The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

ghorvath · 2016-05-14 07:09:06

I have just installed Bunsenlabs i686-pae on a machine with 2 GB RAM (the maximum it supports), AMD Athlon 2200+ CPU (1.5 GHz, supports pae, does not support 64 bit), bought in 2004. It is my mother-in-law's machine. It ran Crunchbang previously, and I was surprised that Bunsenlabs is similarly snappy, maybe even boots a bit faster. I managed to make youtube work by downloading the 10.3 libflashplayer.so and put it into /usr/local/lib/flashplayer-plugin/, because this CPU does not support sse2, and adobe flash stopped supporting non-sse2 capable CPUs. The installation was a bit fun, because its BIOS is faulty and you cannot boot Linux from USB disk. Thus I had to move the kernel and image files of the installer to the previous GRUB, and boot that while having the USB stick plugged in. :-)

I also have a very old Acer Travelmate 210 laptop (my father bought it before 2000, cannot remember exactly when) with 512 MB RAM (the maximum it supports), Pentium Celeron 700 MHz (supports pae, does not support 64 bit) with 10 GB HDD (still the original), and similarly, does not boot from USB without the hack above. Currently it runs wheezy-fied Crunchbang, and it works basically all right. Not really using it for anything but listening to music (with moc) and ssh-ing to other machines, but openbox works on it, and it can even browse the web (with quite a lag I have to say). If I log in to cli, it uses <50 MB RAM. I still have not upgraded it to Bunsenlabs, because wheezy has LTS support for another 2 years, but having a nice experience with another old machine, I just might. I am not sure, though, how much slower Bunsenlabs would run on this machine compared to the Crunchbang/wheezy.

Edit: Hm, I tried the live nonpae cd to boot on the acer laptop. It does boot, however when it comes to the graphical interface it freezes completely. I cannot even turn to cli by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1. I guess I will keep wheezy on this machine until LTS stops for wheezy.

TL;DR. Anyway, I was wondering on what _old_ hardware do you run Bunsenlabs, and what are your experiences? We could make it a competition, to find the oldest hardware on which Bunsenlabs still runs fine.

Last edited by ghorvath (2016-05-14 08:23:07)

MsMattie · 2016-05-16 16:12:59

Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop

single core
1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M 730 (Sonoma), 533MHz

circa: 2005

runs well. Even printer support works through usb.

apacus11 · 2016-05-17 05:49:54

Acer aspire one ZG5 Netbook.

Atom N270 single core @ 1.6 GHz.
1,5GB RAM.

Works fine if you don't visit youtube.

pvsage · 2016-05-17 09:01:05

^ Heh, that processor was a champ in my Dell Inspiron 910n ("Mini 9", the version that shipped with Dell's rebranded Ubuntu) through Waldorf, including playing Youtube videos. Had to force the N270 to the performance governor (maximum clock speed all the time) to get smooth video playback, which ate the battery and burned the core, but was capable of doing so for limited periods, and probably could have gone for hours on the charger with a laptop cooler. Any lower governor setting and the video got choppy.

Anyway, I understand that Atom was on par with a 1.8GHz Pentium M. Not too shabby for a chip with a TDP of...what, 2.7W?

apacus11 · 2016-05-17 09:31:52

pvsage wrote:

Had to force the N270 to the performance governor

I've done it once but the netbook almost burst into flames, even after installing a new fan...
I just use it to play and bork new distros.

pvsage · 2016-05-17 09:42:10

^ What, yours had a fan?? Mine was fanless!! ...and yes, it did get quite toasty. Never watched anything longer than a typical pop song video with it at that setting. I was happy enough with lower-res video most of the time though; the N270 plays 360p videos with nary a hiccup on the on-demand governor.

...but I think we're getting off-topic here.

@OP: PIII or newer should be adequate, including any dual-core Atom processor. PII, you'll be lucky if you can load a graphical interface, and smooth video playback or vidya are out, even with "potato-quality" graphic settings.

apacus11 · 2016-05-17 09:47:13

Totally agree. PIII should do the work with bunsen.

ohnonot · 2016-05-18 06:59:28

apacus11 wrote:

Acer aspire one ZG5 Netbook.
Atom N270 single core @ 1.6 GHz.
1,5GB RAM.
Works fine if you don't visit youtube.

hallelujah, i have the same machine!
and i love it. it's a bit thick and heavy compared to modern 10" netbooks, but just great.
battery life is still way above average even after 6 years.

about youtube: i would never attempt to play flash video on that machine.
flashplugin isn't even installed, on purpose.
rather use something like youtube-dl or (gtk-)youtube-viewer.

i also changed browsers quite often - iceweasel starts slowly and works fairly ok, but something like dwb or qutebrowser is much snappier.

PS:
this is actually OT since i'm not running BL on that machine...

apacus11 · 2016-05-18 07:07:46

^Sure, I removed flashplugin after the first attempt.
Tried to watch youtube videos through VLC too, but finally decided to use it just for distro-hopping.

