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Thread: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

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  1. #1
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    What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Hello Pentium M users,

    If you have a laptop with Pentium M CPU, what OS are you running? And how are you using it?

    I think most if not all of these laptops came with Windows XP, but if you read this post, you have probably tried some Ubuntu version and flavour.

    - Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ... 10.04 desktop LTS (past end of life)
    - Xubuntu 8.04 LTS ... 12.04 LTS (end of life April 2015)
    - Lubuntu 10.04 ...12.04 (end of life October 2013)
    - kansasnoob's 12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks (end of life April 2017)
    - LXLE (based on Lubuntu 12.04) intended to be maintained as an LTS release (end of life April 2017)
    - Windows XP (end of life April 2014)

    There are many high quality professional laptops with Pentium M CPUs, that are still in good shape. But the available operating systems are decreasing in number. I think there will be a lot of computers, that will be abandoned at Windows XP end of life, which is less than one year from now. This is an opportunity to get an old but still high quality laptop very cheap. If you know how to run it with supported versions and flavours of Ubuntu, it can be a good companion for some more years. See also this link

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Comm...tu/StartUbuntu

    If you want to run a new version of the Ubuntu flavours, you will have problems because these have only PAE kernels, and many old Pentium M CPUs have no PAE flag. But the good news is that these CPUs have PAE capability, and there is a method to run the versions 12.10 and 13.04 with fake-PAE by 7bit.

    See these links

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu-fake-PAE
    New: Instructions how to make install USB drive from Windows with graphical user interface tools

    -o-

    I suggest that we can describe our hardware and software, and how we intend to run these laptops.

    I have an IBM Thinkpad T42 and a friend of mine has an IBM Thinkpad T41. We use them for daily activities (of course no HD video or numbercrunching). Both laptops are still going strong with Lubuntu 12.04. But I am preparing for Lubuntu's non-pae end of life in October, and have made Lubuntu-fake-PAE, that uses fake-PAE to help installing Lubuntu 13.04 directly.
    Last edited by sudodus; May 10th, 2013 at 08:13 PM. Reason: added link to StartUbuntu

  2. #2
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Well done

  3. #3
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Hi.

    I have 2 working Pentium M laptops.

    Toshiba Satellite (5150-S501).
    Long time ago it was converted to Linux. It has run Debian, Debian with KDE, Crunchbang, but I settled with Ubuntu 8.10. It was upgraded to every new Ubuntu release until it got problems with the screen: anything in graphic mode crashed. I installed Ubuntu Server, and it's been running perfectly since then. I use it mainly for video and audio conversion ("closet computing" as I called it ). Currently running Server 12.04.

    HP (compaq nc6120).
    This was my wife's main computer back in the day. After EOL, she bought it for one dollar . It was a excruciatingly slow. It was a XP + some-almost-impossible-to-remove-antivirus machine. Since her main purpose of refurbishing the laptop was to use Firefox, and VLC, I installed Xubuntu. Ohh, the difference! Currently running Xubuntu 12.04.

    Regards.

  4. #4
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    What we really need is one very small operation: The test for PAE flag should be removed from the standard PAE ISO.

    7bit's PPA (and hence our wiki pages) is only a workaround.
    Bringing old hardware back to life. About problems due to upgrading.
    Please visit Quick Links -> Unanswered Posts.
    Don't use this space for a list of your hardware. It only creates false hits in the search engines.

  5. #5
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    These are real alternatives for me

    Quote Originally Posted by sudodus View Post

    - Xubuntu 8.04 LTS ... 12.04 LTS (end of life April 2015)
    - Lubuntu 10.04 ...12.04 (end of life October 2013)
    - kansasnoob's 12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks (end of life April 2017)
    Interesting:
    There are many high quality professional laptops with Pentium M CPUs, that are still in good shape. But the available operating systems are decreasing in number. I think there will be a lot of computers, that will be abandoned at Windows XP end of life, which is less than one year from now. This is an opportunity to get an old but still high quality laptop very cheap. If you know how to run it with supported versions and flavours of Ubuntu, it can be a good companion for some more years. See also this link

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Comm...tu/StartUbuntu
    I will check fake-pae for upgrading Lubuntu.

