Which Linux distro will support 10 years old hardware?
If you're using a 10-year-old computer, you need a lightweight and well-supported Linux distribution that works well on older hardware. Here are the best Linux distros for old PCs, ranked based on performance, support, and ease of use:
🔹 1. Linux Mint (XFCE or MATE)
✅ Best for: Windows-like experience, long-term support, and ease of use.
✅ Minimum Requirements:1GB RAM, 10GB disk, 64-bit or 32-bit CPU.
✅ Why Choose It?
Very lightweight (especially XFCE or MATE editions).
Ubuntu-based, meaning long-term support (LTS).
Works out of the box with old Wi-Fi and graphics drivers.
🔗 Download Mint XFCE
🔹 2. MX Linux (XFCE)
✅ Best for: Stability, performance, and no systemd.
✅ Minimum Requirements:512MB RAM (1GB recommended), 8GB disk, 32-bit & 64-bit support.
✅ Why Choose It?
✅ Best for: Super low-end PCs, old netbooks.
✅ Minimum Requirements:512MB RAM, 8GB disk, supports 32-bit & 64-bit.
✅ Why Choose It?
Uses LXQt, one of the lightest desktop environments.
Officially Ubuntu-based (long-term support).
Minimal resource usage, great for Pentium 4 or early Core 2 Duo CPUs.
🔗 Download Lubuntu
🔹 4. Debian (with XFCE)
✅ Best for: Longest support (up to 5 years official + 5 years extended).
✅ Minimum Requirements:512MB RAM, 10GB disk, 32-bit & 64-bit support.
✅ Why Choose It?
Debian is super stable, and you can keep using it for up to 10 years.
4. Getting What Were The Last Thousand Commands or Last Ten Commands by The User
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ history | head
1 sudo efibootmgr
2 lspci | grep
3 history
4 lspci | grep -i network
5 nmcli radio wifi
6 nmcli radio wifi on
7 nmcli radio wifi
8 nmcli radio wifi on
9 rfkill list all
10 sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ history 5
30 whoami
31 ifconfig
32 history | head
33 history | tail
34 history 5
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ history | tail
27 more /proc/cpuinfo
28 cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'name'| uniq
29 cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep process| wc -l
30 whoami
31 ifconfig
32 history | head
33 history | tail
34 history 5
35 history 10
5. Getting The Information About The Operating System
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ uname -a
Linux ashish-Satellite-S55t-B 6.8.0-51-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Dec 5 13:09:44 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ uname -a
Linux ashish-Satellite-S55t-B 6.8.0-51-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Dec 5 13:09:44 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Linuxmint
Description: Linux Mint 22.1
Release: 22.1
Codename: xiaHow old is the firmware?
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ hostnamectl
Static hostname: ashish-Satellite-S55t-B
Icon name: computer-laptop
Chassis: laptop 💻
Machine ID: 74f1ec222b5b4d16abd22a46f582a41f
Boot ID: 6dfcd73d5ca5497aa30c39153cf8ec7d
Operating System: Linux Mint 22.1
Kernel: Linux 6.8.0-51-generic
Architecture: x86-64
Hardware Vendor: TOSHIBA
Hardware Model: Satellite S55t-B
Firmware Version: 1.80
Firmware Date: Tue 2014-08-26
Firmware Age: 10y 7month 5d
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.7Gi 2.7Gi 3.5Gi 491Mi 2.3Gi 5.0Gi
Swap: 0B 0B 0B
8. Check Hard Disk Usage
ashish@ashish-Satellite-S55t-B:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 787M 1.7M 786M 1% /run
/dev/sda3 384G 8.2G 356G 3% /
tmpfs 3.9G 8.1M 3.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 12K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 787M 2.6M 785M 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sda4 346G 77G 269G 23% /media/ashish/3430C20E30C1D750
/dev/sda2 195G 50G 146G 26% /media/ashish/D81E89521E892B18
As we saw, it is a 10 years and 8 months old Toshiba laptop. And we are running Linux Mint on it.
Steps we used to boot up Linux Mint on this laptop
To boot a Toshiba laptop with Linux Mint, follow these steps:
(Replace /dev/sdX with your USB drive, e.g., /dev/sdb)
🔹 Step 2: Enter BIOS/UEFI
Turn off your Toshiba laptop.
Insert the bootable USB.
Power on and immediately press F2 or ESC to enter BIOS.
Navigate to Boot Options:
Set USB drive as the first boot device.
If using UEFI, disable Secure Boot (under Security tab).
If using Legacy Boot, enable CSM (Compatibility Support Module).
Save & Exit (F10).
🔹 Step 3: Boot into Linux Mint Live
Your laptop should now boot into Linux Mint Live USB.
Select "Start Linux Mint".
If the screen stays black, press e at the GRUB menu and add nomodeset at the end of the line starting with linux.
🔹 Step 4: Install Linux Mint
Click "Install Linux Mint" on the desktop.
Follow the setup:
Choose language, keyboard, time zone.
Select "Erase disk and install Linux Mint"(or choose manual partitioning if needed).
Set username & password.
Click "Install Now" and wait for it to finish.
🔹 Step 5: Reboot and Remove USB
Once installation is done, click Restart.
Remove the USB when prompted.
