Hello everyone, I have an old pc and can't get linux to boot properly on it. All of them have graphical artifacts, can't load the desktop, hang/lock up on boot.
I have tried 4 distros and all failed : Ubuntu,Lubuntu,antiX,Mint.

I tried to boot from a usb and all have problems. Ubuntu just hangs on boot. Lubuntu with some boot flags and it gets to the loading screen but it couldnt start the login service. antiX has graphic problems. Linux mint with the same Lubuntu flags managed to get to the login screen where I typed mint with no password (the default login) and after the login i get the backround and a mouse icon (which is the only thing that can move).

If hardware is into question I have the following:
CPU: Celeron D336 2.8GHz
Ram: 2GB Ram
GPU: nVidia GT-210 1GB edition
Motherboard: ASRock 775Dual-880Pro

The pc runs windows xp perfectly with no problems but the hard drive fails to boot sometimes so i want a portable linux system on a usb, so i can have a replacement if anything happens to the hard drive.
All of the mentioned Linux distros were tried with the latest version available on their respective sites.

Everything except the hard drive work without a problem. (verified via memtest+)

Any and all help is appreciated.

It seems that Debian and Debian-like distro's default video drivers don't work well with your video card. But if it helps, you need the nvidia legacy 340 driver. There are a number of solutions on the web, but none of them are very easy for a beginner.

1 members found this post helpful.

install Slackware and be happy.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the suggestion of slackware. This was and is currently the only distro that managed to boot off the USB. But the distro has almost horrible performance. Plus the boot option requires to have nouveau.modeset=0 which means the gpu driver is off if i am correct. So how do i get better performance now is the new question and final question.

2 members found this post helpful.

Yea for Slackware!!! I played with this search (Idk Slack):
"14.2" "nvidia-legacy340-driver"
but didn't find anything I_n00b recognized as 'cookbook-ish'.

I'd suggest: Edit #1, click 'Go Advanced', change Title to like:
Slackware: need 14.2 nvidia-legacy340-driver because nouveau.modeset=0 SLOW video
Then 'Save', then click 'Report' and ask Mod to move Thread to Slackware Forum.
(because Slackware gets incredibly fantastic help @LQ!!!)

p.s. Oh, ooops, 'we' forgot to say "Welcome to LQ"

1 members found this post helpful.

I believe it may be your hardware's lack of capability -- single core and 533 MHz bus speed -- that is the limiting factor moreso than the distro. Vector Lite and antiX come to mind, as suggestions. But a 32bit puppy would be sufficient, IMHO.

BIOS vs EFI, RAM capacity and ISP problems are real concerns, as well.

Best wishes!

Slacko is Slackware based. Its my go to if I want a small distro to boot into from cd. It boots into ram and you can save your user session onto your hard drive if you want.
http://slacko.eezy.xyz/index.php

https://slackbuilds.org/result/?sear...LEGACY&sv=14.2

Or play with some current iso

https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/liv...rent-20171122/

While your CPU power is a limiting factor, I don't think it is the main source of the problems you're experiencing. I have several boxen and two I still use are considerably weaker than yours (Socket 370s at 1.8GHz!!!) and they run acceptably once booted up due to maxed out RAM (1GB) and quality GPUs. There is your problem right there - GPU.

There is actually a video on YouTube demonstrating just how awful the GT 210 is, calling it a ripoff when it was first released in 2009 and beyond absurd in 2017. Unfortunately both AMD/ATi and nVidia still try to produce and sell cards that can't even begin to compete with today's onboard graphics. The price break for something that can compete with today's onboard graphics is $80-$100. In 2017 anything costing less borders on ripoff. Just FTR I am not talking about gaming at all, just simple desktop and YouTube video capability. Many older games are demo'd on one of those videos with the 210 and with all settings on Minimum Quality it still got four (4) Frames Per Second. Five times that is just barely playable.

Example - A modern budget card with good performance is the GT-730 which commonly has 2GB VRAM, 900+GHz clock, and 384 cuda cores. The GT-210 has 1GB VRAM, 500GHz clock, and sixteen (16) cuda cores if made after ~2015 and only eight (8) cuda cores if made before ~2015 !!!! A solid brand GT-730 starts at around 75 bux and really decent ones around 100 bux.

For about twice that amount it is possible to get a motherboard/CPU/GPU/RAM bundle with a 4 core 64bit CPU around 2GHz that would improve everything. Whatever you decide to do, just know that GT 210 has to be retired, possibly with extreme prejudice. It is very seriously holding you back.

1 members found this post helpful.

I installed the old video driver and it works perfectly. Thanks for all the support.