyone who designs a site assuming that Javascript will be supported and run on the client is engaging in poor design.

Many of the things that you can do with Javascript can be better done with a combination of server side processing, proper CSS (which degrades in useful and not unattractive ways when your CSS feature is not client supported), and HTML5. If you are developing something that can only run in certain browsers with certain settings, perhaps you need to put more thought into the design.

opensource.com just stopped loading on my SeaMonkey older version browser. It says connection interrupted. Tried old Opera Browser and the same result.

More recent youtube videos are not playing saying HTML5 is not supported by my browser.

I will live with this as long as possible.

You could also try palemoon, icecat, etc.

Thanks for these suggestions, will look into these later on.

P4 laptop on sale for 70 bucks locally, this is quite a change but wonder if anyone will buy it. Lowest price I have seen for a used laptop in a store so far.

^ lol, you mean this? for 70$, or what are bucks? i'd maybe take that for free.

It depends on the rest of the spec. I have a P4 luggable and just the screen is worth somewhere around there - or was last time I looked

i missed that it's a laptop. couple of years ago, i bought one from that era (2008 maybe) for 20 credits. it was in mint condition (but used, duh).

Guess that P4 laptop has been beaten to death now, fans, PSU, HD etc., may fail anytime. So buying that is a big gamble.

As an aside, my old PC is hanging when scripts are run on a site, so slowly this is reducing my surfing, will try and make peace with this.

^ well i'll say this once to you:
you live in a "western" country, yes?
the cost of food and rent and that sort of stuff is probably so high (like it is in every "western" country), that I may safely assume that even the poorest person can afford to spend ~100 extra credits for something once or twice a year. i speak from experience.

if you search a little (ebay, other local or national online markets), you can get very much for that!
if you buy components only and reuse parts you already have, even more. but laptops are cheap, too.
there's a constant flood of shiny new electronics coming in, and if you're happy with the second or third best, you can get away with spending next to nothing.

do that.

you can still follow your hobby (which i appreciate & share to some extent), but don't make yourself suffer on your everyday machine.

You have some very good points. If it becomes critical, I will go to a public place like a library etc., to browse a specific site that doesn't work on my PC.
Regarding getting more hardware, folks are even discarding these in dumpsters, it
has come to the point that I simply can't take in anymore hardware even for free except for specific components like HD etc., Now when it comes to older PCs, I am moving more towards software, emulators etc., this gives retro experience without the hardware overstocking.

This video shows an entire city that lives on recycling waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0s7WsoC528

It is sort of an eye opener that even in third world countries the used goods
consumerism is quite high. Dumpster divers in West are doing the same but in
a much smaller scale. For a small person in the right location, one can get a lot
of IT hardware in just few months or even weeks if this is done consistently. After
that, it is better to just buy anything specifically needed as used.

For a person who is lonely, bored etc., the old PC is a very great device to
stay entertained, amused and relive the past experiences. Even reading old computer
and device manuals with a fresh child like perspective is a satisfying and enriching
experience. This way, the old PC becomes priceless.

Few months ago a concern was raised here about support being dropped for i686 and
older systems by few Linux Distros one after the other.

However, it is nice to see that there are few OSes coming out that still support
such older PCs. Here is a good example:
https://minino.galpon.org/
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=minino

AntiX is a good distro for old equipment - http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

EDIT: You might also check out TinyCore & SliTaz.

i've seen this before.
they've been at it for a long while now, and iirc the spanish or portuguese government uses that distro, or maybe schools.
anyhow, longevity without much noise is always a plus for a distro.

Manjaro is also good for older PCs it seems:
http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/201...iew-of_22.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/...-pentium4.html

Nice thread above on why folks still use P4.

As an aside, if there are browser issues the Manjaro review says to use Google Chrome, what do you all think of Google Chrome browser and privacy, tracking etc.,

For a Pentium 4, use Chromium instead of Chrome. Google no longer provides 32 bit google-chrome. If you want a secure web browser, you'll have to use Chromium of something else (like Firefox). And "something else" will either be much less efficient (Firefox) or much less compatible with modern web sites (everything else?).

Or maybe Opera. I honestly haven't tried Opera in a while, so I can't say how it compares with chromium on an old Pentium 4.

Anyway, that thread is from 2014, and I'd say a P4 is no longer really viable for general web browsing. Okay, it's fine if you don't watch any sort of video (YouTube, Netflix, etc). But video playback on the web has just gotten too demanding for all but the fastest P4s.

[edit added:] Oh, I forgot that some later Pentium 4 processers could actually run 64 bit. In that case, Chrome is an option. And if you want to use Netflix or anything else that requires DRM, it's the better option. (The other option is Firefox, but it will just be too sluggish.)

Member response
 

Hi,

I believe that some maintainers will support 32 bit systems for the world community. The problem is that people expect to run up to date or current applications. Most 32 bit systems have limited hardware as compared to modern 64 bit systems so those people who wish to continue to use 32 bit should not expect a miracle.

