PAE

[Mr.Veink]

I'm going to upgrade and install Linux on an old PC that my teacher found in a warehouse. I'm gonna upgrade it to a Athlon XP 2600+ and 1,5gb of ram. But I'm not sure does the CPU support the Linux distro I want to install, I want to install xubuntu and it requires PAE capable CPU. Does Athlon XP 2600+ support PAE?

[Mr.Veink]

I found only that AMD added PAE support for Athlon CPUs but I'm not sure if it means Athlon 64 and newer or all Athlon CPUs.

[mariushm]

Yes, those processors should be capable of PAE, but note that motherboards (bios) also have to support the feature.

 

Also note that PAE only matters if you have more than 3-4 GB of memory - it's a feature for making it possible for OSes and applications to use more than 4 GB of memory. With 1.5 GB of memory, the OS should work with or without PAE available.

 

I'd suggest installing Windows 2003 32 bit on such a machine.

You would be able to install older versions of Firefox (or Pale Moon, a customized Firefox), or Opera ... and it would work fine. Also games would run well under 2003, games will think it's WIndows XP or can be run in compatibility mode 

If you need a copy of 2003 for testing, pm me.

[Mr.Veink]

The teacher said that he wants Linux but he doesn't care which distro so should I go with xubuntu or mint cinnamon or something else?

P.s. I have original win 2003 installation disc. But tänks.

[Sir0Tek]

I suggest mx-linux or Antix for this old setup, they're also available as 32 bit installs and based on Debian.

Another nice 'tiny' one I think is Salix OS, based on slackware. I guess it will run great on the Athlon.