I bought 5 years ago a 9 cell battery that runs for 3-4 hours.
Great netbook

ohnonot · 2016-05-19 05:14:20

^ people don't seem to realize how heavy VLC is (*).
really, you should just use mplayer (or preferably mpv). which is exactly what (gtk-)youtube-viewer does.

(*) it's a great piece of software, my deepest bow to the devs, but its multi-purpose, feature-rich "throw anything at me" philosophy does come at a price...

apacus11 · 2016-05-19 06:03:55

I recently changed to mplayer but get hit with the PNG-skin-error.
Must change VLC to mplayer in my debian-sid partition.

matmutant · 2016-07-27 17:02:28

Got it running flawlessly (nearly) on my Asus 1011PX:
Atom N570, 1GB of DDR3 (soldered, no SLOT )
Intel 330 SSD (60GB)
48Wh battery (5 years later it still holds 37Wh, i never got the 10hrs of runtime on linux, it drains like 9Wm minimum, which give like 3h30-4h :-\ [and nearly 5hrs new in box]

Only a few issues left: fan speed (that lets the T° getting high before doing anything) and miscellaneous things to tweak

Last edited by matmutant (2016-07-28 07:58:14)

redcollective · 2016-07-27 20:36:23

Can't claim the oldest but bunsen is my primary on a 2007 mac pro Rev 1 at work. It's going to be very sad *when* it dies. It is still hardly taxed by my daily usage - most of my usage is web apps, a bit of html in MS Vis Code or Geany / Atom, a couple of trivial uses in terminal, and usually a vagrant vm in the background.

Red

hhh · 2016-07-27 21:46:55

I ran Debian stable and #! on an old eMachines with onboard NVidia (5200, maybe?) for years, I was lucky and the power supply lasted, most didn't. I also used the Acer ZG5 with jessie for a year. YouTube was perfect w/ its Intel graphics, but the 8G Toshiba SSD was both tiny and SLOOOOW. An early, cheap drive, it didn't support TRIM.

Current hardware is a 9 year old, refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T500.

DrTronic · 2016-07-28 17:25:11

Comin at ya from a 2004 HP Pavillion ze4900, Celeron M 1.3GHz, 512Mb RAM.

Horizon_Brave · 2016-07-28 18:01:36

What should be added to this topic, is what hardware you're running, and what you actually DO with it. I'm curious to know the applications and functionality being used with the older hardware.

DrTronic · 2016-07-28 18:50:57

2004 HP Pavillion ze4900, Celeron M 1.3GHz, 512Mb RAM

Second / guest / music player laptop.

I like to resurrect 'garbage' machines for friends and family. I will give free assistance to anyone I know who wants to give up their Micros*** habit.
Showing them a snappy ancient laptop helps with that.
I also use the machine to hack around a little, try things out, learn without fear of breaking my main machine.

So - web browsing (youtube working fine without flash), music, viewing images, writing (.txt files), torrents, ftp transfers to Android.

I would add that, in my opinion, NoScript is crucial in helping an old dog happily surf the web, as is a reputable ad blocker.

Last edited by DrTronic (2016-07-28 18:53:59)

Horizon_Brave · 2016-07-28 21:19:53

DrTronic wrote:

I would add that, in my opinion, NoScript is crucial in helping an old dog happily surf the web, as is a reputable ad blocker.

+1 to that! NoScript, not only provides one heck of a nice security blanket for me, it really really helps with keeping my older processor running with sub-flame temperatures... Sorry DrTonic, but what instruction set is your cerelon classified under?

Last edited by Horizon_Brave (2016-07-28 21:21:31)

DrTronic · 2016-07-29 20:34:49

Horizon_Brave wrote:

+1 to that! NoScript, not only provides one heck of a nice security blanket for me, it really really helps with keeping my older processor running with sub-flame temperatures... Sorry DrTonic, but what instruction set is your cerelon classified under?

You may have to help me answer that question for you :0)

I think this is my processor -
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Celeron_M … 0131M.html

Which says MMX instructions.
But I don't know how to precisely answer your question.

(I'm not really a doctor you know.. )

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-07-29 20:37:42

Horizon_Brave wrote:

what instruction set is your cerelon classified under?

That processor uses a complex instruction set.

EDIT: More specifically, the x86 instruction set.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86, et al

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-07-29 20:43:17)

#1 2016-05-14 07:09:06

The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#2 2016-05-16 16:12:59

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#3 2016-05-17 05:49:54

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#4 2016-05-17 09:01:05

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#5 2016-05-17 09:31:52

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#6 2016-05-17 09:42:10

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#7 2016-05-17 09:47:13

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#8 2016-05-18 06:59:28

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#9 2016-05-18 07:07:46

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#10 2016-05-19 05:14:20

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#11 2016-05-19 06:03:55

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#12 2016-07-27 17:02:28

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#13 2016-07-27 20:36:23

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#14 2016-07-27 21:46:55

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#15 2016-07-28 17:25:11

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#16 2016-07-28 18:01:36

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#17 2016-07-28 18:50:57

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#18 2016-07-28 21:19:53

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#19 2016-07-29 20:34:49

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

#20 2016-07-29 20:37:42

Re: The oldest machine running Bunsenlabs with/without hiccups?

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