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I Upgraded This 20-Year-Old Laptop With a Lightweight Linux Distro!

Spec Tech

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Can a 55MB Linux Distro Save This 20-Year-Old Laptop?

This Fujitsu laptop is almost 20 years old, powered by a single-core AMD Sempron 3400+, just 1.5GB of DDR2 RAM, and an ancient 80GB IDE hard drive. So I decided to see if Slitaz Linux could bring it back to life.

At only around 55MB, Slitaz Linux is one of the smallest complete Linux distros I’ve tested. But getting it running on this old laptop wasn’t exactly straightforward.

After fighting with the old BIOS, installing Slitaz Linux to the hard drive, and finally getting everything working, the results were pretty surprising. RAM usage was only around 54MB, while the entire installed system took up just 273MB of storage.

I tested the built-in apps, classic games, Midori, TazWeb, Firefox, and even tried to find a way to run Minecraft.

Slitaz Linux runs incredibly well on hardware this old, but can a lightweight OS this tiny still handle what we expect from a computer today?
Let’s find out.

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20 Comments

@emiliodg9605 7 days ago

I remember back in like 2008 I got a Pentium 4 machine with almost no RAM and I stumbled upon slitaz which, even then, was for low spec computers, as a 12 year old I loved the logo instantly.
Nice video man, as always!

@BEEMO_PROMO_UA 7 days ago

Slitaz is very underrated...

@greguz 7 days ago

I don't think the web browsers are really at fault here. The problem is that modern web pages simply overload the computer. Most distros have lightweight YT players that are able to load videos just fine. Props to the Slitaz community for making a distro that brings this old computer back from the dead.

@allezvenga7617 3 days ago

It's amazing seeing SliTaz run so smoothly on an AMD Sempron! Modern web browsers really are the ultimate boss battle for vintage hardware.

@andis1853 5 days ago

I installed Emmabuntüs DE4 on a Dell 1440 laptop that I bought new in 2007, 19 years ago. Recently, the Emmabuntüs DE6 Live CD also ran smoothly on it.

@KenzoGamerz 3 days ago

If you want to get more apps, you could compile it if it had a compiler

@foss_sound 4 days ago

Love using Linux on old, still intact hardware. But in comparison to newer hardware, the benefit in daily usage (especially webbrowsing) is outstanding. With just text based stuff, old harware still can compete.

@sujaybiswas783 7 days ago

Now a days, Alpine linux improved a lot.

@BlackDragon-xn2ww 4 days ago

there is also a repos with tons of software in that updater you can install the main problem with it the os is updates cycles are far apart so some software will be outdated

@moktata_almalk 7 days ago

Keep going, we all support you ❤

@memesboy125 6 days ago

Void next please!!!!!!!!

@VytautasM858 7 days ago

These videos are so interesting ❤

@BioSurge 7 days ago

Maybe Jellyfin playback could be one of your segments. Currently looking for a low spec 32bit jellyfin player…

@video-500 7 days ago

I like your experiments with lowend laptop. I would like test simple web server or something like that,maybe retro emulation... Keep the good work

@xperimental1974 5 days ago (edited)

that is always problem with balena etcher.. You should go with Ventoy instead, cause it can switch partition table from GPT to MBR

@АртемБогданов-ж8м 5 days ago

Well, this linux distributive is interesting. But as usual for such tiny installations it doesn't work with Internet. But for this laptop there is another way. Way of hardware upgrades. 1. Update BIOS to the latest version. 2. Upgrade CPU to something like AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55/TK-57 or something like this. 3. Upgrade memory to 4GB (2x2GB DDR2) PC5300/PC6400. 4. Through special IDE-SATA adaptor it is possible to set sata ssd (w/o case, if ssd has small plate) and/or through special IDE optibay it is possible to set any sata device (including ssd) instead of DVD-RW drive (the speed is usually limited to 33MB/s). After all these upgrades it is easy to install Win 8.1 x64 with turned off telemetry and defender. It is possible to install even Win 10 (there is working video driver for integrated video). And we will get working Internet with Google Chrome, working video on YouTube and so on (I have similar laptop Dell Inspiron 1501 AMD Turion 64 X2 TL60, 2x2GB DDR2, SATA SSD 60GB, original WORKING battery (about 15-20min), Win 8.1 x64). But the main problem of this laptop is absence of hardware video decoding for integrated videochip. It means that normal playback of Internet video is possible for 480p quality. For 720p quality it is possible only with 100% load of CPU and w/o another CPU load. Also it is possible to make downvolting of CPU through RM Clock CPU Utility 2.35 to decrease temperature. Overclocking may be possible too if you find PLL support in SetFSB program.

@amiga1200 6 days ago

you should test Haiku beta 6

@DaleLane-o6k 6 days ago

I just put Q4OS on my 20 yr old Dell Inspiron 1501. The only issue I had was the 6.x herbal does not support the broadcom wireless adapter. I added a t-link USB adapter for $10 from Amazon and it works fine now. I added the Xpq4 theme pack and now it looks and feels just like XP. I have another identical laptop and am going to try antiX as I think it uses the 5.x Kendall which I believe does support the broadcom wireless adapter. And I will be upgrading from 2gb to 4gb ram as I did with the first one.

@theChakan 7 days ago

slitaz 32 bit lack some features for daily use because 32bit browsers are outdate this days, but 64 bit build are usable desktops with installed Xserver, uses more RAM either.