Distro for P4

[dmt]

Hi!

I've found an old family member on a shelve, P4 with .768 GB RAM  What distro I can install into this fellow? No special requirements, browsing internet would be enough ;)

[Nick H. Supervisor]

On 26/12/2023 at 08:17, dmt said:

Hi!

I've found an old family member on a shelve, P4 with .768 GB RAM  What distro I can install into this fellow? No special requirements, browsing internet would be enough

How much RAM? .768GB would be 768MB which doesn't sound right at all...but 768GB of RAM would be ludicrous as well!

If your family member is used to using Windows on their computer, they would probably be happy with either Zorin OS or Linux Mint. Neither of them are very intensive requirements-wise as far as I'm aware.

[dmt]

On 26/12/2023 at 15:15, Nick H. said:

.768GB would be 768MB which doesn't sound right at all...

Sorry. Should be .75 GB RAM

[Skyfrog]

On 26/12/2023 at 08:15, Nick H. said:

How much RAM? .768GB would be 768MB which doesn't sound right at all...but 768GB of RAM would be ludicrous as well!

If your family member is used to using Windows on their computer, they would probably be happy with either Zorin OS or Linux Mint. Neither of them are very intensive requirements-wise as far as I'm aware.

A 512MB stick and a 256MB one would be 768. Regardless of the distro though I think modern web browsing might be unpleasant, and forget Youtube unless you like slide shows.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

On 26/12/2023 at 13:28, dmt said:

Sorry. Should be .75 GB RAM

Ok, so there is only 768MB of RAM. That really isn't much to work with. You could install something like Linux Lite, but the moment you opened Firefox (or your browser of choice) the system would completely stop.

So the first thing that I suggest doing is getting more RAM. 4GB would be ok, but ideally you should look for 8+GB. Taking a quick look on Amazon it looks like you could get 8GB for less than £20.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

On 26/12/2023 at 14:00, Skyfrog said:

A 512MB stick and a 256MB one would be 768. Regardless of the distro though I think modern web browsing might be unpleasant, and forget Youtube unless you like slide shows.

Oh my bad, that's not what I meant when I said that it doesn't sound right. I knew the maths of it, but 768MB of RAM is waaaay too little to work with these days.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Yeah, 768 isn't enough for any distro. I think the only distro it might work with is Puppy, Bunsenlabs, or crunchbangplusplus. (#!++)

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 26/12/2023 at 02:17, dmt said:

I've found an old family member on a shelve

You mean an elf on the shelf?

[Jose_49]

Windows XP 😎

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 26/12/2023 at 10:06, Jose_49 said:

Windows XP 😎

[sinetheo]

Modern web is all html5 with jit compilation of JavaScript with node js and hardware accelerated h.265. A p4 is from an era of Internet explorer 6 with XP with static html still graphics and some limited CSS and JavaScript for page layouts ... Not running mini applets. Not only would 768 megs fill up fast but the video chips (not full GPUs) have no accelerated h.265 video decoding at all ads and even web page elements use video decoding today and are dynamic.

A p4 would work fine for just word processing but even my phone gets hot going to a web page with 50 ad networks all running a mini operating system. Even 4 gigs of ram minimal would barely function 

[dmt]

On 26/12/2023 at 16:46, Mindovermaster said:

You mean an elf on the shelf?

Almost! It was hidden under picture

On 26/12/2023 at 18:06, Jose_49 said:

Windows XP 😎

The last OS was Win 2008 R2 modified for workstation. Somewhere 2010-12. For sporting interest.

On 26/12/2023 at 19:33, sinetheo said:

Modern web is all html5 with jit compilation of JavaScript with node js and hardware accelerated h.265. A p4 is from an era of Internet explorer 6 with XP with static html still graphics and some limited CSS and JavaScript for page layouts ... Not running mini applets. Not only would 768 megs fill up fast but the video chips (not full GPUs) have no accelerated h.265 video decoding at all ads and even web page elements use video decoding today and are dynamic.

A p4 would work fine for just word processing but even my phone gets hot going to a web page with 50 ad networks all running a mini operating system. Even 4 gigs of ram minimal would barely function 

I have no workstation with h.265 accelerators at all and they work fine. But this fellow.. is 6 years older than my current media player, which is made in 2008. And it cannot play 2160i

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Perhaps the 32-bit edition of Puppy Linux?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[FateTrap]

FreeBSD + Polybar and bspwm (or any lightweight WM) should work.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Tiny Linux http://tinycorelinux.net/

 

 

[FateTrap]

This is the RAM usage of OpenBSD after the PC has been up for almost two hours.
I find it quite impressive considering it is not a bare bones setup.
It is a fully functional 'desktop setup' with bspwm, Polybar, sxhkd, nitrogen, scripts, dmenu and picom all running at that time.
It is also interesting how the system thinks about security. It makes the security of other systems feel primitive.