  6. #6
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    I have 2 old laptops : HP Compaq nx6110 and nc6000
    Both are running Ubuntu 12.04 non-pae remix.

    They work fine, but startup is rather slow.

    I tried the fake-pae patch and upgraded the nc6000 to 12.10 : the upgrade succeded perfectly.
    BUT I lost the dns resolution and hence it was unusable.

    My aim was to upgrade to 13.04 which is said to have less memory footprint in order to be used on tablets.
    But as I was unable to resolve names in URL, I was unable to continue, so I downgraded to 12.04.

  7. #7
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Quote Originally Posted by elbarbudo View Post
    I have 2 old laptops : HP Compaq nx6110 and nc6000
    Both are running Ubuntu 12.04 non-pae remix.

    They work fine, but startup is rather slow.

    I tried the fake-pae patch and upgraded the nc6000 to 12.10 : the upgrade succeded perfectly.
    BUT I lost the dns resolution and hence it was unusable.

    My aim was to upgrade to 13.04 which is said to have less memory footprint in order to be used on tablets.
    But as I was unable to resolve names in URL, I was unable to continue, so I downgraded to 12.04.
    Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums

    The reason that you lost the DNS resolution might be, that the upgrade of the nc6000 to 12.10 was not completely successful.

    If you want to try a new version again, this time Lubuntu 13.04, you can make a live USB drive

    - with the method 'grub-n-iso' if you have a 1 GB or 2 GB USB pendrive or
    - with the method 'installed system' if you have a 16 GB USB drive.

    See this link for details:

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu-fake-PAE

    Use that USB drive to run a live session (with installing anything to your internal HDD) and test if DNS is working. If it works, it should work also after installation to the HDD.

    -o-

    I agree with mörgæs concerning the nx6110. It should not need the fake-pae to run 32-bit pae operating systems.

  8. #8
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    According to
    http://www.cnet.com/laptops/hp-compa...-31281875.html
    the nx6110 has one of the newer Pentium M, so you can install any version straight away.

    As explained on the wiki page the problem is only for the versions with 400 MHz front side bus, and you have 533.
    Bringing old hardware back to life. About problems due to upgrading.
    Please visit Quick Links -> Unanswered Posts.
    Don't use this space for a list of your hardware. It only creates false hits in the search engines.

  9. #9
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Pentium M 1500MHz running Mint Linux 13 Maya XFCE. I have it mounted on a USB hard drive partition and I use a CD with isolinux to bootstrap the system to work. Can't boot from a USB with my Bios.

    Started looking at Gentoo. I don't know if I will give up on it but I know that Gentoo allows you to configure the kernel to the computer instead of trying to get a computer to fit to the kernel. It looks really difficult but if I can get it to work it should be well worth the aggravation.

    The discussions I see about trying to get Cannonical to do the right thing by not abandoning a perfectly good computer system remind me of what a friend told me. When you argue with a fool, who is the fool?

  10. #10
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    Re: What OS are you running with Pentium M and what do you want next?

    Quote Originally Posted by ImConfused View Post
    Pentium M 1500MHz running Mint Linux 13 Maya XFCE. I have it mounted on a USB hard drive partition and I use a CD with isolinux to bootstrap the system to work. Can't boot from a USB with my Bios.

    Started looking at Gentoo. I don't know if I will give up on it but I know that Gentoo allows you to configure the kernel to the computer instead of trying to get a computer to fit to the kernel. It looks really difficult but if I can get it to work it should be well worth the aggravation.

    The discussions I see about trying to get Cannonical to do the right thing by not abandoning a perfectly good computer system remind me of what a friend told me. When you argue with a fool, who is the fool?
    If you are interested, you can try Lubuntu-fake-PAE https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu-fake-PAE

    We are not sure that older Pentium M CPUs can run well with it. So, at an early stage after booting into Lubuntu 13.04, check that

    Code:
    cat /proc/cpuinfo
    reports 36 bit physical address size! (While you are running Linux Mint 13, the cpuinfo will probably report only 32 bits.)

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