Hello! I am new to linux installation (except that I have some raspberry pi’s).

I got an old desktop PC with Win 7 from my friend who passed away recently (85). 32bit, 4GB RAM, 3GHz x2 CPU, 500GB Hard drive. Just installed Linux mint LMDE 6. But it doesn’t boot stably: about 40 % success rate. it says initial something ramdisk, and then the cursor blinks at top left corner: it seems to have been a common issue about 10 years ago. I found, for example,

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/842

I tried to add vga=791 before “quiet splash”, and/or i915.modeset=0 after that, and tried also a few other things, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. So I took that away.

However, I discovered that in recovery mode, it does boot 100% so far. So I don't understand what's wrong, why it doesn't boot in normal mode reliably.

I will appreciate if someone could tell me what I should do. Or, perhaps I should go for a different linux, if so, I will appreciate suggestions as to what I should go for. This PC will be used by a few people for typing, email-writing, etc. It should be user-friendly for normal people. Compatibility with a Konica printer will be nice.

I wanted to post this question to linux mint forum, but I was not able to get onto chat in order to get the registration code.

Just to ask. Was LMDE Iso md5sum checked before install?

I don't run Mint as you can see from under my name. I guess recovery mode means virgin reset on run.

MX has 32 bit xfce and tricked out fluxbox isos if interested. You will still be Debian based by the way.

windows 7 was released in 2009 so you may be better off with something meant for older hardware as suggested in post 2. Also if you can make note of messages on screen when you boot or take a photo if you have a smart phone that might help. Post some info on your graphics card which you can get with the command: sudo lshw -numeric -C display

Thank you for your replies !! I didn't bother to check md5 before installing, but now I did:
md5 lmde-6-cinnamon-32bit.iso
MD5 (lmde-6-cinnamon-32bit.iso) = 8a30188b6a776aafbde88a80ba4007fd

I didn't realize that 32bit is not always meant for very old PC. What is "tricked out fluxbox isos" ? Is fluxbox also another linux?

As for sudo lshw -numeric -C display

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:42]
vendor: Intel Corporation [8086]
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
logical name: /dev/fb0
version: 02
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom fb
configuration: depth=32 driver=i915 latency=0 resolution=1280,1024
resources: irq:25 memory:fe000000-fe3fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f160(size=8) memory:c0000-dffff

Now I realized that with "recovery mode" I don't have 100% success: I just came to turn it on, it didn't do: I turned

I will try MX if you think it`s better suited for my old computer. I don't have any strong reason to use mint. It was just in the list of lightweight linux with 32bit support and had good reputation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gm9hgImJ1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfTPBn5OxDA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOAEVnC6xXQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMW5L0gW4OA

steampunk tv has some good videos also. As well as runwithedolphin videos.

You need to compare the output you get from md5 or shasum with that shown on the LMDE site.

https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=308

Fluxbox is a window manager and doing an online search using 'what is fluxbox linux' should give you a lot of links. Archlinux ususally has excellent information such as the link below.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/fluxbox

Your output looks like 64bit but you can easily check by testing with various command listed at the page at the link below, use the ones down the page a bit to determine processor hardware.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-...64-bit-or-not/

You should also be able to find the date of manufacture on a sticker on the computer but determining the date is something which varies by manufacturer.

I just installed Linux MX xfce. 32bit. The same thing.

loading linux 6.1.0-12-686
loading initial ramdisk….

then blinking cursor appears on the top left, it doesn’t go further.

I wonder if it has something to do with debian, that I should go for something that is not debian based?

As for finding out if the computer is 32bit or 64bit, can I just try to install an OS for 64bit to see if it works at all ? If the PC is built 32bit, it just won’t work, but it wont break anything, right?

Right. Won't even boot live if pc is 32 bit.

You can certainly do that but it just seems it would be a lot simpler booting live and running a few commands to make certain what you have.

Thank you for your replies! I am sorry, I don't know what it means to "booting live"... isn't it what you have to do anyway in order to install it ? (i.e. boot from USB stick, the display looks like it's already installed.) If my computer is 32bit, then with USB stick with 64bit OS won't even get to this, right?

