Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

[Pentium4]

So, the sentimental side is getting the best of me here I have a very old Dell Slim PC from 2001 that I want to keep going. Don't ask me why but this PC is very special to me and I want to keep it going. Specs are as follows:
Pentium 4 Willamette 1.5GHz
384MB PC133 RAM
Radeon X1050 256MB
Foxconn LS-36 motherboard

The board is full of bad nichicon HM, date codes on them: 43rd week of 2001. I thought these were safe? I will post pics later.
I am going to upgrade the RAM to 768MB or 1GB, because I have some at work, and I have a 200GB IDE drive with more cache that I will use to replace the 20GB drive. So besides some caps, I'm not spending any money on this thing, just time.

So basically, I'm looking for a very light Linux OS that I can use. All it will be doing really is streaming 480i/480p video through S-Video onto a 27" tube TV. Would much appreciate some input. I believe this is doable because it worked fine as it is with Windows XP, but I don't want to use Windows XP anymore.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Lubuntu is working quite well for me. It is specifically made for older PCs. I tried a few other lightweight distros but settled on Lubuntu for performance and GUI (LXDE). Finding support online is very good. It doesn't come with a boatload of apps installed but you can easily get and use what you like.

http://lubuntu.net/

[Wester547]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

The board is full of bad nichicon HM, date codes on them: 43rd week of 2001. I thought these were safe?

If that board was in a SFF case, perhaps heat got to them if you have many hours on it. This is somewhat off topic so I'll keep my thoughts on the matter as terse as I can, and I might get a lot of flak for saying this, but... I know the "consensus" is that only 2001-2005 HMs/HNs are bad (people used to think 2005 capacitors were safe...). Regardless, I am no longer convinced that the problem was ever rectified or that Nichicon even knew about it. Some articles from 2005 that are still on the web state that Nichicon refused to comment on the matter and I tried emailing them without a response some time ago - I don't think they'd want to disclose anything about it even if they did know. I can't find any announcements from Nichicon directly or indirectly regarding HM/HN, even with the wayback machine. The "overfilled" comment that was deemed "official" was made by someone from a university from Iowa whose article was deleted at Dell's behest. That person probably assumed they were overfilled ("filled with more liquid than required") because they stated thereafter that electrolyte was overflowing onto the motherboard after 300 hours (yes, 300) of 100% CPU usage at a temperature of 64*C. It was also stated that the problem was possibly limited to a specific shift, but I'm not sure if that's necessarily true. It was also stated that the "defective" capacitors were placed on motherboards from 2003 to 2004...

I honestly think an issue that results in so many millions of capacitors failing so prematurely is more complex than just "overfilling". Many things could have gone wrong. They could have been capacitors from an unauthorized, chinese distributor, they could fail for similar reasons that KZG/KZJ fail, etc... Nichicon made an announcement regarding the warning against use of certain disinfectants, but nothing was said about the HM or HN series there either. And again, people used to think capacitors up to 2005 were safe, but HNs still failed prematurely w/2005 date codes and sometimes even HMs w/2006 date codes. I don't know if Nichicon reformulated the electrolyte by the time the HZ series went into production as I haven't heard of or seen nearly as many failures since. As for Dell and HP announcing the problem would be fixed sometime in 2004? All that could mean is that they specified the use of capacitors other than HM/HNs in critical places (VCORE input and output), such as Sanyo WG/WF, Chemicon KZG/KZJ, Rubycon MBZ/MCZ, Panasonic FJ/FL, etc... and that announcement was only made for Optiplex GX270 machines. The quickest failures were also reported in SFF machines (as well as G4s/G5s) and on motherboards with hot running linear regulators, so perhaps heat did tip the bad HM/HNs over the edge quicker than not.

I am not trying to scare anyone into thinking that HM/HNs are unreliable now adays. If your HMs/HNs with recent datecodes are lasting, more power to you. But given how unreliable and sensitive to heat very low/ultra low ESR capacitors seem to be even from good manufacturers, I would keep a wary eye is all. I suppose it is no longer an issue because HM/HN/HZ were discontinued a couple years ago.

Don't ask me why but this PC is very special to me and I want to keep pit going.

Nothing wrong with that. I love my old CRTs and pre-RoHS computers to this day.

[Pentium4]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Awesome, thanks Steve. Gonna DL it right now. I wonder how it would run as it is. But, I really don't like running hardware with known bad caps.

