Edit: it looks like it’s 64-bit compatible finally!
Hi!
I found a cheap 32-bit notebook with a functioning battery. I’d like to buy it, and install Linux on it, without installing X or Wayland, to use it headless GUI-less. I need something very portable just to take with me to take notes during meetings.
My intention was to use Debian but… they do not support 32-bit architecture anymore. I could install Debian 12, but do you know any interesting alternative that still support and will support it in the future?
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What CPU is it? 32bit only hardware would be ancient, I’m surprised you found something that old with a working battery?
I was suprised too! And I’m still not sure it’s true, I’ll check. It’s an Asus EeePC 1025C, so yes, it’s quite ancient.
I usually see PuppyLinux recommended for 32-bit systems: https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
There’s multiple flavors of it, including one based on Debian.For headless usage, there might be other alternatives, though…
Install Gentoo <— used to be a meme
In the past few years it has become much more user friendly. The install process is very similar to installing Arch, pretty much copy/pasting commands from the wiki (which is even easier if you SSH into the install media from another PC/phone).
The kernel used to require configured by hand so that only relevant drivers were installed for your system; nowadays there is a full fat kernel like you would get with another distro that requires no configuring, called
gentoo-kernel-bin.There are system profiles that cover the widest variety of CPU architectures of any distro to my knowledge. It used to even support extremely old archs before certain core python packages started needing rust as a dep.
Complex apps like Firefox and Rust both have binary versions in the package manager so you don’t need to spend a long time waiting for them to compile on an old PC.
Obviously, won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but if you are a bit adventurous it is an option.
Also you can build for x32 (not i386), which would be faster than AMD64 on such older hardware.
Noob question, how can you use it to take notes if it’s headless?
They might mean gui-less. Log into a tty shell, use vim/emacs/editor of choice.
That’s indeed what I meant. Isn’t “headless” the correct word?
I’ve never seen headless used that way.
Usually it means a computer without a monitor.
So my home server is headless because there’s no monitor plugged in. I just connect with ssh to do whatever and if I really wanted, yes I could install a desktop environment and remote desktop stuff. Still headless.
Oh thanks, I stand corrected.
Meh. We all mess up the terminology sometimes.
Check out MX Linux, I hope they still support 32bit x86
Choices are getting fewer and fewer. I went with OpenSUSE a couple of years back.
