Advice on Linux OS for very old laptop

pumaz

pumaz

pumaz

Soldato
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
5,693
Location
Nottingham
Someone at work wants me to install an OS on his Compaq Presario 2100 - 2GHz mobile celeron - 512K memory - 40GB HDD. It did have Windows XP on it but as since lost the disk and the hard drive is a replacement so no restore is available plus XP is no longer supported so I think linux is the way to go.

All he will use it for is surfing, email, social media, youtube and writing letters etc. (Libra Office).

I've tried to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 32 Bit but it comes up with "this kernel requires an x86-64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU. Unable to boot. Please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU." Definitely the 32 bit version I got and from what I can make out it might be something to do with not supporting the old CPU :confused:

Also tried Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which did install but keeps reporting various errors when trying to install the 331 available updates which will likely confuse him!

Tried Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon which crashed out when trying to boot from a USB stick (how I install all my distro's)

So really looking for help to find a decent Linux distro that's currently supported and importantly runs on this very old laptop.

Any suggestions?

Thanks :)
 
I seem to have solved the problem with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, I plugged in Ethernet and it updated as normal and so far so good. There seems to be some incompatibility between the wireless on the Laptop and my network.

I'll give it back to him and see how he goes

Thanks chaps :)
 
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