[Pentium4]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

If that board was in a SFF case, perhaps heat got to them if you have many hours on it. This is somewhat off topic so I'll keep my thoughts on the matter as terse as I can, and I might get a lot of flak for saying this, but... I know the "consensus" is that only 2001-2005 HMs/HNs are bad (people used to think 2005 capacitors were safe...).

Always appreciate your input Wester When did HM/HN start production? I've never seen any HM from 2006 fail, and I personally have a 945 board, 100% nichicon HM (Date codes early-mid 2006) for all the filtering, and they have survived over 35,000 hours of "torture" powering a Pentium 4 Prescott. It's actually still being used, except with a Pentium D now.

such as Sanyo WG/WF, Chemicon KZG/KZJ, Rubycon MBZ/MCZ, Panasonic FJ/FL, etc...

A little off topic too, but I recently recapped a Dell Optiplex GX620, that had 77,897 power on hours with a Pentium 4 630. Dell used Rubycon MCZ on the VRM high side (1000uF 16V), linear regulator filtering (1800uF 6.3V) and all those 2200uF 6.3V caps by the chipset. They were all visibly fine, but I pulled them all to check them, and they were all within 5% spec. I was pretty impressed. One of the 2200uF caps read 2204uF. I was disappointed that all the little caps on the board were 85C (nichicon VR) but they were perfectly in spec as well. I polymodded it and it's now my HTPC.

I suppose it is no longer an issue because HM/HN/HZ were discontinued a couple years ago.

I have some HM/HN/HZ caps from Topcat with 2013 date codes on them.

Nothing wrong with that. I love my old CRTs and pre-RoHS computers to this day.

Glad you understand And that's awesome! I love CRT's.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Are they bad caps because of the brand and type or because they test bad? I'm not afraid to use reputed inferior caps if they test ok but I'm weird and a cheapskate. I figure they are like anything else, I use it till it doesn't work and then fix it if possible.

[mmartell]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

You can try Puppy as well which is probably "ultralight". It would probably run on the "computers" they used to land men on the moon lol.

[Pentium4]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Are they bad caps because of the brand and type or because they test bad? I'm not afraid to use reputed inferior caps if they test ok but I'm weird and a cheapskate. I figure they are like anything else, I use it till it doesn't work and then fix it if possible.

They're nichicon HM date code 43rd week of 2001.


And shoot, Lubuntu is just barely too big for a CD, now I gotta find a DVD drive for the thing

You can try Puppy as well which is probably "ultralight". It would probably run on the "computers" they used to land men on the moon lol.

Ha! Thanks for the extra recommendation

[Wester547]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Always appreciate your input Wester When did HM/HN start production? I've never seen any HM from 2006 fail, and I personally have a 945 board, 100% nichicon HM (Date codes early-mid 2006) for all the filtering, and they have survived over 35,000 hours of "torture" powering a Pentium 4 Prescott. It's actually still being used, except with a Pentium D now.

Thanks. HMs in 2001 and HNs in 2002, I believe (HDs and HCs in 1999, HEs in 2001, and HVs and HZs in 2004, on another note). KZGs have also been around since 2001 along with MBZs (and yes, 2001 KZGs have bulged on the shelf without any use)... and that is impressive, but I believe there were some reports of HMs with bad datecodes lasting on this forum as well (HMs with a datecode of the 13th week of 2002 lasting several years of 24/7 use in the VRM output of a Siemens motherboard and HMs with a datecode of the 41st week of 2003 lasting 8 years of 24/7 use in a gigabit switch, although the ones in the gigabit switch did fail after that much use).

A little off topic too, but I recently recapped a Dell Optiplex GX620, that had 77,897 power on hours with a Pentium 4 630. Dell used Rubycon MCZ on the VRM high side (1000uF 16V), linear regulator filtering (1800uF 6.3V) and all those 2200uF 6.3V caps by the chipset. They were all visibly fine, but I pulled them all to check them, and they were all within 5% spec. I was pretty impressed. One of the 2200uF caps read 2204uF. I was disappointed that all the little caps on the board were 85C (nichicon VR) but they were perfectly in spec as well. I polymodded it and it's now my HTPC.