Linux Mint should now boot! 🎉
🔹 Troubleshooting
1️⃣ Can't boot from USB?
Check Boot Mode (UEFI/Legacy) in BIOS.
Ensure Secure Boot is disabled.
Try a different USB port.
2️⃣ Black screen after boot?
At the GRUB menu, press e, find the line starting with linux, and add:
nginx
nomodeset
Then press F10 to boot.
Error we got while trying to install Ubuntu 24.10
Unable to locate IOAPIC for GSI 38
The error "unable to locate IOAPIC for GSI 38" usually occurs due to ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) or APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) misconfiguration in the BIOS/UEFI or kernel settings. It often happens when running Linux on older hardware, virtual machines (like VirtualBox, VMware), or certain BIOS configurations.
🔹 Possible Fixes:
1️⃣ Boot with "noapic" or "nolapic" Option
Try booting your system with noapic or nolapic to disable APIC handling:
Temporary Fix (For One Boot Only)
When the GRUB menu appears, highlight your Linux kernel entry.
Press e to edit the boot parameters.
Find the line starting with linux.
Add noapic nolapic at the end of that line:
bash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-... ro quiet splash noapic nolapic
To trim a video using FFmpeg on Ubuntu, use the -ss (seek to start time) and -t (duration) options, or -to (end time) option, followed by the input and output file paths.
Here's a breakdown of the common trimming methods:
1. Trimming from a Start Time and Duration:
Command: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -t 00:00:20 output.mp4
-i input.mp4: Specifies the input video file.
-ss 00:00:10: Sets the start time to 10 seconds (0 hours, 0 minutes, 10 seconds).
-t 00:00:20: Specifies the duration of the trimmed segment as 20 seconds.
output.mp4: Specifies the output file name.
2. Trimming from a Start Time to an End Time:
Command: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -to 00:00:30 output.mp4
-i input.mp4: Specifies the input video file.
-ss 00:00:10: Sets the start time to 10 seconds.
-to 00:00:30: Sets the end time to 30 seconds.
output.mp4: Specifies the output file name.
3. Trimming from the Beginning to a Specific Duration:
Command: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -t 00:00:30 output.mp4
-i input.mp4: Specifies the input video file.
-t 00:00:30: Specifies the duration of the trimmed segment as 30 seconds, starting from the beginning.
output.mp4: Specifies the output file name.
4. Trimming from a Specific Time to the End:
Command: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -to 00:00:30 output.mp4
-i input.mp4: Specifies the input video file.
-ss 00:00:10: Sets the start time to 10 seconds.
-to 00:00:30: Sets the end time to 30 seconds.
output.mp4: Specifies the output file name.
Tips for Using FFmpeg:
Install FFmpeg:
If you don't have FFmpeg installed, open a terminal and run sudo apt-get install ffmpeg.
-c copy for faster trimming:
Use -c copy to copy the video and audio streams without re-encoding, which is faster but might result in cuts on keyframes.
Accuracy:
If you need precise cuts, consider re-encoding the trimmed portion for better accuracy.
Multiple Segments:
To cut multiple segments, use the concat demuxer or filters.
-vf trim filter:
You can also use the trim filter for more control over the trimming process.
Where are we?
04:40 ~ $ pwd
/home/keshavpawar137
04:41 ~ $ ls
README.txt app_pt.py models--openai--whisper-tiny.zip
04:43 ~ $ ls -a
. .bashrc .gitconfig .keras .my.cnf .pythonstartup.py .virtualenvs app_pt.py
.. .cache .ipython .local .profile .vimrc README.txt models--openai--whisper-tiny.zip
04:43 ~ $ ls -lh
total 86M
-rwxr-xr-x 1 keshavpawar137 registered_users 232 Mar 5 09:53 README.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 keshavpawar137 registered_users 1.6K Mar 9 04:04 app_pt.py
-rw-rw-r-- 1 keshavpawar137 registered_users 86M Mar 9 04:42 models--openai--whisper-tiny.zip
04:43 ~ $ du -sh .
298M
04:44 ~ $ rm -rf ~/.cache/pip
04:44 ~ $ find . -type d -name "__pycache__" -exec rm -rf {} +
04:45 ~ $ du -sh .
159M
Can I delete : ~/.cache/pip
Yes, you can delete the ~/.cache/pip directory. This directory is used by pip to cache packages and metadata to speed up subsequent installations. Deleting it will not harm your system, but it will mean that pip will need to re-download any packages you install in the future, which might take a bit longer.
To delete the directory, you can use the following command in your terminal:
sh
rm -rf ~/.cache/pip
Make sure to double-check the command to avoid accidentally deleting the wrong files or directories.
... ... ... ... ... ...
Delete __pycache__ from all subdirectories
To delete all __pycache__ directories (including all their contents) from the current directory and its subdirectories, use the following find command:
bash
find . -type d -name "__pycache__" -execrm -rf {} +
Explanation:
.: Start searching from the current directory.
-type d: Search for directories only.
-name "__pycache__": Match directories named __pycache__.
-exec rm -rf {} +: Executes the rm -rf command on each found directory ({} represents the directory name). The + batches the deletions into fewer rm calls, making it more efficient.
Important: This command permanently deletes the __pycache__ directories, so double-check you’re in the correct directory before running it.