Newbie alert: 50 Open Source Replacements for Windows XP is a sticky that list potential Gnu/Linux for XP class machines. So you should be able to find something within that list.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

There are probably as many 32bit machines in the World as there are 64bit ones, if not more and I would imagine most of those embedded in other hardware are 32bit.
I have 5 machines here and only ONE of them is 64bit capable.

True, but perhaps not for long. All of the machines I see that are not SBC or dedicated use machines (and even some of those) are all arriving 64-bit capable now. As your 32-bit hardware retires (or smokes) it will be replaced by hardware that can run 64-bit. That is why distributions and applications are moving to 64-bit, it is better and a better match for the current and future hardware.

I still see cases for fast, small machines that are 32-bit, compatible with legacy applications, and that lend themselves to embedded deployment or dense virtualization nicely. That is not the general case, and will not drive the majority of distributions or commercial operating systems.

For now, we still have interesting 32-bit choices. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Very little of the software is better or even as well written. Most is bloated and written in high level languages that require huge libraries to support them. Long gone are the days of tight efficient code.

#1 better is not well defined. "Better for what?", or "better in what way?" are critical questions.

#2 Tight, efficient code are not gone, and not everyone uses high level languages. Some of the best, fastest packages use lower level code (and even here, low and high are not well defined) so a generalization is likely to be misleading.

OS examples, the family of OS products based upon clean, fast assembler code. My favorite is KOLIBRIOS. Admitted, you need to LOOK for it to find it, but do not assume it is not there.

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.

Member response
 

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!
:hattip:

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.

Sure, but you won't be getting security updates (which is, of course, the biggest problem with any computer still using Windows XP).

This is the main reason why I took the chance to upgrade my Windows 7 computer to Windows 10. Some years down the road, I don't want to be saddled with Windows 7 EOL. Windows 10 delays that problem.

It's the reason why I do upgrade my Debian computers to the latest Debian stable...at some point. The generous overlapping support windows mean that I don't really have to hurry, and I can get comfortable with the upgrade process on some of my less critical computers before diving in and upgrading the rest.

So, if I were still actually using any i586 Pentium computers, I'd be stuck with Debian 8 Jessie and I'd be thinking of retiring them. Only...it's unlikely any of my i586 Pentium computers could even be upgraded to enough RAM to run even Debian 8 Jessie, so the point would have been moot. As it is, I discarded everything older than Pentium II ages ago, and all of my Pentium II stuff died some time ago. I just couldn't cobble together any working combination of Slot 1 CPU and Slot 1 motherboard at some point...so I threw them away. The oldest stuff I have that's functional is Pentium III/Pentium M era. This is several generations newer than the stuff Debian 9 Jessie has dropped support for, so...I'm just not worried about it at all.

https://fossbytes.com/debian-is-drop...e-in-debian-9/

Edited to add: I didn't read above properly, i686 is still supported but not the CPUs before that. I saw what I wanted to see and not what it really said.

Dude, try reading your link. It says it is dropping support for older 32-bit CPUs, just like I said. All CPUs that are Pentium Pro or newer continue to be supported. That's i686 and better. Like I said, the supported processors include:

Pentium Pro
Pentium II
Celeron (all!)
Pentium III
Pentium 4
everything newer also, including Atom.

The unsupported processors are:

8086
80286
80386
486
Pentium
Some obscure Pentium/Pentium Pro hybrids

That is all. The only processors where support actually dropped are:

Pentium
Some obscure Pentium/Pentium Pro hybrids

Debian had already dropped support for 486 and older years ago.

Xwindows is crashing about once a week or every two weeks on my older PC these days. I mostly have it running all the time and have a few apps open. Last time it crashed I cleaned the insides of much dust and thought it will help but it crashed again just today.

Found related link:
https://www.howtogeek.com/119293/4-w...rver-on-linux/

Most of the above is on how to recover from such a crash, doesn't give a permanent fix. I have used almost similar number of apps in the past on this PC and it didn't crash like this before. Only recently did Xwindows start crashing. There is enough HD, RAM, OS is Puppy Linux.

Any thoughts welcome, tx in advance.

Did you seperate the heatsink and fan, clean them and renew the paste (not too much)??
Also you should check that the cpu frequency is set to "on demand" so that it is not thrashing itself unnecessarily.

Thanks for the response. I just blew with hair dryer. Didn't separate or touch the internals, no paste applied.

The CPU freq was set to ondemand, haven't used this tool before.
Will see how it goes now. When I start a new program etc., CPU usage goes to 50% or so even for simple things sometimes and eventually this might be causing the
issue perhaps.

That implies a twin core processor.
The CPU usage should be 100% on one core for a single stream process (at least when not waiting for IO), but it should drop while the machine is idle.
You should look and see what tasks are active.

If the cpu is overheating when it is not under heavy load, you should ssplit the heatsink and fan and clean off the old paste and apply new, but look up on the web how to do that properly.

See it is single core P4, the driver for the duocore worked, so I just used it for the CPU scaling.

Forgot to add that we have heat waves locally that is quite intense. Perhaps this
is contributing to this issue, will see how the CPU functions in winter.

# cpuid
bash: cpuid: command not found
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
stepping : 7
cpu MHz : 2399.940
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid
bogomips : 4785.64
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 128
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management: