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 😄

        • whaleross@lemmy.world
          1·
          14 days ago

          I remember expanding my Amiga with 512KB to 1MB Fast RAM and later going crazy with another two megabyte Slow RAM.

            • phantomwise@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              14 days ago

              I remember when computers had no memory and the storage was on punch cards made from mammoth leather that we had to tan ourselves after spending our weekends hunting the mammoth with spears. Also we carved our code by hand on stone tablets. Young people these days have it easy.

      • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        14 days ago

        Lmao, I’ve ran Linux on an eeePC with 1GB RAM and 900MHz Intel Atom. Compiling gcc & glibc could take hours.

        Edit: RPi3 still got only 1GB, BeagleBone Black even got 512MB, don’t forget RPi0

  • Flamekebab@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    14 days ago

    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!

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
    1·
    14 days ago

    I rushed to the comments when I saw a 1.6ghz CPU being called low end but I see OPs already been dealt with. I remember the first ever 1ghz CPU being an overclocked nitrogen cooled AMD Athlon. Me and my mates were all talking about it when it happened.

    • merci3@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      14 days ago

      But why would a 1.6 ghz, single core CPU not be low end in 2025? Perfomance itself is very sluggish, and it has only been able to do very simple offline tasks for now. Yeah, yeah, many people used to run 512mb ram and 500mhz cpu setups… But that was in 2000 and whatever.

      • madnificent@lemmy.world
        1·
        14 days ago

        The post title says “ever” rather than “2025”. It’s cool for 2025 and we may get some interesting others, but many here will have ran it on something slower at some point.

  • piranhaconda@mander.xyz
    0·
    14 days ago

    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.

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      14 days ago

      My girlfriend’s 2012 MacBook Pro is also running Fedora like a beast with its upgraded 16GB or Ram and its SSD.

      It’s great that old hardware gets a bew chance to shine!

      • LeFantome@programming.dev
        0·
        14 days ago

        I found my people.

        I have Linux on a 2009 and 2012 MacBook Pro and 2013 and 2017 MacBook Airs.

        The 2009 is getting a bit sluggish but for regular stuff, they all work great. We even played a Steam game on the 2012 earlier today (not AAA obviously).

        All Chimera Linux.

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    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.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
      1·
      10 days ago

      You would be surprised. If you stay text only and use a 32 bit distro, it would run up to date versions of most CLI programs.

      Adelie and Arch32 still support Pentium.

      Booting to a GUI, there are still a few options. I think Velox would run on that. I bet Xorg with FVWM would too. You are not going to have much left for apps though. However, you could run a couple of terminals.

      Adelie Linux (totally modern Linux distro) lists 64 MB as the minimum server memory requirement.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        10 days ago

        I ran Damn Small Linux on it about 15 years ago. That worked pretty well and it would even run a web browser. It would probably boot Tiny Core Linux, but there wouldn’t be much RAM left to run any programs. The motherboard supports 128MB, but it’s not really worth the cost to upgrade it though.

        I may see about resurrecting that computer. I’ve got an old Motorola police radio that I would like to reprogram to operate in the 2M ham band and I think that PC will run the programming software.

  • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    I think my lowest was a 33 MHz 486sx (maybe DX) with 8MB of RAM.

    I wouldn’t want to try it today though.

    • addie@feddit.uk
      1·
      14 days ago

      Yeah, mine was similar. Had some old Win95 machines from work that were getting thrown away; scavenged as much RAM as possible into one case and left Red Hat Linux downloading overnight on the company modem. Needed two boxes of floppy disks for the installer, and I joined up a 60 MB and an 80MB hard drive using LVM to create the installation drive. It was a surprisingly functional machine - much better at networking than it was as a Win95 computer - but yeah, those days are long gone.

    • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
      0·
      12 days ago

      My first was a rare CPU, but not that old. It was my first PC and was fanless, which I used to think was normal until years later. It was a VIA Cyrix III, maybe 32 MB RAM. Another interesting thing about this CPU was its overclock capabilities. I don’t know how it did survive my overclocking, since I genuinely didn’t have a clue, except that if I raised the numbers, KDE could run, but if I didn’t, well, Xfce was also cool.

      • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        11 days ago

        Mone might even had been a Cyrix too. Honestly I struggle to remember. My dad bought straight Intels and I bought the clones (cheaper) I can’t remember which one I first started on, but both got it eventually.

    • Grimtuck@lemmy.world
      0·
      14 days ago

      I was running my Gateway 2000 486 sx33 with Linux did she extended amount of time as a router with NAT. I’ve still got it somewhere in the loft.

    • Rose@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      The first machine I ran Linux on was a 486DX 33MHz too. I think it had 8 MB (or some weird thing like 4 MB originally and randomly stuck 8 MB addition? I don’t remember anymore.)

      • folekaule@lemmy.world
        1·
        14 days ago

        I had the exact same configuration. 4MB RAM upgraded to 8MB. 40MB HDD upgraded to 200MB later. And the fugliest case with triangular pastel buttons you ever saw. Ran Windows 3.11 then Slackware Linux on that for many years.

        • vandsjov@feddit.dk
          1·
          14 days ago

          I started on a DX2 66 MHz with 4 MB RAM and 420 MB HDD. 4 x 1 MB modules. Later upgraded to 20 MB RAM (added 4 x 4 modules) and a 1.2 GB Matrox HDD that need an extra driver to be used. With 20 MB I created a RAM drive, copied Doom to it and ran it - loaded real fast but frame rate was horrible.

        • dylanmorgan@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          14 days ago

          Who used those triangular pastel buttons? I remember seeing them on some friends’ computers but not on any Dells or Gateway 2000 machines. Maybe Compaq? Or Packard Bell?

          • folekaule@lemmy.world
            1·
            14 days ago

            I have not been able to find the case again since. It was a local shop that built it from parts, so it was not a big brand. I didn’t pick the parts either, since I knew nothing about PCs at the time, and it showed lol.

            Edit: it was a white/beige mini tower. If I recall correctly, it was similar to a lot of cases at the time, with a black band across and a circular button on the right. The turbo and reset buttons were pink and teal in the shape of triangles. I purchased it in 1992 when I needed a PC for college.

    • merci3@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      14 days ago

      It ain’t high enough to do playback on VLC tho :p but can do some nice fun with it

          • LeFantome@programming.dev
            1·
            10 days ago

            Debian will not run on Pentium anymore. It is not performance, it is compiler options. You need a i686 (Pentium Pro). This means none of the Debian derivatives will either.

            Adelie, Arch32, and T2 all still run on Pentium though I believe.

            [edit: sorry, I saw Pentium 75 from the comment above - Celeron M should be fine]