I was just given an old nettop from I think around 2010 - An old Acer one nettop intel atom CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz 2GB ram, it has Windows XP on it and it seems fairly smooth/quick, but I haven’t done anything other than boot it up and check the spec. I was wondering what would be best to install on it and found that choices are very limited. Linux Lite nor Lubuntu seem to be an option anymore, and almost all of the options I tried under x86_x64 on Distrowatch no longer provide an x86 or 32 bit version. These are the main ones I have seen:
Damn Small Linux (DSL) - https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Puppy Linux - https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
AntiX Linux - https://antixlinux.com/
CachyOS - https://cachyos.org/
Tiny Core Linux - http://www.tinycorelinux.net/
Maybe a couple of others, but could anyone recommend the best option or maybe a couple that would be best and any ideas as to what may be the best use for it? Practicing coding? Just browsing? Etc. I think it may be between DSL and Puppy, but I am hoping to hear any others and will happily try them all. Linux Mint and Debian keep coming up in searches but unless I am missing something, I don’t see anything about x86/32bit versions in the latest versions.
I was running AntiX out of your list on my old atom eee-pc pretty successfully the last 2-3 years. Was using it as a workbench pc with an old vga screen and keyboard connected, and it worked well enough for simple pdf /datasheet reading and terminal sessions.
For specs, I think it was the same cpu but only 1gb of ram. Honestly with 2gb of ram your options are much broader, the one part you’ll run into trouble with is the browser with multiple tabs anyway. I thought to remember there was also a community-maintained 32bit Archlinux variant?
Edit: https://www.archlinux32.org/ that’s the one I believe. It has a more restricted package repo but otherwise is just Arch.
Thanks, I created a Ventoy stick with the distros above, and the only one that I can get to run is AntiX. Puppy (Noble _ Bookworm) get the same error as this person (ventoy: not a valid block device), so I will read through that thread. The DSL doesn’t respond and Command Line halt error. I think the others were the same. So I am on my 3rd OS creating a bootable USB from ISO, and so far no others have worked either. It may end up AntiX the only option, although I have seen others mention Gentoo - which I thought had stopped support for x86, and a couple of others to try, so I look forward to them :) MX, Q4OS, OpenBSD and Debian.
I have a similar machine from 2011, though it’s x64 >> Samsung N150P. I used it as a typewriter for a couple years and I can suggest the same for you if you have such interests. However later I turned it into a homeserver and currently it serves as Pi-hole, Jellyfin, syncthing etc. Without x64, server might be tough but typewriter wouldn’t mind. For general daily stuff, it’s not really useful.
x64-compatible CPUs have been the norm for a very long time now, which is why most modern distros have dropped support for older 32-bit x86-only CPUs. Debian dropped it with Debian 13, so anything based on that - think Ubuntu, Mint, and others, would be in the same boat. 2GB of RAM would be pretty performance-limiting on most modern distros too.
That’s one of the reasons why things like Tiny Core and Puppy exist, though. Specifically for old/slow-by-today’s-standards systems. I haven’t used any of them because I’m not running anything that old, and I quite like modern KDE. I saw an Action Retro video on youtube the other day where he got Tiny Core running on a Pentium 133 with 128MB of RAM, lol.
One Linux distro I’m aware of that might be worth checking out is Q4OS. It’s a lightweight distro that offers an older but still supported 32bit version.
I made the same recommendation. Sadly the “latest” version in 64 bit only. Unsurprising as it is Debian based.
The older release is still available and still supported though. It would be a great option though the clock is ticking on it of course.
The most “batteries included” distro that is I can think of that is not Debian based is Adelie.
Thanks, I haven’t ever heard of it, I will definitely add that to try, thanks.
I had one when they launched, and it was terrible then. I can’t imagine it being better now, but I’m damn interested in that idea being tested!
It looks like NetBSD and OpenBSD might be good OSs for 32-bit; the next FreeBSD version is dropping support. I don’t use any BSDs, but I think a BSD is probably the best-supported modern Unix operating system for this kind of hardware as the last of the major distros drop i386.
Linux distro support is really thinning out for x86_32, so for this use case; I’m sure the distros still exist, but they’re often niche projects. Gentoo may do the trick if you want to; I can’t tell if they compile their newfangled precompiled packages for i386 though, so if they don’t, you’ll probably have to set up a cross compiling setup from a more powerful x86_64 machine, which you’d need to use every time you update.
Thanks, I will definitely be giving them a try. I meant to look at FreeBSD about 15 years ago and was stumped. I have glanced at it over the years since, but never tried it again. I will definitely look at them. Thanks again.
I just hit the same issue a few days ago. So Debian 12 (Bookworm) still has i386 support, but that support may end as soon as next year as they haven’t confirmed i386 as an architecture for LTS.
If you do go with Debian, you can easily choose a lightweight desktop during installation.
Thanks I will try that. I thought Debian had stopped x86_32 builds. I will definitely try that. 👍
Gentoo
Complinig everything on that? End me now
You can use bin packages and compile certain things where you’ll get preformance. It would be good to have a kernel optimised for that hardware cause you need everything you can get.
You could compile on another PC and but you’d miss the -native optimisation.
For my Chromebook I did a bin kernel then compiled everything else and did bin Firefox. I tried compiling the kernel but ran out of disk space cause only 10 gb of space available.
Thanks, I will add that. I thought that they had stopped support for x86_32. Happy to be wrong.
MX worked really well when I was playing with a few compute sticks recently. I did not do any major comparisons here, just was surprised at how responsive MX was on there.
Thanks, I think I had messed around with MX a few years ago, but never even thought about it/forgot this time. I will download it now.
