Inspired by this thread I thought I'd have a go at rebuilding an XP-era laptop last used for retro gaming duties. Turns out that 32-bit Linux doesn't really exist any more.
The last version of Zorin supporting i386 CPUs is 15.3 Lite but downloading that was more effort than I was prepared to expend. Seems my options are Debian or a couple of immediately forgotten random distros.
Inspired by this thread I thought I'd have a go at rebuilding an XP-era laptop last used for retro gaming duties. Turns out that 32-bit Linux doesn't really exist any more.
The last version of Zorin supporting i386 CPUs is 15.3 Lite but downloading that was more effort than I was prepared to expend. Seems my options are Debian or a couple of immediately forgotten random distros.
MX Linux-23.6 in 386 xfce flavour? Debian-based, but one of the easier ones (yes, I know your expertise)
Security support until June 2028
Blimey, gonna have to shop around to find something 32-bit now.
Ironically though, Steam is still 32bit on Linux? And needs 32-graphics drivers? And I thought only just stopped 32bit on Windows?
Inspired by this thread I thought I'd have a go at rebuilding an XP-era laptop last used for retro gaming duties. Turns out that 32-bit Linux doesn't really exist any more.
The last version of Zorin supporting i386 CPUs is 15.3 Lite but downloading that was more effort than I was prepared to expend. Seems my options are Debian or a couple of immediately forgotten random distros.
My suggestions would be either the XFCE version of Void or the LMDE 6 version of Mint (Debian based version).
Mint will be easier, but is older.Â
https://voidlinux.org/download/#i686
https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=308
Debian's a fine distro itself, but it's not configured out of the box as a desktop OS.Â
Cheers both. The whole Desktop Engine thing has always confused me. Like, do I want Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xbuntu... how would I know, and indeed why should I care?
Honestly, my main driver here was just to see if I could. As I've often mentioned on STW, I have a 2008-vintage laptop which is running Windows 10 if not happily then certainly tolerably. I was curious to see if I could go older for the LOLs.
I've had this thing in the cupboard for a while now, it's a Dell D610 of I think around 2005 vintage. I kept it around because I liked the fact it had a 4:3 screen, I figured it'd be perfect for 8-bit emulation duties and/or running retro PC games. I'd have to look to see what it's currently running, it doesn't boot into a GUI but I think it has the bones of Xwindows(?) kicking about because the ZX Spectrum emulator needed it.
Just wondering for the lols if I still have my pre-XP Athlon, which I'm sure I tried Linux64 on before MS had a 64-bit SKU and before the Core2Duo macbooks that had the hybrid 32/64bit OSX (defaulted to 32bit unless you knew the key combo at boot time). Finding DDR2 RAM and PATA HDD might be an issue. Oh and booting ISO via USB2.
With the current price of RAM, keeping retro going might well be the order of the day. And MS for ain't gonna change their minds about e-waste. So Linux it'll have to be.
Weird though that it's gaming with its marginal gains squeezing out every last milli-FPS that actually holds the honour of the last dregs of 32bit.Â
Cheers both. The whole Desktop Engine thing has always confused me. Like, do I want Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xbuntu... how would I know, and indeed why should I care?
Personal preference mainly. Â
XFCE - lightweight, quite UNIX-y - reminds me of CDE from Sparc stations. Not fully featured.
KDE - traditional windows like UI - very customisable - very fully featured.
Gnome - clean + polished workstation OS, unlike Windows/Mac - used to be quite like Mac OS 7 but it has morphed from version 3 onwards into its own thing. People who get on with it, absolutely love it.  I personally can't use it! Fully featured.
LX - very lightweight - windows ish. Not fully featured.
Cinnamon - similar to Gnome 3 but with a Windows like UI. Fully featured.
Mate - similar to Gnome 2 but with a Windows like UI. Less resources used than Cinnamon.Fully featured.
There are many others, e.g. Zorin and Elementary both have their own. Â
The best thing about Linux is there is so much choice and you can do what you want, rather than being dictated to and told how to work.
The worst thing about Linux is there is so much choice...
