This laptop was originally sold with Windows 7 32-bit edition installed. Even back then it was really unresponsive and clunky. After several years of it lying around and being useless, I decided to do a really lightweight debian install on it.

And guess what? It can do so much more than sit idly in some landfill.

Now I can use it to write my study notes in neovim (gives me a good excuse to learn vim, and I’m learning slowly), listen to music with gst123, learn c and c++, torrent large files with transmission-cli and qbittorrent, and the list goes on…

I mostly just use tty. I hit “startx i3” if I absolutely need a GUI, but for everything else, tty. I use links2 for Wikipedia, online resources and browsing memes which is already a big chunk of my internet usage. I was really giddy when I saw Tor browser had a 32-bit version, it runs surprisingly well even with less than 1 gigabyte of memory (unless I visit some really bloated sites)

I can’t play videos though, that’s the one major thing it can’t do. The integrated GPU is unsupported so playing videos or 3d-gaming is out of the question.

BTW is there a lemmy instance/frontend I can use via CLI or links2?

  • superkret
    12·
    16 hours ago

    The old.lemmy.world frontend (also old… on other instances) works in links2.
    There’s currently no other way to browse Lemmy in a text browser on a TTY that actually works, I’ve tried them all recently (including browsh, carbonyl, neonmodem).

    • GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 hours ago

      With the amount of Linux nerds on Lemmy, I’m shocked there’s an a TUI client for it.

      Maybe I’ll have to make one someday.

      • superkret
        1·
        4 hours ago

        There is one (Neonmodem), and it seems to work for some, but it never showed any posts when I tried it, and I tried it on several different distros, client versions, Lemmy accounts and home instances.

  • SitD@lemy.lol
    4·
    1 day ago

    well, you heard the website 😂 now install waydroid and their mobile app

  • Ardyssian@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    23 hours ago

    Hmm, wonder if I should attempt to do the same for my old Intel Laptop; currently not using because the Disk Read / Write seems pretty slow (HDD, constantly at 100%)

    • maliciousonion@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, the processor does. The laptop as a whole doesn’t.

      I did some searching and this may be because Asus has disabled the functionality in the BIOS, or much of the peripherals don’t support 32-bit. I have no idea what it is tbh, and I don’t really care at this point.

      • TheL321@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        23 hours ago

        I have a netbook with the same CPU and it works, but there are no GPU drivers, even on Windows for x64

      • silverdiamond@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        24 hours ago

        there might be an BIOS update you could try i don’t think it will fix 64 bit and even if it did 32bit apps probably take less memory for storing addresses.
        on my AOD255E 64bit just works :tm:

        • Hupf
          4·
          22 hours ago

          I have an Asus EeePC where the latest BIOS update straight up removed the option for AHCI and hard wired IDE compat mode. Luckily, I had kept the previous version and downgrade was possible.

      • Suppoze@beehaw.org
        4·
        1 day ago

        With 1GB RAM you’re better off with 32bit anyway, as applications will use less memory. Sick setup though, I hate electronic waste so it delights me to see sim old tech getting a second life.

        • Hupf
          3·
          22 hours ago

          x32 mode may be an option to take advantage of some more registers/instructions, but I’d assume not many distros support that as a platform.

  • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    2 days ago

    I also have an old shitty computer from Acer with 4gb of RAM lying around.

    I feel a bit guilty about not using it, but I’m already sharing my time between my Surface Go 1 (daily driver) and my girlfriend’s 2012 MacBook Pro, so I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

    If anyone has an idea, I’m listening 👂

    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
      4·
      2 days ago

      Remote backup server would be my suggestion.

      Configure it with a VPN to talk to your home network and set it up at a trusted friend’s or family’s place.

      I do this with a raspberry pi and an external HDD that takes daily/weekly/monthly snapshots, with daily rsync. Works nicely for me.

    • maliciousonion@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      If it can play video at a reasonable quality, hook it up to a TV, fill it with torrented movies you want to watch and you’ll have your own home entertainment system.

      That’s one idea. If it can’t play high quality videos there are still a lot more uses for it.

  • sleen@lemmy.zipEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    I’m still surprised there are 32 bit apps out there that are supported still. It’s good to know there are people who are working to prevent e-waste.

    Also that links2 thing is quite interesting.

    • maliciousonion@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      11·
      2 days ago

      Also that links2 thing is quite interesting.

      It’s a CLI program that can browse websites (only reads HTML). It can even display images, download files, etc… A lightweight and fast little webpage loader, I love it :)

    • notthebees@reddthat.com
      8·
      2 days ago

      There’s quite a few. I have bunsenlabs helium installed on a 32 bit pentium M laptop. It’s very usable, for a 20 yo single core machine. For basic things, it’s still fine. I do have some gpu acceleration though which is a benefit.

  • nickb333@fedia.io
    10·
    2 days ago

    Debian is good for this. Enjoy it while there is still 32-bit support though. Edit- do you have any swap configured?

      • notthebees@reddthat.com
        8·
        2 days ago

        Id make it 2 or 3 gb. That being said, 1 gb is fine for such a light install. I have a similarly specced pentium M machine running modern debian with OpenBox. For heavier tasks, it was hitting swap (using a web browser). Upping it to 2 gb ram fixed that.

        Edit: this also came with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 gpu which probably has a bit more support than the PowerVR gpu in the Atom.

  • Papamousse@beehaw.org
    8·
    2 days ago

    I also have a netbook with an Atom N2600, I overclocked it from 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz, upgraded from 1GB to 3GB of RAM, and replaced the old HD with an SSD, I then installed MX Linux, 32 bits version, Xfce, and it works pretty well. Only huge webpages are slow, but everything else is about still usable