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Hello all, I am a newbie with very little knowledge of Linux. I have no experience with command line
I want to keep my 2003 IBM Thinkpad running with Linux. I am encouraged in this hope by reading about distros which can manage with 512 MB of RAM and CPUs older than the P4.
2003 IBM Thinkpad R40e System Hardware Info:
CPU Intel® Mobile Pentium® 4 Processor-M, 1.8Ghz
System Model 2684CVG
HDD Fujitsu MHS2020AT E (PATA) 16.5GB, 7GB Free,
RAM 1GB,
CD-RW/DVD-ROM, TEAC DW-224E
I have read that:
“Intel Mobile Pentium 4-M is the low-power version of the Mobile Pentium z using the Northwood core.”
And that the CPU is: Not the Intel Pentium M (Banias).
Used “lscpu” a terminal entry I found on the net which showed no PAE flag
sorry cannot load image of that
I don’t know where that leaves this CPU and PAE? Is PAE relevant with maximum RAM of 1GB?
OEM OS was MS Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP2 from new but has been recently replaced by dual boot Linux:
Mint 16 Petra Cinnamon 32-bit Crashed but seems to work in fallback. An older Mint would be better.
Bodhi 2.3.0 (circa 2013 from LXF mag DVD).
Although the above connected to the web via ethernet their web browsers did not and could not update directly “no common encryption algorithms”. I was unable to install newer versions of them: Mint Xfce 17.3 Rosa crashes, Bodhi 5.1 Legacy will not load. All distros tested were 32-bit.
I now hope to install Linux Q4os-4.7-1386-instcd.r1 .
Q4os boots from CD on the R40, goes quickly to the opening screen offering classic, automatic installation or an “Advanced” alternative that I did not explore.
Whichever install is chosen a new dark screen appears with a flashing cursor at top left and sticks there. Pressing “Enter, F*” and other keys has no effect.
Tried Q4os with a 2006 Dell Dimension Pentium 4 with just 512 MB of RAM. Chose Auto install with no questions. Seemed to go well although “Failed to run preseeded command” was displayed. Had a problem with password so had to start over. Took nearly an hour to install, got a welcome screen then ran Desktop Profiler. Seemed OK but despite trying again with the R40 I have not been able to see it run on the Thinkpad.
Any advice that might help keep this old Thinkpad in use would be appreciated.
I do not expect to work it very hard, just keeping up with my favourite web forum and viewing youtube videos.
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A first idea is that your downloaded .iso file might be corrupted.
In order to eliminate this possibility, visit this page (bottom) and check your .iso has the correct md5sum.
Q4OS machines: [Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD] & [Sony Vaio - Pentium P6000 1.87 GHz - 8 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD]
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I now hope to install Linux Q4os-4.7-1386-instcd.r1 .
Q4os boots from CD on the R40,
Have you tried installing from a USB stick?
Could be the lens on your 19 year old CD-ROM drive needs cleaning.
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Your old Thinkpad is still a good machine :-)
In order to prepare an usb stick, the best tool is "Balena Estcher" that is also very easy to use.
Only 1 Gb is not too much, in any case you can still navigate the internet. Better with a browser like Palemoon. In case of needs, in q4os repo you can find a Palemoon non sse2.
My opinion is that with debian 11, for your low powered pc, you should give a try to antix. They have a 32 bit version that works very well and is lighter than q4os.
m
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Hello hchiper and thanks for prompt reply.
I did confirm the match using "MD5 and SHA Checksum Utility". Just took another look, still ok!
ImgBurn verified the disk after burning.
After the Thinkpad R40 failed to install Q4OS I tested installation to the Dell Dimension desktop PC which has only 512MB of RAM but slightly better hardware. It did install to the Dell so I am confident that the CD was good.
Hello 32-bitter and thanks for reply.
Addressing the CD reader first, the Mint and Bodhi distros that replaced WinXP were installed just a couple of weeks ago. Following my failed attempt to install Q4OS to the thinkpad I ran other live distro CDs on the thinkpad successfully in that they loaded and ran but unsuccessfull because they were unsuitable. So I am confident that the optical disk reader is good too.
I have not tried to install from a USB stick. I do wonder whether it might be possible to install from an USB pen drive or an external hard drive?
In BIOS Setup there is reference only to USB Diskette and USB CD-ROM. I have enabled USB BIOS Support for those two devices
In the Boot Startup page the list includes “Removable Devices” which can be brought to the top of the Boot list. What those removable devices might be is not stated, it could be the USB Diskette or USB CD-ROM listed on the previous page or maybe for the PC Card slot?
I think it might be worth trying a USB install although I don't yet know how to make an ISO on a USB stick/pen drive. Have you made an USB install and if so was it difficult?
I also wonder whether Plop might help install from USB? Found Plop in my research but know nothing about it. Try the USB install first I guess?
Are there alternatives to Plop that might help?
Thanks for comments look forward to more.
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Mint Xfce 17.3 Rosa crashes, Bodhi 5.1 Legacy will not load.
Do you know the reason? Maybe it's also the reason why Q4OS fails to install?
You could give a try to an earlier version of Q4OS. An advantage is that it has a 32-bits live version (you can also install from within the live session). Live session will be slower than installed version on your hardware, but might detect hardware problem...
I think it might be worth trying a USB install although I don't yet know how to make an ISO on a USB stick/pen drive. Have you made an USB install and if so was it difficult?