You can still reduce RAM usage by not using picom, Polybar, and nitrogen, since these are optional features that you may not care about.

[inactive]

I think people already gave some good answers. but ill add...

even from a very basic browsing websites point of view... a P4 and 768MB of RAM is a obvious problem regardless of how 'light' the OS itself is. so if you just want it technically work you might pass this standard. but to work anywhere near half way decently, is probably a big stretch. but I guess you don't have much to lose but a bit of your time by trying it.

but just purely from a RAM point of view... 2GB (or 2048MB) is more of a realistic bare minimum nowadays (i.e. say about 512MB-1GB for the OS and maybe 1GB or so of RAM for browser at least allows a minimal level of functionality/usability) as I figure even if someone wanted to venture lower than that, 1GB (1024MB) of RAM would be on the very extreme since Linux in general probably burns up roughly 512MB-1GB just on the OS itself after boot up. so right off the start you are already running very low on RAM straight after boot up and would have very little to nothing left for the browser.

hell, even if you had more RAM, a P4 is going to be quite slow as even in the late 2010's I tried using a AMD Athlon 1.2GHz CPU (basically in a computer I got in 2001), which can only use 32-bit OS if I recall correctly, and pretty much everything you do is slow as the CPU is almost always pegged to 100% for doing next to nothing and that was a higher end CPU back in 2001 (I think 1.4Ghz was the top when I bought mine in 2001 on the AMD side of things) and was better than P4's at the time for gaming etc as while P4's had higher MHz/GHz, they where generally slower.

so basically there comes a point where even people who like to use things as long as possible got to move on and this is one of those cases (unless of course you just want to toy around with truly ancient hardware).

I would say the following is a pretty good guideline when it comes to general computers as I would probably put things into the following three categories as a ball park figure (assuming your CPU etc was respectable in it's day)...

-2010+ = green (easily more towards good than bad for general usage)

-2005-2009 = yellow (this is more of a caution range where it might be half decent and maybe not, but it's pushing it especially if you are closer to 2005 where as closer to 2009 might make all of the difference. note: for example... my backup computer, which is basically higher end 2005 motherboard tech (ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe), which I originally built in March 2006, currently has maxed out RAM (4GB (4x 1GB)) and a dual-core CPU (which I think I upgraded it's single core (AMD Athlon 3500+) CPU to it's current dual-core (AMD Athlon X2 3600+, 2.0GHz overclocked to 2.3GHz) in the year 2010) and it's passable for basic web browsing etc even though you can tell it's pushing it on some level etc, but at least it's not constantly pegged at 100% CPU for doing next to nothing which is a pretty good indicator of a CPU being very outdated when it starts doing that etc)

-2004 and older = red (I tend to assume hardware from around this time or older is genuine ancient status at this point where doing even basic web browsing is a stretch, especially if you want any semblance of a tolerable web browsing experience. so even with all of the RAM in the world, the CPU's around these times or older is just true ancient status)

or another way to look at it as a general guideline in even simpler terms... pretty much any single core CPU is going to suck as you need dual core or better for more realistic use today as that's pretty much where I would draw the line of 'unusable/usable'.

[WITHOUT-ME]

recycle it

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 14/01/2024 at 15:45, KZ7S2zj9XS2MKs5 said:

recycle it

Or a free space heater.. 

[FateTrap]

Alpine Linux uses just 58 MB RAM when I use a full 'bspwm desktop setup' and this has everything I need and more.

[FateTrap]

This is the RAM usage of OpenBSD when the system runs more than four hours. (you can find it in the neofetch output)

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

FateTrap, RAM usage does not matter. That's likely at idle, not running a few applications.

[FateTrap]

On 19/01/2024 at 14:56, Mindovermaster said:

FateTrap, RAM usage does not matter. That's likely at idle, not running a few applications.

 

The OP says his hardware has 0.768 GB RAM

windows7 uses too much RAM in this case.

And I have read that windows11 consumes >3000 MB RAM without any apps opened in many cases.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 27/01/2024 at 03:42, FateTrap said:

 

The OP says his hardware has 0.768 GB RAM

windows7 uses too much RAM in this case.

And I have read that windows11 consumes >3000 MB RAM without any apps opened in many cases.

And your point is? Running an OS with nearly nothing running, yeah, it uses 500MB. but when you add on a browser, that number will skyrocket.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

On 26/12/2023 at 02:17, dmt said:

Hi!

I've found an old family member on a shelve, P4 with .768 GB RAM  What distro I can install into this fellow? No special requirements, browsing internet would be enough

Recycle it...assuming you have other computer(s).  Regardless of what OS you use...you're not going to have a good time browsing the internet with it.