32bit Linux Distros

[Alistair MacDonald]

So, yes, I am going to risk a Linux distro question (again).

I have a couple of machines that are only 32bit Atom processors that I would like to keep using.

One of an old Acer One that I use for programming microcontrollers at the space with that currently has an outdated Ubuntu distro on. The other is a small Windows 10 box that I use on the TV as a quick way of playing video from a browser.

Any recommendations of what 32bit distros are good? There seems little consensus online. Neither machine has much memory or storage, and both are really slow, but they do what I need now and I would prefer to keep them going for another year or two. I generally prefer basic installs of LTS versions.

All the best,

  Alistair 

[David Pye]

Once again, as always, the answer is Debian.

What was the question again? 🤣

David 

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[Will McElderry]

I'd have to go with Debian too - it's too familiar for us Ubuntu users...

I'd recommend avoiding Arch as the rolling release conflicted with how I work - approach with caution - though it does have a 32bit version of the distro.

Tangent: The Arch Linux package documentation tends to be excellent though!

Will.

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[Jon Davies]

I feel that the potato hardware I use is still a lot less potato, and I think Pop!OS is the dog's danglies on that. (And I refer to the Asus laptop here)

Sent from Nine

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From: Will McElderry <wi...@mcelderry.com>
Sent: Saturday, 14 September 2024 23:30
To: north-ea...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Makers] 32bit Linux Distros

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[Dan Nixon]

Don't think Pop!_OS has a 32 bit offering any more (at least they do not make it obvious they do).

IMO the only real option now that still has sort of OK support is Debian.

A lot of other distros that offer 32 bit support only actually offer enough packages to get a minimal system running, and you will soon find that many packages you want to use do not have 32 bit binaries (Arch and NixOS are firmly in this camp).

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I did look at Pop before asking as I know that Jon likes it, and it has a LTS release, but sadly it dropped the 32 but option when Ubuntu dropped it up stream.

I suspect I will join the masses and go the Debian route. Thanks for recommending it again. My hesitation is that the support window is not so large, and it is not really targeting the lower spec hardware I have. Worst case scenario I just need to try again I guess.

All the best,

  Alistair

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[Jon Davies]

I did wonder if I am basically being 'that person' who is just on a tangent and not reading the remit e.g. 32bit. 🤷

Sent from Nine

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From: Dan Nixon
Sent: Sunday, 15 September 2024 10:00
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[Dan Nixon]

Debian does not really target anything in particular, or rather it targets pretty much everything.

If you are concerned about interactive graphical performance just stick something like LXDE on a headless install (that is pretty much what distros that do target low end hardware do).

Dan