If you want to use Windows to create a bootable USB, this tutorial (about Rufus) could be helpful.
If you want to use Linux instead, just the command line could do the job:
$ sudo dd if=/chemin/vers/image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress && syncwhere sdX is the identifier of your USB stick; you can find it with
$ lsblk -SThe USB stick sdX needs to be unmounted before using dd; if it already is mounted:
$ sudo umount /dev/sdXNote that dd && sync might take a long time to complete. Also use the
Last edited by hchiper (2022-03-16 15:37)
Q4OS machines: [Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD] & [Sony Vaio - Pentium P6000 1.87 GHz - 8 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD]
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I have not tried to install from a USB stick. I do wonder whether it might be possible to install from an USB pen drive or an external hard drive?
A USB stick and USB pen drive are the same thing for our purposes.
In BIOS Setup there is reference only to USB Diskette and USB CD-ROM. I have enabled USB BIOS Support for those two devices
In the Boot Startup page the list includes “Removable Devices” which can be brought to the top of the Boot list. What those removable devices might be is not stated, it could be the USB Diskette or USB CD-ROM listed on the previous page or maybe for the PC Card slot?
Or a bootable USB drive. The bootable drive won't be named in the list unless it is actually installed. I suggest you plug in the USB drive BEFORE you power up.
I think it might be worth trying a USB install although I don't yet know how to make an ISO on a USB stick/pen drive. Have you made an USB install and if so was it difficult?
There is a free program Rufus for creating bootable USB drives.
https://rufus.ie/en/
There is lots of online help on how to do this and do a better job than I could.
The last version of Rufus to work with XP is 2.18. All later versions require Windows 7 or later.
Older versions are available here:
https://rufus.ie/downloads/
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Hello again both and thanks for further advice. Hello madibi, thanks for reassurance about my aged Thinkpad. It ran very well on WinXP but the Firefox web browser was having problems. I have tried antiX but mention it below to retain some chronological sense.
Sorry I cannot advise why Mint 17.3 and Bodhi 5.1 failed.
I now believe there may be a command for producing a report, but as I don’t know if that is the case or what any of these commands might be I cannot comment further yet.
I have a tentative theory that because the kernel is involved from the start of the boot process a conflict with the hardware or whatever, maybe this PAE flag thing, might explain the rapid halt?
As noted in my first post, although there was a flashing cursor on the blank page at which Q4os hung I could not enter any characters.
I had a look for an earlier “live” version of Q4os on the official Q4os website that you linked to, all the 32 bit versions seem to be “install-cd”. Off topic, I found the same but worse with Bodhi as only the latest distro seems to be available.
Thanks for link to rufus. `I tried to make a bootable USB of antiX with rufus it didn’t work with the thinkpad, the Dell Dimension desktop or my Dell Vostro (less than 4 years old). I tried antiX again with Balena Etcher which didn’t work on the Thinkpad but did install to the Dell Vostro. The latter is no practical help to me as I am looking for an OS for the Thinkpad but it did prove that the USB stick made with Balena Etcher was good/working.
I also tested the Mint 17.3 Rosa 32 bit DVD that I burnt myself, the one that failed rather than crashed on the Thinkpad. I ran it live on the Vostro so the DVD is OK, if only for more modern hardware.
So I tried again with Mint 17.3 Rosa 32 bit DVD on the Thinkpad but it would not start, showed no sign of recognising the DVD and went straight to the older version of Mint 11 that I previously installed to the HDD.
Changed DVD in Thinkpad to Mint 16 mentioned in my first post. Ran live looking well but as soon as I clicked to open Banshee it crashed and told me “Currently Running In Fall Back Mode” and would I like to restart, clicked yes and once restored to the opening screen I chose a different app LibreOffice Writer. Looked OK as it started to open but crashed again as it opened a blank page to type into! Clicking “No” to restart clears the crash notice and allows typing into the empty page, OK as far as I went. Closed Writer and opened Gimp. No crash notices, tools opened when selected but it has been years since I used Gimp so closed it pro-tem. Odd that opening Gimp did not prompt a crash notice? Clicked to open Firefox again to see, “Secure Connection Failed” (No common encryption algorithms) notice come up but didn’t prompt a crash notice.
I took advantage of having Mint running to use the Linux USB Image Writer to produce a USB pendrive with Mint 19.3 Xfce. I will test that later.
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Another idea is that, after several crashing installations, the partitioning of your hard disk might be corrupted in some way.
In principle, Q4OS install provides a tool to partition & format the hard disk, but if it doesn't reach this step, you might use a live version of the gparted tool to explore and maybe fix (erase and recreate) the partitions.
One more idea is to try to install Debian 11, which Q4OS 4.7 is based on, to see if the problem is specific to Q4OS installer.
Last edited by hchiper (2022-03-20 10:39)
Q4OS machines: [Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD] & [Sony Vaio - Pentium P6000 1.87 GHz - 8 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD]
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Q4os boots from CD on the R40, goes quickly to the opening screen offering classic, automatic installation or an “Advanced” alternative that I did not explore.
Maybe you ought to explore the "Advanced" alternative. I am pretty sure I used the advanced option last time I installed Q4OS.
Off topic, I found the same but worse with Bodhi as only the latest distro seems to be available.
A few older releases here.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/
you might use a live version of the gparted tool to explore and maybe fix (erase and recreate) the partitions.
Good idea, and check the hard drive for bad sectors while you are at it.
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