Voice of the Masses: What’s your oldest machine running Linux?
Linus Torvalds recently rejected a patch that removes EISA support from the kernel – despite that technology being ancient by computing standards. Torvalds’ reasoning: “It’s not like it hurts us or is in some way fundamentally broken”.
It’s great that the Linux kernel continues to support old hardware, which gave us the idea for our next podcast: what’s the oldest machine you have, that’s still running Linux? Maybe you’re using an late-’90s laptop as a mail server, or perhaps you’ve got a fridge-sized VAX box chugging away somewhere. Let us know in the comments below and we’ll read out the best in our upcoming podcast!
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About The Author
Mike Saunders
Mike stores his data by printing out hex dumps and laminating the sheets. He's the author of The Haynes Linux Manual and the creator of MikeOS, an operating system hand-built from assembly language.
I don’t use it much, but I still have a 1999-era Compaq Aramada 7770dmt laptop, with a Pentium II MMX at 233 MHz with a 3 GB hard drive and … get ready … maxed-out 144 MB of RAM. It is currently running Debian Squeeze with the LTS support . It began its Debian life with Lenny, which I upgraded in place to Squeeze, then adding the LTS repos when they became available.
I use Xfce as the desktop environment. To stay within the 3 GB hard-drive limit, I have to pick and choose the applications very carefully. I do have a 20 GB (massive, I know) drive that I can put in there, and that would make it so I could run a “full” Debian Xfce install.
Truthfully, running web browsers can be a little painful, but I can use the now-16-year-old machine for text editing (I use Geany) and FTP (using gFTP) to work on web sites. It’s a great writing machine because it has terrific keyboard. And it’s also unusual in that the “power brick” parts are all inside the case. You just plug in a power cable and go. I’ve written a whole lot of blog posts about it over the years: http://blogs.dailynews.com/click/tag/the-15-laptop/
Debian is VERY forgiving about old hardware, and this laptop is a great example. It does run OLD versions of Puppy very well (2.13 was my favorite …), and I’m pretty sure it can handle OpenBSD, another OS that is very kind to the old and moldy. I keep Debian on there because I don’t have to worry about major upgrades all that often.
Our internal file server at work is a 2004 Dell desktop running Ubuntu. For what we need, it works just fine.
Prior to that, it was a Compaq Deskpro EN from the late 90’s (it originally came with Windows 98). Also running Ubuntu.
I am running Xubuntu 12.04 LTS (didn’t upgrade to 14.04 yet) on my Shuttle SK41G (2002), it is Athlon Duron 2600+ running on 1.5GB memory (http://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/en/sk41g.htm ). I upgraded the disk to150GB from pcworld outlet store. It is still a great machine for browsing, photos, and playing music. To be fair, shuttle supported this machine long enough with BIOS and driver upgrades. I had my own Graphic card running in it (Geforce Mx 2) , and that failed badly as in it half stopped working and didn’t realise that it failed, suddenly it turned into 16 colours and for a while I thought it was a driver issue, tried recompiling kernel, windows and everything. In the end I removed the AGP card, and used on board graphic card boot linux and everything is fine again. So it is still running for a while as replacement desktop when tablet is not enough.
A 2003 Acer Travelmate 800LCi with 512mb of RAM running PeppermintOS 3 absolutely fine and dandy. Has also taken the latest stable Bodhi without any trouble when asked to.
Not exactly mine, however, in one lab they operate cell-culture equipment. It comes with a large controller unit to control temperature, pH value, gas, steering, liquids and providing a graphical user interface. They are more then 12 years old and I noticed once they run a 2.4 kernel.
Silenty doing their duties, without problems or updates for all these years and nicely threaten by an offical Windows fan-boy. Should I tell him?! 😉
I guess, if people look into the embedded world, they will be scared about how old are the Linux systems they are still using.
I just checked…. they were manufactured 1997 and got once an upgrade to a 2.4 kernel… 18 years old….
I have a D-Link DNS-323 running Linux. I’m going to take a wild guess that this small machine is approaching ten years old. I didn’t even know it was Linux when I got it. Years later when I decided to try to learn Linux I noticed that a lot of the commands were familiar to what I was using on the DNS-323. A few months ago I upgraded the firmware to “Alt-F” Linux.
My main problem with old hardware is that it’s power hungry and can be noisy. My old eee PC 1000H from 2008 is not that old but after being retired from desktop use it’s been on 24/7 for 3 years serving up two websites, owncloud, tt-rss, dnsmasq and most recently doing music duties with mpd, all from behind the sitting room TV. It’s running Centos 6 and needs hardly any maintenance. Go gnu/linux!