That is why I do not put Rubycon MCZ and MFZ on my "bad" list despite that some premature failures have been reported. They're probably just a little sensitive to heat. They (MBZ/MCZ/MFZ) hold up MUCH better than KZG/KZJ/KZV (KZJ and KZV were discontinued in 2007, however), that's for sure. Even HMs/HNs/HZs from suspect datecodes seem to do better (but I have noticed that the bad HNs fail much more than the bad HMs). Interesting that 85*C capacitors last that long on a motherboard. I don't really think a motherboard is a good place for them but I think if the temperature is kept low enough that they'll last. That being said though, capacitors do have a shelf life, especially 85*C capacitors and aqueous capacitors, so they might eventually leak anyway or just dry out. Your finding (~78,000 hours of usage and no failures) would be even more impressive if it was in a SFF case (but I doubt that, as they are known to roast even the best capacitors). I take it though that the board had polymers stock in the VRM output at least; VRM input cap failures are rarer.

I have some HM/HN/HZ caps from Topcat with 2013 date codes on them.

Nichicon announced the discontinuation in 2012 so my guess is that they actually stopped producing them in Q2 or Q3 2013.

or bad because they test bad?

Bad because failures of HMs/HNs were reported en masse from 2003-2004, within 1 to 2 years of use. I think it really sent Dell's reputation down the gutter for a lot of people.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

And shoot, Lubuntu is just barely too big for a CD, now I gotta find a DVD drive for the thing

14.04.1, the LTS release, is 696M and does fit on a 700MB CD.

23-Jul-2014 00:15 696M Desktop image for PC (Intel x86) computers (standard download)

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re...sktop-i386.iso

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Lubuntu is working quite well for me.

+1 for Lubuntu. I have been using 14.04 (LTS) since April 2014 and it is solid.

The default Lubuntu comes with potentially unwanted daemons, startup programs, etc. By default it uses about 150MB DRAM. By un-installing some stuff, you can get to less than 100MB DRAM.

For RAM constrained systems, try Debian 7.7 (stable) and follow these instructions

http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/3...-from-scratch/

On a P4 with 512MB DRAM and installing

apt-get install xorg
apt-get install lxde

and a little bit of removing of some default daemons, the system easily uses less than 50 (fifty) MB DRAM.

Add a simple firewall like

apt-get install ufw
ufw enable

Total disk space install should be less than 2GB for linux + applications.

[lti]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

I was thinking about asking the same thing. I want to find something that runs as well as Windows XP on old computers. I think Puppy Linux was the closest to XP so far, but it still seems slower (mainly due to poor video performance). It seems like most distributions use a lot of RAM, and it's hard to find one that runs well with less than 1GB of RAM.

Lubuntu definitely won't run well (if at all) on that amount of RAM. I've had it running in a virtual machine with 512MB of RAM, and it used most of that with no programs running. I think the standard graphical installer needs about 800MB of RAM.

Are those three Nichicon HMs in that picture bulging slightly? It looks like they are in the picture, but I've seen caps that looked like they were bulging in a picture and looked fine in reality.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

You can try Puppy as well which is probably "ultralight".

I have tried a lot of light weight OS like Puppy, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Slitaz, etc.

While they work on older machines, the biggest problem with the above mentioned OS is that they don't get updated very often with security patches or the latest applications.

The developers for the above are very small teams (sometimes one person) and understandably, they have a job, life, etc so maintenance of their distributions is a best effort basis.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Lubuntu definitely won't run well (if at all) on that amount of RAM. I've had it running in a virtual machine with 512MB of RAM, and it used most of that with no programs running.

I don't have any virtual machines setup so I use Lubuntu on real P4s which range from 2.4Ghz to 3.0Ghz and 512MB DRAM. As I mentioned earlier, the default DRAM usage is around 150MB, but can be reduced to under 100MB DRAM by removing some stuff.

I tried running Lubuntu on a 256MB DRAM system and while it works, it is dreadfully slow slow slow. 512MB DRAM will give good performance with a browser and a few open tabs.

I think the standard graphical installer needs about 800MB of RAM.

There is an alternative installer for Lubuntu at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re....04.1/release/

Alternate install image

The alternate install image allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Lubuntu. It provides for the following situations:

setting up automated deployments;
upgrading from older installations without network access;
LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
installs on systems with less than about 384MiB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably).

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

It seems like most distributions use a lot of RAM, and it's hard to find one that runs well with less than 1GB of RAM.