My recommendation is to either try some out, then go with what you prefer, or pick the primary version of whatever with its default experience. So I guess that's Mint+Cinnamon, Ubuntu+Gnome (tweaked to it's style), Zorin+?, or for hardcore gamers, Bazzite+KDE.
I guess Bazzite, SteamOS etc. picked KDE, cos it's solid these days, and kinda feels like Windows? (Not used it myself for 2 decades, but was kinda tempted).
It was the Gnome project team that cheesed me off, rather than Gnome. Told me it was my fault for using a netbook and I had no right to suggest to them ideas to make it more accessible on non-massive screen sizes. Sod them. Went to XFCE/Cinnamon the very same day. Eventually ended up on i3 (not for noobs), and only recently touched Gnome again with PopOS tweaked version. It's usable. For sure it's less buggy than Windows 8.1/10/11 (where i have had the same bug in all versions, on multiple machines, and the average responder on Reddit etc. when I try to find a solution doesn't know what the eff they are talking about).
Cosmic alpha kinda worked (but no way would I recommend to a new user). has a lot of potential, that should eventually be a recommendation for new users.
Niri piqued my interest (but is another not for new users)
We have IceWM on some work machines! Does the job.
I like the Budgie desktop, it's aesthetic is a bit Mac OS ish. Runs well on Solus. File managers are always the thing that don't quite live up to Explorer or Finder alhtough I can live with Nemo
The best thing about Linux is there is so much choice and you can do what you want, rather than being dictated to and told how to work.
The worst thing about Linux is there is so much choice...
My recommendation is to either try some out, then go with what you prefer, or pick the primary version of whatever with its default experience. So I guess that's Mint+Cinnamon, Ubuntu+Gnome (tweaked to it's style), Zorin+?, or for hardcore gamers, Bazzite+KDE.
I guess Bazzite, SteamOS etc. picked KDE, cos it's solid these days, and kinda feels like Windows? (Not used it myself for 2 decades, but was kinda tempted).
KDE for sure, rather than Gnome, I couldn't get HDR to work on Nobara gnome which is a bit of a deal breaker for gaming, KDE version is a bit more user friendly IMO, too.
I've never stuck with KDE, probably time I give it another try to see how it works these days. Have used Cinnamon for a good few years now, it's straightforward to use. Never got on with Gnome 3, just don't like it. Before Cinnamon, I used XFCE, it's good for systems with not much grunt, but before that I used to use Fluxbox, which is basically just the menu (which is fully customizable) and window manager, it's not a full desktop environment. With stuff like Fluxbox, there is though a host of applications that are built up around, and work with a variety of, bare bones window managers, which tend to bring uncommon functionality which you don't see elsewhere, so can build up unique systems.
For sure it's less buggy than Windows 8.1/10/11 (where i have had the same bug in all versions, on multiple machines, and the average responder on Reddit etc. when I try to find a solution doesn't know what the eff they are talking about).
I'd be curious as to what that is.
Yeh, win 10/11 are a lot of things but 'buggy' isn't one of them, IMO.
Chock full of telemetry, spyware, unwanted AI and all that crap sure, that's why I'm moving away from it, otherwise I wouldnt even be looking at linux really.
I used to view linux as somthing to use if your machine isn't up to the hardware demands of windows, but some distros are now real alternatives for a daily driver operating system.
I first really started looking at it more recently when win 11 launched as my old PC was a pefectly good skylake i5 but its not compatible with win11 for 'reasons'.
Funnily enough i was messing about today and managed to lunch my windows drive and I couldn't rescue it*, so I reinstalled, back up and running really quick apart from the hour or so I had to spend disabling all the crap that windows has turned on by ddefault.
*have backups people! one of my flash drives decided it was dead too, so had to buy a new one... teh amount of peopple I come across with stuff on USB flash drives and not backed up is worrying, they are NOT for long term storage, they are for data transfer!!
I'd be curious as to what that is.
The bug? or the nonsense solution?
Actually 2 main bugs. One is icons in the task bar that randomly become blank. And if the task bar is shown on 2 or more screens, what is/isn't blank may be different. And swapping to different virtual desktops changes which are/aren't blank. That one I think has been there since Win7?
