AFAIK if you buy any computer from within the last 20 years, there's a good chance you can get a 6.X Kernel running on it. 32-bit support is fading out, though. If you buy a 64-bit computer, you'll be able (with sufficient RAM and hard disk space) to install any modern distro on it.
I'd say that single core performance and amount of RAM you have are the biggest issues with running anything on old hardware. Apparently, in theory, you could run even modern kernel with just 4MB of RAM (or even less, good luck finding an 32bit system with less than 4MB). I don't think you could fit any kind of graphical environment on top of that, but for an SSH terminal or something else lightweight it would be enough.
However a modern browser will easily consume couple gigabytes of RAM and even a 'lightweight' desktop environment like XFCE will consume couple hundred MB's without much going on. So it depends heavily on what you consider to be 'old'.
The computer at garage (which I'm writing this with) is Thinkstation S20 I got for free from the office years ago is from 2011. 12GB of RAM, 4 core Xeon CPU and aftermarket SSD on SATA-bus and this thing can easily do everything I need for it in this use case. Browsing the web on how to fix whatever I'm working with at the garage, listen music from spotify, occasional youtube-video, signal and things lke that. Granted this was on a higher end when it was new, but maybe it gives some perspective on things.
I'm running Arch on a very early 2000s computer. Dual core athlon with two gigabytes of RAM. With KDE desktop on a period correct display. Works great as long as you are not trying to push it hard with modern tasks. Browses the internet just fine and can even watch videos of a size more appropriate for that era. But yeah, you get into 1080p displays and high resolution videos. Or modern bloated websites. It's definitely going to chug.
Linux kernel is really good at backwards compatibility, better than any other OS.
Software can be bad at being backwards compatible with older kernels, but you should be able to run newer ones.
I'm sorry, but what exactly do you mean by backwards compatibility? Like if I installed the latest version of say Ubuntu, it will automatically scale back the kernel to one that fits the specs of my computer?
The kernel has drivers for very old hardware. It was news last year when support was dropped for i486. That is a 25 year old CPU.
i486 is still supported by the recent Linux kernel: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Makefile_32.cpu, and it is a 34 years old architecture. Everything else you wrote is correct.
Linux broke compatibility with 386 back in 2012. The kernel maintainers also began considering dropping compatibility with 486 late last year, but as far as I can tell they haven't actually gone through with it yet (apparently it's likely to be coming in 6.2).
So, strictly speaking: yes, almost any computer that was ever capable of running Linux should still be capable of running the newest kernel version, with the sole exception of 386s.
Whether it can actually do anything useful beyond getting to a command prompt on a serial terminal is another issue entirely.
They actually discontinued quite a few architectures (in total 15 architectures). But all of them where cancelled, because nobody in their right mind is still running them if not for a youtube video.
Sparc Sun-4, SPARCstation and SPARCserver are probably the best-known ones after 386.
This. My spouse is working on an online business and needed a laptop to carry around to do inventory with. I happen to have an old Asus 32-bit Celeron netbook collecting dust, so I gave it a bit of a wipedown, installed the latest version of Debian with XFCE on it, and let them install what they needed from there.
So if you get a 64-bit machine AT ALL, it will absolutely run the latest versions of Linux.
(Why is this a thing?
Lots of computers in industry are very low-spec. They use less power and have fewer requirements. As long as there are people who use that hardware and/or are willing to port fixes and new kernel features to it, it'll keep getting updates. You only run into the 'dropped compatibility' thing when really no one is using it.)
They're dropping support for ia-64 in 6.7, I understand.
Both users will be devastated.
So, strictly speaking: yes, almost any computer that was ever capable of running Linux should still be capable of running the newest kernel version, with the sole exception of 386s.
So the 286 and 8086 are still compatible, then? :P
What about chips from other ancient architectures? Can I run the latest version of Linux on a 6502?
So the 286 and 8086 are still compatible, then? :P
No. My comment was carefully worded: if it could ever run Linux, then it still can (unless it's a 386). Mainline Linux has always required an MMU, so 8086 and 286 were never capable of running it to begin with! 🤓
Usually, yes.
A great way to breath new life into old hardware is to install Linux.
so basically if the computer has the specs that meet the distros newest version's requirements, it theoretically should be gold?
Ram is pretty much your limiting factor. I run the latest version of Debian on a machine from 2008 but it only has 1.8GB of ram so for a desktop it is a little sluggish.
Use LXDE/XFCE and stay away from Chrome. And any games.
So long as the computer supports an instruction set from like the last 30 years you can run the latest kernel.
Here's a 133 Mhz Pentium running Gentoo with a very recent kernel.
I'd probably recommend something like Debian though unless you are really pushing the limits of the hardware.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Here's a 133 Mhz Pentium running Gentoo with Linux 6.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
"Linux Kernel 4.14.8 (Dec 2017)" - Would this be the "very recent"?
That video came out in January 2018, so at the time it was "very recent." I don't think anything would have changed significantly since then.
4.14 is close to EOL, but it is still very well supported.
Make sure that device doesn't require proprietary drivers (commonly WiFi or GPU). If the hardware in question needs those and you need the component to work, I wouldn't take it for free because you'd be stuck with shitty support on an ancient kernel.
Most commonly, thio affects broadcom WiFi and Nvidia GPUs.