Truth. I have a collection of several old computers that could be put to use for all sorts of things, but the fact that they burn through more electricity compared to a new, low-power inexpensive computer (Raspberry Pi, NUC, or some other low-power device) prevents me from ever using them again.
I have an IBM Thinkpad X30 which runs fluxbox on top of a minimal arch install and I use for coding stuff intended for running on raspberry pi and gameboy, although I’ve been using it a lot less now that a Chromebook battery lasts all day
I keep an IBM NetVista from 2003 in the garage for playing music to work out to. Handles Thin Lizzy and Led Zep etc videos full screen with no problem. Wi-fi works and Firefox runs fine, at least for keeping an eye on the live football scores. Currently running xubuntu 14.04. Admittedly the setup is hardly demanding, but it does just the job I need.
I have a desktop from 1998 that still gets occasional use. Though it did get a new motherboard, processor and memory in 2002 so I guess it should be dated from then. It’s running the latest Debian with LXDE with no problems. Though is rather noisy compared to modern computers.
Dell Inspiron 7500 Pentium III 650 MHz 256Mb ram running Slacko-puppy
Pentium 3 500Mhz, with 512MB Ram, CentOS 6 This is my SFTP server.
I installed Lubuntu 14.04 a day after it came out on the oldest Desktop machine around the house with 386 MB Ram and a 800Mhz Pentium, on which it runs smoothly…
By the way, I had a chance to chat with Linus recently and the subject of running Linux on old hardware came up. He was less than excited about it, and said that he enjoys seeing it run on modern, nice machines like the ones he uses much more.
Side comment: I just read Linus answer and woah that was unexpected. It was not rude, to the point and reflected a clear interaction and listening to other people.
Perhaps the reporting on statements by Linus does not reflect his overall behaviour?
That would have to be my 2001 or 2002 vintage Thinkpad T23 running AnitX. It’s my backup in case one of my other computers bites the dust.
This begs the question what constitutes the same computer. If I have upgraded the motherboard, the disk drives, memory, power supply, etc at what point is it a new computer.
Unlike some other operating systems, I have upgraded to a new machine by taking the system disk out of the old and then just booting in the new machine, and everything worked fine, despite going from dual core to 4 core, more memory, new graphics card,… etc…
The oldest machine I have running Linux is a Dell Dimension 4700 ca. 2004 which I got second-hand about seven years ago. It’s running Slackware –Current, but previously ran Debian. I started using Linux in 2005 on a surplus IBM PC 300 (the original Pentium computer) which, at the time, was already seven years old at they time. I used it to self-host my website for three years.
Oldest working computer I have running Linux is my old Thinkpad R50e running Fedora 14. It’s due for a “small” upgrade to another distro, but it works the way it is at the moment and it’s good enough for when I need a spare computer for some specific task.
I have an IBM PC-XT 286 circa 1984 with Windows 3.0, I’m very tempted to stick some sort of Linux on that just to see what would happen…
You’d need to get an ELKS-based distro for that, since x86 Linux was designed to run in 386 protected mode. I read about someone trying to port the kernel to 286 protected mode but I never saw anything successful on that front.
I have a Slot A Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz with ATI 9600SE GPU and 768M of RAM running Debian Lenny with KDE 3.1.12. It’s still relying on Konqueror for its browser, and I still use it for basic remote admin tasks and as an IMAP mailstore. It’s also shockingly fast for how old it is… it largely keeps up with my Vaio Ivy Bridge laptop, albeit I’m not trying to play 1080p HEVC video on it, but for fun I do still play some 720p XVid content on it every now and again, and I still play ETWolf on it from time to time. I also have a Cyrix P120+ machine with Slackware 7 on it, but I haven’t actually booted it in a while. It has a dual-boot to Slackware 4 as well, but that doesn’t properly support some of the hardware, ie the SCSI DVD burner and the Soundblaster Live. On the bright side, it boots pretty quick since all the drivers it does support are compiled into the zImage, so there’s no initrd hardware detection phase. 🙂
You’d need to get an ELKS-based distro for that, since x86 Linux was designed to run in 386 protected mode. I read about someone trying to port the kernel to 286 protected mode but I never saw anything successful on that front.
I don’t know exact year, but I suspect 1999, it’s a Dell desktop with Pentium III (Coppermine) @ 930MHz, 384MB RAM and 8GB disk.