Second bug is minimised windows that when unminimised appear off the screen. Once it is in that state, it is persistent for that app even after a reboot. Sometimes you can get it back by dragging another window the the edge of screen and use the autosnap/autotiling feature. That one might just be Win10/Win11.
When I googled before, I had one "solution" saying "you must be using Nvidia, it works OK for me on my AMD, try reinstalling the drivers", and another saying "I guess you have a Radeon GPU, works OK on my Geforce, try reinstalling the drivers".
Hint... it is 100% bog all to do with GPU drivers. I have that on 3 machines. HP laptop, Dell Laptop, Intel NUC. 2 Enterprise machines, so no, I can't simply delete and reinstall the drivers. Oh and if you hadn't guessed already, all 3 are Intel graphics 😉
Oh and the 3rd bug is Win11 new Notepad PoS. Where the text turns blank. Drag the window to any other screen, or even off the screen and back on, and the text reappears. That one is probably just a redraw bug in Notepad.
The first 2 issues are from simply trying to do what I've been doing in Linux for more than 2 decades, using the "new" virtual desktop feature. I gave up wasting time on trying to fix it, and just suffer Windows on work lappy. Got better things to do. Saying that, the first issue hasn't happened recently, so maybe MS finally got around to fixing it after 4 versions of Windows?
I have other (reproducible) bugs too, but they are what I would call MS Cloud (aka the superset of OneDrive, Sharepoint, Outlook, etc.), rather than the OS. But since Win12 will be cloud first, those will become "Windows" bugs in due course.
Still, it's a long way before they reach Lotus Notes levels of bugginess 😉
One is icons in the task bar that randomly become blank.
This smells like a driver issue. Either that or it's an app common to all your loadouts which is buggering things up.
Second bug is minimised windows that when unminimised appear off the screen. Once it is in that state, it is persistent for that app even after a reboot. Sometimes you can get it back by dragging another window the the edge of screen and use the autosnap/autotiling feature. That one might just be Win10/Win11.
What do you mean by "appear off screen"? If they're off screen then they're not appearing?
I used to see something this in like Windows 95 days. It was common when something overrode the screen resolution, or when I have the taskbar at the top of the screen and apps didn't correctly respect the screen origin. I used to retrieve them with [Alt-Space, M] which selects Move for the window, then either cursor keys or wiggling the mouse to snap them back onscreen. Â
Today though? I don't know.
it is 100% bog all to do with GPU drivers.
...
all 3 are Intel graphics
Um...
the 3rd bug is Win11 new Notepad PoS. Where the text turns blank. Drag the window to any other screen, or even off the screen and back on, and the text reappears. That one is probably just a redraw bug in Notepad.
This one is plausibly an issue with the new app but to be honest mate, all of these "bugs" sound like variations on the screen rendering problem and none of it sounds like a Windows issue. It's a sketchy driver, a buggy app or something else you're installing which is messing with things.
What's common to all your Windows machines which isn't common to most other people? That's your answer.
The only thing common that's not common to most people that I can think of is the multiple virtual desktop feature (because it's something pretty "new" on Windows, but something I've been using on Linux since KDE1 or before). Or the fact that the laptop get plugged in to multiple screen setups depending on which office I am in (except the NUC, which is fixed).
For the windows that maximise off screen I try various things to get them back, and one usually works. Common to all? Maybe some Windows GUI toolkit? OpenVPN Connect and KeePass seem to be the most affected. I shouldn't need to get them back. Windows window manager should remember where to place things, and if something's not compatible, then reposition.
You'd think that if MS eventually implemented a feature used by Linux users since 1997, where all the code is open source and viewable by all, they might stand a chance at actually getting it right.Â
Would be curious to know how many people actually know about this feature (especially as the icon is on the toolbar by default). Hard to say amongst colleagues since all our operational work is on Linux and necessarily uses virtual desktops. 6 of them, all pretty full on 43in 4k monitors, with a Windows lappy to the side.
I see the blank icons problem on Windows 11 as well, I think it's related to having multiple screens/virtual desktops. I have almost no hardware in common between the systems I see the problem on but they do all have virtual desktops and/or multiple screens attached.
