Putting Linux Distro on Old Computer

[leachim]

Hi

 

Is there an easy way to put a linux distro on a 20 year old machine which is 32 bit and BIOS ?

 

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

Plenty of 20 year old machines will boot from USB. Use Rufus to make a bootable USB from the image of your distro of choice. I haven’t made a bootable Linux CD for years, so not sure what I’d use to even do that!

[dhicks]

Is there an easy way to put a linux distro on a 20 year old machine which is 32 bit and BIOS ?

 

Raspberry Pi OS (for x86) might be a good option - nice up-to-date desktop experience, but works on older hardware.

[leachim]

Plenty of 20 year old machines will boot from USB. Use Rufus to make a bootable USB from the image of your distro of choice. I haven’t made a bootable Linux CD for years, so not sure what I’d use to even do that!

 

Thanks

 

Just found this

 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/q4os/

 

Currently installing with the help of Rufus

 

Looks promising

 

Cheers

[admars]

I use Antix on an old dell d610 laptop

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix

 

I think LXLE is on it as well, Puppy would be another good choice

 

https://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers#simple

[mavhc]

Debian still has 32 bit versions, getting rare though

 

If you can't boot from usb then burn to an actual cd

[Dos_Box]

@leachim, just out of curiousity, what are the specs of the machine you are installing too! There was a wide array of CPU's around back then and nice to see some still being brought back to life

[Miscbrah]

You'll probably get as many suggestions now as there are flavours of Linux. So here's mine lol!

 

My take (depending on specs and what you wanted) would be Bodhi for something desktop-ish (found it even lighter than Lubuntu on ancient machines) and if it's REALLY creaking then Tiny Core (installed with gui) would be the barest of bare bones.

[DalekSec]

TempleOS or nothing!*

 

 

*This is a joke please don't install TempleOS

[leachim]

It was an old Dell - 2.9ghz with 512mb ram

 

Heavy as hell !

[Guest]

You could use balena etcher to flash and install lubuntu. It has a nice desktop environment , great for old computers, and is based off of ubuntu.

 

templeOS is also a good option /j