this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Single core, 32 bit CPU, can't even do video playback on VLC. But it kinda works for some offline work, like text editing, and even emulation through zsnes! It's crazy how Linux keeps old hardware like this running.

Thankfully though, this laptop CPU is upgradable, and so is the ram, so I'm planning on revitalizing and bringing this old Itautec to the 21st century πŸ˜„

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[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 16 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Whilst the Celeron was indeed utter cack, 2 GB has me making four Yorkshiremen-style "2GB? Luxury!" style comments.

I used to run Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire 1362 WMLi back in 2005. I had 512 MB of RAM and a 2800+ Sempron processor.

That said, looking at this:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/1351vs710/Mobile-AMD-Sempron-2800+-vs-Intel-Celeron-M-1.60GHz

My old Sempron was a better CPU than that piece of junk Celeron you've got there. Giving it 2GB of RAM is hilarious!

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[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes the laptop CPU and RAM may be upgradeable but have you considered the parts availability? Considering its a 32bit CPU

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[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Are you using systemd? Because 317 MB of RAM is really low for a normal Debian installation with XFce. At my mom's 2 GB ram laptop, it uses 850 MB on a cold boot.

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

850 sounds crazy. maybe you forgot to subtract cached memory?

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[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It is because it is 32 bit. You can run a 32 bit distro on your machine too if you really want.

You can get a full Trinity desktop on Q4OS in 130 MB of RAM (32 bit edition).

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I don't think the difference between 32bit and 64bit is 2x in memory sizes, it's way less than that. I run Q4OS, it runs at 350 MBs here.

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[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Celeron M with 2GB ram? That's actually not low at all :p

I bet it runs NetBSD or Tinycore flawlessly

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[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've run Linux on a 166MHz Pentium with 64MB of RAM. There's not much modern software that will run on that hardware though.

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[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

https://shop.hak5.org/products/shark-jack technically runs openwrt.

SoC: 580MHz MediaTek MT7628 mips CPU


Memory: 64 MB DDR2 RAM, 64 MB SPI Flash
[–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

Those are better specs than what I used throughout college (an Asus Eee PC running Debian with Xfce and Openbox). Not a powerful machine, but I absolutely loved that thing.

[–] loudWaterEnjoyer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I run a rpi zero w first gen

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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

If Minix counts, I got it running on a 286 some years ago. I don't remember how much RAM it had, but it was very little.

[–] piranhaconda@mander.xyz 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

My 2011 MacBook pro is still chugging along thanks to Linux.

I upgraded 4GB RAM to 16GB, upgraded the HDD to SSD, and replaced the CD drive with a second SSD. Sadly the screen is almost completely gone, occasionally intermittent, probably a cable gone bad, not sure, but the mini display port is working fine for an external monitor.

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[–] data1701d@startrek.website 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I booted Buildroot with kernel 5.17 on a Pentium II laptop off a CD I burned once - I needed to dump a drive once and that was the only hardware I had on hand that could dump 2.5” IDE drives and had a working CD drive so I could boot something other than the operating system installed on the drive.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Are we competing again?

I'm proud to be setting up a rhel10 desktop, as it'll be the first time I ran Linux as a desktop in 30 years of a Linux/Unix career.

To rephrase: I ran XFree86 on a 4mb i386 machine 30 years ago.

What do I win?

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[–] gjoel@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I suspect my first Linux ran on an 80mhz AMD K6. I did however also run it on a retired dual core UltraSPARC some years later I had somehow gotten my hands on. It might have been faster, but at that time it sure felt slow. And it sounded like a train passing through when it was on. In retrospect installing Gentoo on it was an optimistic endeavour.

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[–] misterbzr@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My daily driver at home has the same specs. Works fine.

[–] merci3@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you daily drive htop or something? πŸ˜†

[–] misterbzr@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

No just top. Only with swap on....πŸ˜‰

[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Is this one of those old obscenely small obscenely underpowered net books?

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[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Ran Ubuntu 8 with Compiz and integrated graphics on a Pentium 4 with 512MB RAM. It was an awful machine, but Linux made it great to use. I still miss the peak of GTK2 + Emerald.

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[–] psyc@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/linux-to-end-support-for-1989s-hottest-chip-the-486-with-next-release/

Considering they just dropped i486 support this year I’d say you’re running this on a super computer by comparison

[–] suswrkr@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

amazing, well done! i run Debian on cheap used Thinkcentre PCs, run as k3s worker nodes just fine.

[–] not_amm@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

May I ask what are the specs and size of those Thinkcentres? I have one I'm using as a server and planning to upgrade the CPU because it has a dual core one, and someone offered me the same one I have, but it's pretty big. I'd prefer to use the tiny models when I can buy some :D

[–] suswrkr@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lenovo ThinkCentre M715q, Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p

separate cheap newer N100 cpu node for jellyfin, other encoding

Intel NUC NUC8i5BEHS for k3s control plane, little more expensive but reliable.

i usually replace Thinkcentre fans w noctua for power draw, performance, and noise. and remove wifi module, not needed, draws power, closed blob firmware, is a risk. pops out easy, no config changes needed in Debian.

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[–] Jestzer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I think the weakest computer I’ve had Linux on was an original Xbox running DSL.

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