installing Linux Mint on my old Dell Desktop

billhuffsr · Jan 7, 2019

I have an old Dell optiplex GX240 desktop. Igb ram ,intel pentium 4 1.5 Ghz processor,ATI Mobility Radeon Pci video board, and 1.0 USB hubsx4.it has ethernet and an installed linksys wmp54G wireless board. it runs windows 7 home basic but not well at all. I was wondering if this Dell would run linux mint 18.3 with out issue, or shou I try 17.03 Rosa LTS instead? i have upgraded the BIOS to A05 which is the last update for this installed BIOS.and i upgraded the ram from 128 to 1 Gb which is also the max for this old and removed the 20 Mb drive and installed a brand new seagate 169 Gb drive. I am familiar with Linux Mint and have used it on a few other older units but this is the oldest one ive had . 2004 1/2 june. build. any advise would be appreciated. this was a Municipal computer originally and was hooked to a main frame. it has few hours use oon it and that's the reason i would like to use it if possible. thanks !

hang-the-9 · Jan 7, 2019

Linux is free to download right? Download it and see how well if it runs. Will take you maybe an hour to find out.

lolnole · Jan 7, 2019

As the other poster stated, you should try it out and see how it runs. It's good that you upgraded the memory to 1 GB. Here are a few suggestions:

Linux Mint Xfce: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3671
LMDE MATE: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2809

If the system cannot handle LMDE MATE, then you will need to use an even lighter distro: Arch, Bodhi Linux, Lubuntu, etc.

billhuffsr · Jan 7, 2019

lolnole :

billhuffsr · Jan 7, 2019

i will try this out and see how it goes. i can't imagine it would run any slower or worse than windows 7 home basic does in this Dinosaur.as i have fiund the only real drawback to running these machines id=s the slowness of the processors. this dell has a 1.5 Ghz Pentium 4 non hyper threaded. i have run earlier versions of linux in windows 95 SE machines and had then run slow but good enough for a single function at one time. thank you again. i will let you know how it goes ! Bill !

Grobe · Jan 17, 2019

You need to know if the CPU is 64 bit. With a 32 bit CPU only, there is less number of distros to choose between.

billhuffsr · Jan 18, 2019

Grobe :

billhuffsr · Jan 18, 2019

My cpu in that old Dell is only 32 bit. there never was a 64 bit option for that CPU. But i downloaded and installed Linux Mint 17.03 XFCE version and it seems to work fairly well. It is never going to be a fast machine because of it's nature and the configuration of the CPU and limited memory ETC, but it seems that it will run steady and perform within reason for what it is and how it was designed. Honestly given the original configuration of these models, i don't understand how they actually ever really ran normally anyway. they came OEM with 128 Mb's of memory, and a 20 Mb PATA hard drive,with windows xp professional 32 bit with service pack 1. That in itself is a formula for a slow sluggish system. So by maxing out the memory with 1 full gig, and increasing the Hard drive to 160 Gb's, it gives it a fighting chance to run Linux with reasonable;e success. they max HDD capassidy this machine will accept anyway is 250 Gb EIDE PATA drive. so thank you all for all the suggestions, they XFCE one seems to work well enough so far ! i have 2 more of these Dell GX240's, if this one continues to function ok, i will do the other 2 the same . thanks again for the assistance ! Bill Huff Sr:

Search

installing Linux Mint on my old Dell Desktop

billhuffsr

Prominent

lolnole

hang-the-9

Titan

lolnole

Honorable

billhuffsr

Prominent

billhuffsr

Prominent

Grobe

Splendid

billhuffsr

Prominent

billhuffsr

Prominent

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page