It still runs lenny 5.0.8 for DHCP and BIND, 24/7 since 2008… Guess it won’t get another install, but it still runs very well for the tasks required!
It’s only recently powered off, but I had a 386 (16 Mb RAM) running Slackware that was essentially running as a print server for an old Parallel port HP printer … it was stuck behind a cupboard and when the printer was discontinued we forgot to remove the box … it’s been sitting behind that cupboard, doing nothing, for about 6 years.
Compaq Armada e500 Running AnitaOS
http://sourceforge.net/projects/anitaos/
I have a dusty box that collects data from an old serial printer on a coated stone plant. It’s a mini-itx system but does have IDE drives on it. The Linux was originally SUSE 6.4 (on mini floppies back then) but is currently running SUSE 11.4.
Using the maxim “if it aint broke don’t fix it” I guess it will never be upgraded again so IDE retention is less of an issue for me. If I was asked to vote on this I would say keep it.
I run Antix 13 on a 1999 Toshiba 4000CDT laptop weighing in at 3.04kg and featuring an Intel Pentium 2 running at 233MHz with 160MB. Video is 12-inch SVGA at 800 by 600 pixels.
Luckily, it has one (1!) USB1 port which, incidentally, is the only port fast enough to surf the web via WiFi. At first, I tried using its 16-bit CardBus for surfing, but it was just too slow.
I use the laptop to listen to live MP3 internet streams in my mechanical workshop. AAC streams are too demanding. Stream URLs are synced with my server using Hg Mercurial over ssh. Its audio with its big speakers, nice volume turn wheel and the Yamaha OPL3SA2 DAC offers far superior bass depth compared to that of current day notebooks!
Here is an original 1999 review: http://www.reviewsonline.com/TOSH4000.HTM
Nice! Visually very close to my Toshiba 310CDS. You are lucky that it is a CD_T_, though…
Out of curiosity, does the fan ever spin up? I’m not sure whether mine is broken or if it just is never under enough load to generate heat worth expelling. It’s basically silent, though, which is nice (more modern HDD :))
UPDATE: Newer Linux kernels above 3.4 no longer seem to play well with this machine. Furthermore, recent Linux distributions no longer fit on a CD. Remember, this device cannot read DVDs and booting from USB is not provided by its BIOS! To keep software fresh & safe, I resorted to FreeBSD. In console mode, it now plays AAC streams and its fan remains most of the time off!
I’ve installed Mint 13 on my mom’s 12-year-old system with a 1.6Ghz AMD Athlon CPU. Had to find a 1GB DDR memory module for sale, now modern (safe + functional) browsers run ‘Ok’ but not great. Bigger problem is no SSE2 support and too many products (GChrome, Flash) are compiled requiring it. Grrrr.
I still use today for a most of my computing an 8 year old Acer aspire 3681 laptop. It has 1.4g GHz 1GB of ram, an onboard graphics chip that only supports open GL 1.4 and 60GB of hard drive. It has windows XP of the hard disk but I boot Mint Xfce from USB sticks so I can also use the same OS on the computers at my school.
The only problem I have with the specs is that when running Firefox (or Tor Browser) the computer gets quite slow. It also can take a while just to open a terminal.
I have a Toshiba Satellite 3000-X11 laptop,(2001) a Compaq Presario V4000 Laptop, (2006) and a Samsung N150 Netbook all running Solydx, all connecting to my wifi and wonder of wonders printing and scanning on my HP 1514. This was the only Linux distro in a stack 12 ins. high that would work properly. Originally the laptops ran XP perfectly and the net book is dual booted with Win7.
I still use a IBM Thinkpad X41 Tablet of 2005 as my daily driver. It has 1.5 GB of RAM for its Intel Pentium M (Dothan) 1.6GHz and a 60GB Harddrive. Thanks to Mikes Article and DVD in issue #7 (?) it is running Manjaro and apart from HD Videos all is running well – even the Wacom Touchscreen!
I have a PowerMac G4 (Quadnostril, Mirrored Drive Doors, 2002) running Lubuntu.
Just listened to the podcast, and wanted to chip in when someone spoke about a computer at work, and Mike said something along the lines of “absolutely no one runs this thing, like a Vax or something”.
Anyhow, we have a Vax, still running in a corner where I work (which is in the Main Control Room of a nuclear power station…). Don’t be afraid! The Vax doesn’t have any plant control! It’s on a network that receives information about plant parameters and provides them to us to allow us to complete surveillances. The data route through the Vax is verified nuclear grade, whereas the data that comes through a normal PC, from the same network hasn’t been through the same verification process, therefore we can’t claim it fro safety purposes…
Top quality podcast and mag (I’m obviously a subscriber). I’ve just found a “find”, so I’ll be emailing that to you now!
