Installing Ubuntu on an old PC

[I am an SSD]

I have a very old PC with a pentium 4, and 256 MB of Ram, all on an intel desktop board. I decided to instal Ubuntu on it to breathe some life into it. However The bios doesnt allow me to install ubuntu via a USB, which means I have to burn the iso to a DVD and then get it to boot.  When I try to do the same, it says that the diskette is not detected (after I change the boot order of course). 

 

Has anyone installed Ubuntu on a PC this old before? If yes , maybe a little help?

[Howlingwolf101]

Ubuntu is a relatively new Linux distro and it might have a difficult time running on that. I tried installing it on a similar computer with 1 GB of RAM and it was so slow. I wouldn't reccomend it.

[I am an SSD]

Just now, Howlingwolf101 said:

Ubuntu is a relatively new Linux distro and it might have a difficult time running on that. I tried installing it on a similar computer with 1 GB of RAM and it was so slow. I wouldn't reccomend it.

Ok thanks....know anything else I can help it with, or is it just destined to gather dust?

[CoffeeandBagels]

16 minutes ago, I am an SSD said:

I have a very old PC with a pentium 4, and 256 MB of Ram, all on an intel desktop board. I decided to instal Ubuntu on it to breathe some life into it. However The bios doesnt allow me to install ubuntu via a USB, which means I have to burn the iso to a DVD and then get it to boot.  When I try to do the same, it says that the diskette is not detected (after I change the boot order of course). 

 

Has anyone installed Ubuntu on a PC this old before? If yes , maybe a little help?

 

A computer that old, shoot for one of the Linux distro packages which are designed to use as little resources as possible. Get on google and take a look at XFCE. I think thats what you need. In fact, if you like Ubuntu, there is an XFCE variety of Ubuntu which may work better for you hardware called "Xubuntu".

 

You may have to try burning discs for a couple different distributions to get something right, but bear this in mind. The Raspberry Pi has about half or less of the resources of your machine and it works well with Raspbian (Thier Debian Linux fork). If the Pi can run Linux, so can your old rig. Best of luck!

[VinsinityKT]

Linux Mint

[CoffeeandBagels]

11 minutes ago, VinsinityKT said:

Linux Mint

I'm rocking Linux Mint on my main PC, but this user has a really old rig. Do you think Mint will run on that?

[VinsinityKT]

30 minutes ago, CoffeeandBagels said:

I'm rocking Linux Mint on my main PC, but this user has a really old rig. Do you think Mint will run on that?

I thought Linux Mint was a very light OS. It ran on a single core Celeron 2.6 ghz however, it has 2gb of ram.

[CoffeeandBagels]

2 minutes ago, VinsinityKT said:

I thought Linux Mint was a very light OS. It ran on a single core Celeron 2.6 ghz however, it has 2gb of ram.

It is light, But is it possible to set up a booting CD rom? My live boot usb was a gig for the ISO. This user cannot boot from USB.

[Burusutazu]

21 hours ago, CoffeeandBagels said:

It is light, But is it possible to set up a booting CD rom? My live boot usb was a gig for the ISO. This user cannot boot from USB.

Mint will not run on 256mb of RAM, even with XFCE. I thought I would mention that you can easily invest 10$ on 2x1gb sticks of ddr ram if you really want to breath life back into this pc.

[I am an SSD]

2 hours ago, Burusutazu said:

Mint will not run on 256mb of RAM, even with XFCE. I thought I would mention that you can easily invest 10$ on 2x1gb sticks of ddr ram if you really want to breath life back into this pc.

The Intel desktop board supports only 500mb of RAM....its ancient, we're talking 1997...

I guess i cant do anything much with it then, would have been great to see an OS running flawlessly on it though, XP makes even today's computers lag

[Burusutazu]

1 hour ago, I am an SSD said:

The Intel desktop board supports only 500mb of RAM....its ancient, we're talking 1997...

I guess i cant do anything much with it then, would have been great to see an OS running flawlessly on it though, XP makes even today's computers lag

Oh, I had an old dell with a pentium 4 that supported 1.5gb so I thought I would mention it. You can probably run puppy linux, LXDE (Lubuntu) would run, but you would have to installing it using a text based installer since the gui installer requires a minimum of 384mb of ram.

[gogobaba]

Well yes,

From all of the above most likely Puppy linux will be running best since its really light.Something else that came to my mind is Remix OS.This is basically Android 5.1.1 for a PC,you can check some youtube videos and see how it works before you install it.If you are going to use it for watching some movies or basic inet browsing it should do,its speciffically designed for all PCs and laptops

[Burusutazu]

2 hours ago, gogobaba said:

Well yes,

From all of the above most likely Puppy linux will be running best since its really light.Something else that came to my mind is Remix OS.This is basically Android 5.1.1 for a PC,you can check some youtube videos and see how it works before you install it.If you are going to use it for watching some movies or basic inet browsing it should do,its speciffically designed for all PCs and laptops

I never considered Remix OS, I would bet it would run if his computer would boot off a usb.

[Logarithm]

I would try archlinux. It is pretty much made for situations like this. Hilariously light distro. Or, if you want to get weird with it, try anti-X linux.

 

However, to a larger point, This is a really old computer. Some stuff may be broken in it. Parts of it will almost definitely break very soon. Be prepared, and don't use it for too much.

[Jarsky]

Regardless of Linux Distro, make sure you're getting the 32-bit installer as the P4 doesn't understand 64-bit instructions.

[Joeyfla95]

On 3/28/2016 at 10:58 AM, I am an SSD said:

I have a very old PC with a pentium 4, and 256 MB of Ram,

go for the lubuntu distro as it uses little resources as possible.

then use some iso unpacker software -i dont know any that can unpack to dvds though- then you should be able to boot from the CD and install the OS then you wanna find some drivers for your gpu. Unless your using a commonplace 1280x720 display then it should natively support 720p

[I am an SSD]

4 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Regardless of Linux Distro, make sure you're getting the 32-bit installer as the P4 doesn't understand 64-bit instructions.

Well I just realised I was trying to boot from the 64 bit version....however, there is no reason the DVD shouldnt be detected by the bios because of that , is there?

[patrick3027]

On 04/04/2016 at 7:58 AM, I am an SSD said:

Well I just realised I was trying to boot from the 64 bit version....however, there is no reason the DVD shouldnt be detected by the bios because of that , is there?

Maybe only CD's are recognised, no DVD's?

[I am an SSD]

Can that be an issue? I have a CD as well as a DVD optical drive (I bought this one later) and I tried with both..