We want a bootable iso image that is small enough to fit on a 700MB CD disk.
BionicPup32 is a Puppy Linux release from this year, it is made from a 32bit version of Ubuntu. Computers over 15 years old may have 32bit processors i386 architecture.
FossaPup64 is a 64bit Linux. It was released in 2020. New computers are entirely AMD64 architecture.
F96-CE is a more up-to-date release from 2023 and still makes a bootable CD. It seems more selective about which computers will work. But the disto is packed with applications, it can replace your old windows.
Bootable USB or CDMany old computers will not boot from USB. Let's make a CD. Right click on the iso file and select Burn disc image from the menu.
You will need to put a blank, writable CD disk into your drive. Press the Burn button and it will take a few minutes to copy the files and finish. The CD tray of your computer will probably open when finished.
Start up your computer. Put in the CD. Watch on the first screen of the boot. We need to boot the computer with the CD drive. This computer has a boot menu if we press <F12>.
More information at Boot your PC from CD or USB.
Boot from CDSelect CD, Blu-ray or DVD drive and press enter.
A default option will boot after a timeout. This is called the GRUB menu.
If all goes well you will boot up to a functional Linux operating system on your old computer. It does everything Windows does but it does it differently. We are greeted by a welcome screen. Dismiss by clicking on OK.
Maybe you want to connect to the interweb. A user friendly wizard will take you through many, many, many screens. The screens will ask the same questions over and over about which interface, etc.
This firewall blocks you from connecting on all cable and wifi network connections. You have to uncheck the box that says all ports are blocked. To see websites you need http-Web Server ports. Samba is for shared network storage.
System ProfileLet's look at what your old computer is made of. Open a terminal screen and type hardinfo then press the enter key.
Hardinfo is a system profiler program that will show the components of the computer. You can look up these parts and read about them.
GpartedBe careful. Gparted is a disk partitioning program that can erase your drives and destroy your computer data. Open a terminal and type gparted. It may take a while to scan all the drives.
This is the hard drive of a PC with both Windows and Linux partions. Notice how the desktop has matching icons for each partion. Disk drive icons for the SSD partions and tridents for usb.
Click on the icons to open them and read unencrypted files, make copies and delete. One type of Windows malware fills up the computer hard drive, you can free up space by just deleting extra files.
This is a healthy gumstick drive with Windows 11 installed. Useful stuff to know. /dev/nvme0n1p1 is an EFI boot partition and /dev/nvme0n1p4 is the same size as a diagnostics and repair CD.
ROX File ManagerThere are several ways to open a file manager window. Open a terminal and type rox. Or click a folder icon. network should take you to shared folders if you configure the firewall.
Screenshot app. Open a terminal screen and type tas for take-a-shot. A lot easier than writing things down.
Look in the menus for PupSysInfo. It is another diagnostic utility that can tell you about the computer. It comes with test routines.
You now have a real Linux distro running on your old pc. Open a terminal and experiment with all the linux cli commands that you can remember: ps ax, ifconfig, dmesg, ls, pwd, cd ..
Try htop and look at the display, ctrl-c to end.
Type ifconfig -a and look at the network interfaces.
Since we want to troubleshoot type dmesg | tail and you will see hardware messages about the last item detected or disconnected. dmesg | grep "vga" shows messages containing the string "vga" a type of graphic interface.
What happens if you type ctrl+alt+T on your keyboard?
Finished!Open a terminal and type poweroff or reboot. Remember to remove CD or USB.
This project shows you can use a Live Linux CD like puppy to startup an old computer. Recover files and diagnose issues.
Puppy Linux has many options to save sessions on the computer hard drive. It has install options and persistence features. The releases used here still work on the web and come with useful video and photo applications.
If you can boot with Puppy maybe you can get Debian or Xubuntu to install. But the iso files are multiple GB in size. You need to burn a DVD which can hold up to 4.7GB. Clonezilla can copy your HDD to a new SSD and bring you speed.
SSD Solid State DriveYes, a new SSD will make this old PC go faster. RAM used to be much more expensive so large capacity are not easy to find.
This image is an IDE or PATA Parallel ATA adaptor card with a mSATA drive card. PATA bus was in computers 20 years ago. There are gumstick m.2 to IDE and m.2 to SATA adaptor cards. Your old computer will speed up but it is still an XP machine.
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