antiX base on old desktop computer

[Member guy13]

Hi all,

I’ve been using different flavours of Linux for almost twenty years now but it’s been a while since I had to try something totally new.

I’m trying to install a lightweight distro on my sister’s old desktop. It has a Celeron 3.06Ghz processor, a 80GB HD but only 432 MiB RAM.

With these specs I thought antiX-09.2.1_386-base was my best option but it is mind bogglingly slow even before firefox is launched and she would also like me to install Thunderbird… As I read somewhere that antiX is among the best and fastest for old machines I’m thinking something’s not going the way it should: e.g. it literally takes minutes to move a window a few centimetres (it seems to move pixel line by pixel line and often copies of fragments of windows remain in the original position or spread out across the screen).

Is there anything anyone can recommend I can try to speed things up ? Could downgrading file systems from ext4 to ext3 help ? I will have to reinstall anyway since I forgot that the HD was divided into two partitions of about 40GB and that’s not good with antiX base needing much less than that and the home folder that has to go on the other partition needing more soon…

Anyway, stay safe and thanks in advance.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Knowing more about the hardware would help.

In a teminal inxi -Fxz

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member guy13]

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(Seems like it’s a 64 bits cpu anyway… But isn’t 432 MiB RAM way too small for a 64 bit distro?)

/home/rita# inxi -Fxz
System:
  Host: rita1 Kernel: 4.9.212-antix.1-486-smp i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc
  v: 8.3.0 Desktop: JWM 2.3.7
  Distro: antiX-19.2.1_386-base Hannie Schaft 29 March 2020
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: N/A model: P4M800-8237 serial: N/A BIOS: Award v: F7
  date: 02/15/2006
CPU:
  Topology: Single Core model: Intel Celeron bits: 64 type: MCP
  arch: Netburst Smithfield rev: 9 L2 cache: 256 KiB
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 bogomips: 6151
  Speed: 3076 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 3076
Graphics:
  Device-1: VIA CN700/P4M800 Pro/P4M800 CE/VN800 Graphics [S3 UniChrome Pro]
  vendor: Gigabyte driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: vesa resolution: 1280x1024~N/A
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6
  direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: VIA VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio vendor: Gigabyte GA-7VAX
  driver: snd_via82xx v: kernel bus ID: 00:11.5
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.9.212-antix.1-486-smp
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
  vendor: Gigabyte GA-7VM400M/7VT600 driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: c000
  bus ID: 00:13.0
  IF: eth0 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 6.23 GiB (8.4%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD800BB-22JHC0
  size: 74.53 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 38.29 GiB used: 2.65 GiB (6.9%) fs: ext3 dev: /dev/sda6
  ID-2: /home size: 33.63 GiB used: 3.50 GiB (10.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: swap-1 size: 976.0 MiB used: 81.3 MiB (8.3%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:
  Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured?
Info:
  Processes: 135 Uptime: 9h 14m Memory: 430.9 MiB used: 294.1 MiB (68.2%)
  Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.3
  inxi: 3.0.36

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi, You are very low on memory and swapping to Harddisk is very slow.
Searching the Mother Board P4M800-8237 took me here. https://www.viatech.com/en/silicon/legacy/chipsets/p4m800/
Check on the board itself but the given board number indicates you can install up to 3GB DDR400/333/266 SDRAM.
If the information is correct slot in 2 GB and if possible an SSD to get it running and acceptable for general usage. You could keep the harddisk for storage but run from the faster device. Replace the BIOS Battery unless you have already done so, Likely a cr2032 which is cheap and easy to find.
Memory and SSD can be pretty cheap. I use Patriot burst ssd which is cheap and fast.

Pale Moon and claws Mail are my choices on older Hardware. Claws is a fantastic mail client.

[Moderator BobC]

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I agree with Moddit.

Upgrade the memory as much as you can, and put in a fast SSD if possible. Both should be cheap if purchased used.

Firefox is slow and if you need to, you run it, if not, Palemoon is a good alternative.

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