I'm a bit confused about detecting 32bit/64bit. I have Raspberry pi 4B, and I first installed 32bit system. Then I had to reinstall 64bit system, so checked if the device is capable of 64bit, using a command suggested somewhere. It says 32bit, so I was shocked, my 2 year old Raspberry pi is obsolete! But then I found out that it says 32bit simply because the OS is 32bit. Apparently there was no way of finding out about the device except for knowing it already: someone on the forum said raspi 4B just can't be 32bit. I saw quite a few people who were confused in the same way as I was.
So I am afraid that "running commands" inside 32bit OS may just say that it's 32bit....

linux mint installation guide page says "If your computer was manufactured after 2007, you probably have a 64-bit processor.". I know that my friend who died bought this computer new in 2010. The brand is terra, it said intel core(TM) i3-540 CPU on win7. I looked around and it says it's 36bit! I guess it means something else.... but it doesn't say either 64bit or 32bit.... but I'm going to assume that it's in fact 64bit.

So after all, this old PC isn't as very obsolete as I thought: I thought 32bit just because win7 which was on it was 32bit. I will try to install 64bit linux tomorrow: should I go for MX, or what would you recommend? I want to use konica printer. RAM 4GB, HD 500GB.

Not true at all. The third link I posted above (post 6) lists simple commands you can run from a terminal in any Linux booted either 'live' from a USB/DVD or an installed system. Some simply tell what the kernel is but if you scroll down the page, there are other commands which give you information on the actual hardware.

I expect that if the computer was manufactured in 2010, it was 64bit capable.

I installed ubuntu 64bit (normal one), to see if it works. It did! So the PC is indeed 64bit!
However, similar issue, though some progress: This time, the issue is narrowed down: the disk to boot cannot be automatically found: it says "A bootable device has not been detected. Please refer to the Product Guide at http:// etc (an old http: page, which doesn't exist anymore)". If I start with pressing F10 and specify the boot disk, it boots 100% fine: With 32bit OS, it still failed to boot often.
And with 64bit ubuntu, if I just let the PC boot alone, it fails 100%. With 32 OS, it did work sometimes. So the issue is similar, but different, and with 64bit, it's really clear: The computer cannot find the disk to boot unless I tell him, otherwise it's fine. With 32bit, it came out in a bit moody manner... It was actually detecting the boot drive, though. It got stuck after that, with no message. So it's different.

I changed the ordering of the boot drive, disabled some options, but it didn’t help.

Could someone please help?

@yancek As for 64bit/32bit detection, I looked at the third link and tried, as it still got 32bit mint:
With /proc/cpuinfo, it didn’t say it’s 64bit in such a way that I would understand. I would guess there was perhaps a synonym of that, if you are sure it has to be there. getconf LONG_BIT and uname gave out 32bit: those are for OS, as it says.

I feel ubuntu is a bit sluggish: perhaps I should still try a "light weight" linux.

Most of those commands refer to the software/kernel being used and the simplest one to use is: grep -o -w 'lm' /proc/cpuinfo | sort -u which will output lm on 64bit hardware.

So which release of Ubuntu did you install? 23.10 the most recent or something older? Did you boot and install in UEFI mode or in Legacy mode? Is Ubuntu the only OS on that machine now?

If Ubuntu seems sluggish you could try Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Bodhi if you want to stay with Ubuntu derivatives. Otherwise, AntiX or MX Linux would be good.

Boot the live USB flash drive used to install Ubuntu and then try running the SMART utility called smartctl i.e.

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda ( the default live password is blank,not the literal word blank I believe)

The computer might have multiple problems but maybe the drive is bad.

Hi, thank you for your replies!

I installed ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS, in a "normal" way: I didn't know about UEFI mode.

Now I tried to do sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda on USB-boot, as @michaelk suggested: this command as not found, but it was a part of disk utility: SMART Data&self-Tests. It says "Overall Assessment: Disk is OK."

With Win7, it was running without a problem. Could the drive or something else be bad and still runs OK with win7?

I'm going to try lubuntu and see how it goes.....