Old Ubuntu Distros

VanillaCoffee

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I've been looking at some old Ubuntu Distros, Hardy Heron holds a lot of memories that was when I decided Windows was history, it was very snappy and super fast and just worked. I like the desktop environment nice and clean compared to todays modern Ubuntu Distros.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx was also very nice and I have fond memories of that too it all went down hill after that.

I'm thinking about doing an experiment with either of the two to see if I can bring one of them back into 2023.... I can't remember what kernal these ran from or whether they had support for SSD Id imagine Lucid Lynx would of had but I'm not sure about Hardy Heron. I wonder if I can update the terminal and also get a modern browser working? Its just an experiment so things like security I'm not bothered about.

What are peoples thoughts on this?
 


It will be interesting to follow your progress. Keep us informed.
I would be careful of internet connections though as you'll be open to many security risked that have come into play since those days.
 
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Unfortunately I could not get any of them to start. It looks like the old Ubuntu distros have all been sabotaged. 10.04 started up but is password locked. I tried all the default user names and passwords but none worked.
 
It makes no sense anymore to use a 32-bit operating system to expose it to Internet, even to only update them.

I wish I could still run my copy of Ubuntu Studio "Precise Pangolin" but on equipment that is 32-bit capable single-CPU only. Otherwise I cannot have "recent" Wine there and therefore I'm not interested. To make matters worse, I think the version of XFCE it had was v4.12, but it was half-broken. Thunar was very buggy, and Nautilus (GNOME file manager) ran very slowly like Nemo does now.
 
I think its important to still have 32-bit operating systems so that older computers can still be used. I understand that 64-bit is all the rage now but there are still a lot of usable computers out there that are 32-bit only and can still run modem operating systems so long as they are 32-bit.

What ever happened to "Revive that old computer with Linux" ?
 
I think its important to still have 32-bit operating systems so that older computers can still be used. I understand that 64-bit is all the rage now but there are still a lot of usable computers out there that are 32-bit only and can still run modem operating systems so long as they are 32-bit.

What ever happened to "Revive that old computer with Linux" ?
Who wants to maintain old code for old systems that are becoming more rare and obsolete these days? There are those who are fond of special old code, but most would rather work on current systems. Just sayin'.

Right now we have problems where critical source code has been maintained by a single person for many years, where the internet depends on that code. Some of those people are aging out, and their experience is hard to replicate.

One example: For a long time, the NTP protocol depended on the work of one critical person who had very little financial support throughout those years. I just looked, and the situation for NTP has improved considerably, but there are probably other similar situations where a small number of people are the brain trust for code that we all depend on.
 
@VanillaCoffee :-

What ever happened to "Revive that old computer with Linux" ?

Whilst I can appreciate where you're coming from - I've not long since had to finally let a P4-powered 2002 Dell laptop go! - I wonder if you're aware of just how long 64-bit tech (hardware, Oss, software), etc, has been around?

(We don't count Itanium, BTW. Intel badly misjudged the mood of the market with that one; it was a "dog's dinner" from start to finish, and never did get the mass-market adoption Intel hoped for.)

Usable 64-bit tech burst onto the scene, in the shape of AMD's legendary Athlon64 processor, almost 20 years ago. 64-bit is a very mature technology at this point.....and I, for one, am not sorry to have replaced the ancient Dell Inspiron with a somewhat newer (though still quite elderly) Dell Latitude. Whilst I had, indeed, become very attached to the Inspiron.....and I've always enjoyed playing around with older tech, just to see what it IS truly capable of.....the Latitude lets me run any piece of software I want, because it is NOT architecture-limited. The Inspiron finally gave up the ghost at just the right time, as far as I'm concerned, because it is getting increasingly hard to find decent 32-bit software now (especially browsers). And what IS available invariably insists it wants older versions of everything to run, so it's becoming a nightmare to honestly keep 32-bit tech viable any more.

And with the glacial pace at which a P4 processes anything, paint dries faster.... Hard to believe we all thought they were the "bees knees" at one time!

Unless you simply want to "play around". And there's no reason why you CAN'T run old, out-of-date, unsupported operating systems; code is code after all, and if the hardware will still run it you can have a lot of fun doing so.......but I WILL echo others. Whatever you do, connect to t'internet at your own risk, because no-one will have any sympathy for the possible consequences.

-------------------------------------------------

Bear in mind, there's been an increasing amount of "chatter" across the 'net, this last few years, about moving to 128-bit computing. It's going to happen sooner or later, and when it does, 64-bit will gradually occupy centre stage on that 'nostalgic' horizon, viewed through those 'rose-tinted glasses'. There comes a point when you just have to let old stuff go. Sad, yes.....but unfortunately true.


Mike. ;)
 
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I've read the forthcoming Debian 12 (bookworm) still supports 32bit CPUs provided they are i686 or later. There's a certain satisfaction in keeping old kit serviceable.
 
I suppose at the rate the internet is expanding older 32-bit systems, internet browsers will be pointless for those because the machines will be too under powered load the web pages most of my retro tech runs DOS or Win9x and those have no need to connect to the internet. All my other older machines are 64-bit dual core 2 machines and newer. Its just the few netbooks I have that are 32-bit that I enjoy messing about on with Linux... operating systems like TinyCore and Xubuntu and general light weight operating systems should still be available in 32-bit because Linux is about being a free person and experimentation etc.
 
Unfortunately the tide of technology cannot be stopped.

As somebody else already said in this thread, the 32-bit hope is as good as the few good programmers left alive and slowly dying out. I read somewhere that Knoppix's project leader is over 70 years old and it's the true reason why that interesting distro is about to become extinct. (Besides the ReiserFS it utilizes.) What would happen to Slackware when Mr. V has to go to heaven? Somebody deeply involved with EndeavourOS and other Arch-based distros died this January and it's still being felt deeply. So even some Linux OS's which are 64-bit only might be affected by someone's departure.

So it's like Mike said above, soon it will be "Revive that old computer with Linux", with "old computer" meaning the ones we're buying right now. If not the ones people think they have more than enough of 64GB RAM with two GPU's and stuff like that. Definitely any budget laptop being sold the last three years until today will be easily obsoleted the moment 128-bit operating system is announced.

Oh well by then "everybody" is expected to lose even more confidence in the "Linux desktop" and in "personal computers as we knew it in decade-2000" and move on to the descendants of iPhone and iPad, and their Android equivalents.

@VanillaCoffee I was looking up Pinguy for you but sadly that distro seems to have stopped being developed. That had a 32-bit version but based on Ubuntu LTS v10.04. So quite old. But might work on a computer with only 1GB RAM and/or single-core CPU.
 
Yeah I guess I have to move on with the times even if the old Linux days were better. On a positive note my two HP mini 100e netbooks can take a 64-bit OS so that leaves me with one laptop that is limited to 32-bit operating systems which is running old XP so I leave it on that as is, plus its too slow for today's internet.

So as far as Linux goes its 64-bit operating systems with 128-bit operating systems soon to follow. I can see it making sense now.
 
It looks like Lubuntu is back in business again. They fixed the bugs and I've tested it out and it looks ok although boot time is slower in the new one and it looks like they have used some kubuntu stuff on it. I'm glad they fixed it.

Peppermint OS is the most light weight OS I've found so far.
 
Yeah as long as Debian has a 32 bit Peppermint will have a 32 bit...As most folks say at some point is will stop...
 


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