Try my Debian 7.7 suggestion with xorg + lxde. It uses less than 50MB DRAM after bootup on your typical P4. That leaves plenty of DRAM for applications, linux disk cache, etc.

[lti]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

I have tried a lot of light weight OS like Puppy, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Slitaz, etc.

While they work on older machines, the biggest problem with the above mentioned OS is that they don't get updated very often with security patches or the latest applications.

The developers for the above are very small teams (sometimes one person) and understandably, they have a job, life, etc so maintenance of their distributions is a best effort basis.

I don't have any virtual machines setup so I use Lubuntu on real P4s which range from 2.4Ghz to 3.0Ghz and 512MB DRAM. As I mentioned earlier, the default DRAM usage is around 150MB, but can be reduced to under 100MB DRAM by removing some stuff.

HardInfo sows about 350MB used immediately after booting. Maybe that isn't accurate. What do you use to measure RAM usage?

There is an alternative installer for Lubuntu at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re....04.1/release/

Alternate install image

The alternate install image allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Lubuntu. It provides for the following situations:

setting up automated deployments;
upgrading from older installations without network access;
LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
installs on systems with less than about 384MiB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably).

I know about the alternate installer. I've used it before. I mentioned the RAM usage of the standard installer because I didn't see that Pentium4 is going to upgrade the RAM. With 768MB or 1GB, the standard installer should work.

Try my Debian 7.7 suggestion with xorg + lxde. It uses less than 50MB DRAM after bootup on your typical P4. That leaves plenty of DRAM for applications, linux disk cache, etc.

That might be the best option for software and hardware support.

Does Debian really need eight CDs or three DVDs?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

My vote goes for Puppy as well. It's *almost* as good as XP while keeping a light footprint.

If you want something that really emulates the XP style, you can try Zorin OS. It's based on Ubuntu and very user-friendly. Even more friendly than Ubuntu.

[goontron]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

zornOS or suse or mint.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

HardInfo sows about 350MB used immediately after booting. Maybe that isn't accurate. What do you use to measure RAM usage?

Let me be clear about the Debian 7.7 + xorg + lxde build that uses about 50MB DRAM after bootup.

By following the instructions in that l3net blog, you are downloading and installing the server version of Debian 7.7 (about 256MB iso download image), manually adding xorg (display driver - about a 60MB download via apt-get install xorg) and then finally lxde (desktop environment - about 170MB download via apt-get install lxde). These are three manual steps that you must do. So the total download is around 500MB from the Internet.

Debian has a pre-configured lxde environment setup for those that don't want to manually do the steps above. However, it includes a few more daemons and startup applications which results in more DRAM usage after bootup. My notes say it uses about 100MB DRAM after bootup.

Obviously, you can remove some of the default daemons and startup applications to lower DRAM usage, but I could not get the pre-configured version to equal that of the 3 step manual process.

Since my P4 computers have 512MB DRAM, I'm trying to save every MB of memory so I use the manual 3 step configuration so I have the bare minimum, but fully usable GUI Windows XP like interface with lxde. And it boots fast.

The more I can keep the OS and its applications running in DRAM (fast) and avoid disk swapping (slow), the P4 systems are completely usable for 95% of the stuff today.

The pre-configured lxde can be downloaded from (ISO is around 968MB) for those who don't want to do the 3 step process.

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/...de-desktop.iso

I use "free -m" to show the DRAM usage. By default, linux uses any free memory has a disk cache. So the 350MB DRAM you saw is probably 150MB DRAM for Lubuntu and close to 200MB DRAM disk cached information/files. Linux automatically will purge stuff from the disk cache as needed.

See

http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

PS. I don't have time today, but I will try to get some screenshots showing the 50MB DRAM usage on bootup as proof.

For a web only surfing duo-core CPU machine (circa 2008), I think I can get Debian 7.7 + lxde to boot in 15 seconds or less to a fully working and ready to go environment with a traditional rotating spinning media hard drive. No need for SSD with the right OS.

[ivtec]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Try my Debian 7.7 suggestion with xorg + lxde. It uses less than 50MB DRAM after bootup on your typical P4. That leaves plenty of DRAM for applications, linux disk cache, etc.

retiredcaps; can you get Flash player running with Debian wheezy 7.7?
i tried Debian Wheezy 7. and i never could get flash player.