Wife has the problem on her work laptop too, and that only has Microsoft stuff on it (Windows, Office, Onedrive, etc) so I doubt it's a software package causing it.
Well, I have managed to install Mint on my newer laptop.
It wasn't as straight forward as my older one.
At times it did not see the wifi and apparently the newer laptop was running RST on the drives and I had to change it to AHCI, which was a bit of a faff.
Anyway, all sorted now.
My primary driver for the change was that the two laptops I have ran Windows 10 well, but did not have the TPM chip to allow Windows 11 correctly. There was no way that I was going to bin them and buy new ones!
I use KDE quite happily ATM, only came back to it after a few years recently. I can't remember how current performance compares to previous.
apparently the newer laptop was running RST on the drives and I had to change it to AHCI,
Why, out of interest?
apparently the newer laptop was running RST on the drives and I had to change it to AHCI,
Why, out of interest?
The Mint installer said that it couldn't do it.
Funny thing is that the laptop wasn't running RAID.
One of those MS quirks, from what I read on the internet.
Anyway, it's done now.
Well, I've dug out the old old laptop. Seems it's currently running some creaky version of Debian, poorly. On an IDE spinnydisk, ugh.
Going to try Void this afternoon (which is XFCE), wish me luck.
The Mint installer said that it couldn't do it.
Funny thing is that the laptop wasn't running RAID.
I didn't mean why you couldn't, I meant why you felt you needed to.
Well, and this is why so many people use Windows.
I don't know WTF I'm doing and I've been spoiled by the likes of Ubuntu's installer going "Do you want to install now? Sure thing, boss, go put the kettle on."
It's alive. No network, no GUI, I don't care sufficiently to press on any further. Mint it is, then.
Well, and this is why so many people use Windows.
I don't know WTF I'm doing and I've been spoiled by the likes of Ubuntu's installer going "Do you want to install now? Sure thing, boss, go put the kettle on."
I think microsoft refugees (of which I'm one) really need to stick to the more mainstream fluffy/user friendly Linux distros, at least to start with.
I'd not heard of void, but I guess you have to ask yourself, what's it going to do for you that mint or ubuntu, for example, cannot do?
I'd not heard of void, but I guess you have to ask yourself, what's it going to do for you that mint or ubuntu, for example, cannot do?
...run current packages on i686 era hardware
...run current packages on i686 era hardware
👆🏻 I was editing that and ran out of time.
It's a very lightweight distro, so the installer is not as complete as something heavy like Ubuntu, Bazzite or Mint. It does however mean it can run current XFCE on old hardware.
Apols for the bad steer @Cougar try the release of mint I mentioned (LMDE 6)
No apologies necessary, it's appreciated.
Installing Mint is an altogether different experience. It is glacially slow but this is like 20-year old hardware so it's fairly astonishing that it works at all. Â
I've probably got other 2.5" IDE drives in my Cupboard O' Bits. I'm tempted to see if I can get W98SE going on it. 😁
Holy shitballs, it's just silently set up my printer.
WhyTF can't I ping the outside world anything then. 🤔
I think perhaps 2005 Wi-Fi needs fixing with a cable.
XFCE - lightweight, quite UNIX-y - reminds me of CDE from Sparc stations. Not fully featured.
Thanks for that trip down memory lane 🙂 can't remember the last time i heard CDE mentioned let alone when i used it last, buggy as **** i seem to recall, and soon as solaris 9 came out you switched to Gnome.Â
crap i'm getting on a bit.
/me goes off to grumble about graphical installers.
As predicted/hoped, an Ethernet cable resolved connectivity issues. Smashed 1GB of updates down in 1m 20s😁, not bad for 20-year old hardware. CMOS battery replaced also (despite proprietary bullshit).
It takes an eon to boot, a painful reminder of spinning platter technology, but once it's up it's actually quite snappy. I mean, it's not going to win any performance awards, but it's useable.
I'm liking Mint so far, it's falling into the "someone thought about this" bucket. That distro was a good shout, thanks.