Aha, interesting to hear that there are still Vaxes (or should that be Vaxen?) out there in the wild!
My oldest computer is my Dell Optiplex GX150 (PIII–1ghz–512 mb ram–40g hard drive). I inter-change several 40g hard drives on it,..and that way I can run different operating systems on it, whenever I feel like it. I have been running w2k,..windows XP–various versions of Puppy Linux,..Antix,..CrunchBang,..VectorLinux on it. (etc. etc. etc.) Still works good.
I have a Pentium 133 MMX with either Linux of BSD installed in a closet somewhere. I think it has a ‘huge’ 64Mb (it might even be 128Mb!) of RAM. It has a trevan drive and a couple of ‘massive’ 1.2GB SCSI hard disks. It has an ancient ISA CardD pro-audio card in it, an 8Mb S3 virge, 2x 12Mb Voodoo 2 cards running in SLI mode, and an MPEG decoder / tv tuner card. I haven’t started it up in years, but in theory i should be able to just plug it in and power it on – it worked just fine the last time I did that.
I have a 2002 Quicksilver PowerMac with a single 800Mhz processor and 2Gb of RAM. This was my primary Debian machine for a good eighteen months. Funny story: I’d installed the PPC build of Debian Squeeze on it, got Xfce running, and even managed to build Firefox etc and use the machine as a daily driver when I went and had a look on some Apple sites to see what they had to say about running Linux on PPC hardware. Impossible they said. Don’t bother trying.
Heh. Well that was good to know.
My daily driver now is a 2006 Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop with Debian Jessie and Xfce. The touchpad works quite happily and while the thing is probably on its 11th cat life it is puttering along quite satisfactorily. I still have the Mac, but right now it’s sitting by my desk gathering dust.
I have a IBM Thinkpad T23 (P3 1.2Ghz 512MB RAM)
running Linux mint13. Its OK for surfing the WEB as long you keep away from video watching.
And after last update my sound is Gone! think the sound driver is deleted from the Kernel!!
Whats next for that machine. Dont really know!
Maybe its time to SCRAP IT !
Toshiba 310CDS – Sabotage Linux cross compiled for i586, boots in 20 seconds.
Not to a desktop, though.
Runs Lynx, vim, python… and connects to the internet. It’s got a USB port :), so a cheap wifi dongle is stuck in there. Also, two hours battery life (untweaked)!
Perfectly usable if a little slow. I’m glad EISA is still supported; this machine uses it, and a modern kernel is nice to have.
32MB RAM (not maxed out), a powerful CPU (Pentium-MMX; 200MHz, which isn’t bad), and a nice newer 40GB HDD, which reduces disk access latency somewhat.
It’s around 17 years old.
I had one of those. I miss it. I sold it when its LCD started to expire. I had a lot of fun with that machine – Napster and ICQ voice chat over dialup among other things.
Those were the days…
I have a Compaq Prolinea MT/66 box, with a 486 DX/2 processor at 66 MHz, and 48 MB of RAM, running Slackware 8.1. I remember picking it at the company that employed me at the time (this must be 1996 or so) for they were going to get rid of it – it was already obsolete. It’s been running practically nonstop ever since, until recently doing routing chores. These days I keep it running just for the fun it, waiting to see when it will break down.
Nothing too mind-blowingly ancient but I run a simple home filer server and web test server on a G4 Mac Mini running Debian.
I realise that comparitively it’s not that old but I have a little nokia booklet Intel Atom Z530 1.6 GHz with 1 GB RAM running Arch Linux. It is a fantastic little netbook upgraded the hard disk to an SSD great for almost all day to day activities albeit with a level of lag . Can even handle videos using mpv player if they are downloaded from yt. Love it for text editing , playing old games (Doom , Lincity , Micropolis , Rise of the Triad) a bit of coding and music.. Go Arch Linux!!
Extremely sorry to be so very late but I still have a workjng Amiga 500 (512Mb RAM 49Mb HD). Don’t use it as my daily driver but DeluxePaint works a treat!
Whoops! Musst lern two reed.
Didn’t see the part of running LINUX while perusing thread. My oldest machine running Linux is a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 running Gentoo.
1998 hp vectra desktop pentium slot 1 450mhz netbsd 7.0