I second that about Nvidia GPUs. While Linux hardware support is really good, there is plenty of common, mainstream hardware that never was and never will be supported by Linux, usually due to uncooperative manufacturers. For Nvidia, their non-free driver is terrible and the nouveau driver in Linux is hit-or-miss. (Note, many people use either of those successfully, but the likelihood of success drops rapidly with any of: multiple displays, the need to dynamically change outputs, multi-GPU Optimus hardware or even laptops in general, and fully functional hardware acceleration.)
While one should, ideally, use AMD over Nvidia with Linux. It sounds like OP is shooting for older hardware, so I'm going to assume GPU performance isn't a significant consideration. Nouveau should be fine for regular desktop usage on older Nvidia cards.
But trouble with assumptions. If you do want the most out of your GPU, AMD is the way to go.
They just removed support for pcimcia wifi cards, so don't get a 20+ years old laptop that doesn't have built in wifi.
If the computer is modern enough that you'd consider buying it to use, I can almost guarantee that you'll be fine to run the latest distros. I just threw Arch + KDE on a 14ish year old laptop I found, and it runs so well that I may daily drive it for a while just for the hell of it.
At worst, you may need a lighter-weight desktop environment (DE) than some of the pretty ones you see in screenshots. And those are simple to install and try out.
Probably yes. As long as it's 64 bit, it will run without issue, hardware dependant. For 32 bit machines, you have to be more careful. The 32 bit core duo and pentium m CPUs don't support pae.
Edit: First Gen Pentium M don't show pae support as a flag but they do.support it. You have to set forcepae for some distros. I read the page incorrectly. Pentium M laptops that have 5 in their model number, like the 735 are second gen Pentium M
Nearly all hardware support is kept in the kernel until and unless it bitrots to the point of unusability. I've had no issues with a 5.10-series kernel on my 2008 laptop, and I don't expect any issues when I finally get around to upgrading it to 6.x (well, except the usual tedium of compiling a kernel on a machine that weak).
i have a t420 and running up-to-date void linux perfectly fine.
good old x201 here (i5-720m iirc), 8GB ram, sata ssd. Debian stable. No DE, just stumpWM. Not watching 4k youtube videos but runs fairly well for a 13 years old machine.
Same only suffers with gpu support on my t430. Have to use nouveau to get some kind of external signal from the displayport
Oh you again, yes Linux supports every normal hardware, and even a lot of crazy ones like Risc-V
On Android the system is bundled with the firmware as it comes from the same people. And for some reason those people dont like providing updates for sane amounts of time, like... 20 years?
In general you should be fine. Might have some issues if you want 32 bit.
Most likely difficulty is if you get something with "weird" peripherals that has gone from support.
A laptop with touch sensitive buttons that was only made by Dell for one model in 2008 is something where you might have difficulty finding support.
Old laptops can often be a pain if they don't have mainstream hardware.
I have a laptop with a touchpad made by Elan. I couldn't even find a website for them, but the laptop's support page has a Windows driver that works well.
I put Linux on there maybe 5 years ago, and there just is no driver for this touchpad on Linux, so it works in PS2 mouse modus and nothing else. No multitouch, no gestures, no way to change any slightly more advanced settings like sensitivity.
Yeah kind of a similar story but on my iBook G4 I had trouble getting wireless internet working with modern distros because b43-fwcutter (I think) was unavailable. I ended up installing Yellow Dog Linux to get around it
I have a Surface Go 1 perfectly running Fedora while running an Ubuntu VM at the same time. The hardware isn’t old, but it ain’t powerful.
I also have a 2012 MacBook Pro running Fedora as a f it was a monster. But the Ram and harddrive have been upgraded.
So I guess it’s perfectly fine.
Mid 2012 is my daily 😍 running a different keyboard kernel module though to swap some of the keys, and make the Eject button a Delete key
I absolutely cannot wait for Asahi linux. M1 hardware with linux 🤤
Yes, the linux kernel will work! I'd say it's even more likely that wifi, soundcard, etc. work without any problems than if you'd buy a bleeding edge laptop (although these mostly also just work nowadays). The oldest machine I've got is a laptop from 12 years ago which easily runs modern linux, but even much older machines shouldn't have a problem with that, at least not with the kernel.
I have the various latest release of EndeavourOS running on a 2008 iMac and a Dell laptop that I cannot remember the model of that is even older.
How old is "older?"
I run the latest Debian on a 10 year old Macbook Pro. Linux has given this laptop a second life as a lab machine - it's still plenty fast enough and it has a really nice screen (Retina) which Debian gets right out of the box with no tweaking. The only thing I needed to do when installing Debian is manually get the drivers for the WiFi hardware during the install (although Debian has the non-free firmware by default these days, they aren't permitted to distribute all firmware and the WiFi hardware in this machine unfortunately happened to be one of those).
The biggest concern is how much ram and how fast a processor of the older computer. Most modern distros use about a gig of ram on startup and prefer a processor made in the last 20 years. If your computer has 500mb ram and a single core 1ghz pentium its gonna choke trying to run linux mint.
Instead certain Linux distributions are specifically tailored to work on extremely old and underpowered computers such as puppy Linux. These are modern distributions with updated kernels but are extremely minimalist in nature.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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