How to select best OM version for older laptop?

[deltakprime]

Hello,

• OpenMandriva Lx version:
  None selected yet.

• Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…):
  Prefer KDE

• Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant):
  How to select best OM version?

• Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):

Gateway MX6028
Phoenix BIOS says:

BIOS Versipn: 61.2
IDE 0 Master: HTS548060M9AT00- (PM)
IDE 1Master: None

CPU Type: Intel Celeron M processor
CPU Speed: 1400 MHz
Cache RAM: 1024 KB

Total Memory: 1024MB
Slot 1 Memory: 0MB
Slot 2 Memory: 1024MB
Video Memory: 8MB

Insignia sticker on inside surface near keyboard & touchpad says:
AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology

Hi.
I would like to know what is the most current recommended OM version best suited for installation on this machine.

Thank you.

[stefluni (Stefano)]

Wow… it’s a oooold PC… Try with a light DM (as LxQt, or Mate), KDE Plasma is too heavy…
And, if possible, increase the RAM memory to 4 Gb at least

[deltakprime]

Stefano:
Thanks for the reply and the suggestions.

I want to download the most current version of OpenMandriva that would work on this laptop to make an installation DVD for this laptop.
Which version would you recommend?
Mike

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

The current versions will likely work if I can figure out what files to edit to get Calamares installer to install with 1024MB RAM. We did some experimenting some time ago and even had this working with Plasma desktop. None the less it would be better to use something like ROME xfce. LXQt would be a good choice also but there is bug.

To Download something right now it would have to be before Lx 4.0 so maybe Lx 3.03 would work. If not then try Lx 2014.2. They can be found here.

[deltakprime]

Thanks Ben.

ROME would be great… I’ve got two desktops running it currently.
I’ll give 3.03 a try for now.
Please keep me posted re: the Calamares installation.
Mike

[rugyada]

@ben79

what files to edit to get Calamares installer to install with 1024MB RAM

@deltakprime
It’s not granted that it will work

Edit

/etc/calamares/modules/welcome.conf
requiredRam:        2.0

replace with:

requiredRam:        1.0

After install, in calamares log I see

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

@deltakprime

CPU Type: Intel Celeron M processor

That processor family includes both 32 and 64 bit cpu’s. That will matter in choice of operating system.

@deltakprime

AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology

This is a different brand of cpu. It seems unlikely you would have both.

Edit: It is unlikely BIOS would get this wrong since recognizing the system hardware is part of it’s job. But cat /proc/cpuinfo will tell for sure. Alternatively if you try to boot a 64 bit ‘Live’ ISO and that does not work try one that is 32 bit.

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

Test in VBox with mem set to 1024MB and 1 cpu.

With ROME LXQt iso 1761 I tried with required RAM 1.0 and Calamares said that was not enough. Tried with required RAM set to 0.8 and installation was successful. System boots and seems to work OK in very brief test.

For LXQt at present user will want to use tiled windows because of bug 2816 until that is fixed.

But this test suggests this is workable on computer with 1024MB. Xfce4 desktop would be another one to consider for this type of application. The isos are available here. User could dual boot LXQt and xfce4!

[deltakprime]

Ben:

Phoenix BIOS ver 61.02 reports
CPU Type: Intel (R) Celeron (R) M processor
CPU Speed: 1400 MHz
Cache RAM: 1024 KB

I was able to boot Mandriva MCN Live “Toronto” from a flash drive using the cat /proc/cpuinfo command:

It reports:

Intel
cpu family 6
model 13
model name: Intel (R) Celeron (R) M processor 1.40GHz

stepping 8
MHz 1389.528
cache 1024 KB

fdiv_bug no
hlt_bug no
f00f_bug no
coma_bug no

fpu yes
fpu_exception yes
cpuid level 2
wp yes
flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat ctlflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up
bogomips 2781.12

[mandian]

if you CPU has not the lm (long memory) flag it is a 32bit CPU.

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

@deltakprime thanks for the info. If I had been really smart I would have included the command ‘arch’ in the earlier post. That tells for sure what architecture a computer has. To be honest I had forgotten that command.

Anyway to install OpenMandriva any version on older pc or laptop you would need to see:

$ arch
x86_64

arch command is used to print the computer architecture. Arch command prints things such as “i386, i486, i586, alpha, arm, m68k, mips, sparc, x86_64, etc.

Edit: This page shows MCNLive as being a distro that made only i586 isos.

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

Thanks for that information. That indicates that the computer in question is 32-bit.

[deltakprime]

Any recommended 32 bit O/M options?

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

I would recommend something newer than any version of OMLx. For OMLx i586 most recent choices are Lx 3.03 and 2014.2 available here.

As far as other distros I do not know which are most user friendly.

[deltakprime]

I’ve been using the MCNLive Toronto distribution as a functional solution for the meantime; I have the 2014.2 and will try that next.
Thanks.

[epp]

The oldest of my two desktops is maxed out at 4GB of RAM, it’s also x86_64. Linux runs fine on it, including OpenMandriva and over the years, I have used it with LXDE, LXQt, Xfce and (now) KDE Plasma.

I had issues with Cinnamon some years back with integrated nVIDIA graphics, including, but not limited to video corruption.