I guess update for anyone who cares: I am not using Arch btw, not for this little machine. Goal of having a second workspace using KDE is running out of steam, but goal of learning about Linux is proceeding as (in hindsight) expected.
Netbook is an old Asus eeePC with only a gig of ram, so Endeavour straight up told me no, Tumbleweed stalled out for 6 hours, Leap probably won't do any better, but I'm downloading it anyway because I'm now reaching that phase of collecting distros just to see what works.
Which is all to say: greetings fellow Linux users, I feel like I have finally arrived.
It's just that choosing a distro like Arch that requires you to decide what software you want to install might be a bad idea for someone who doesn't know yet what software they need.
Installing a distro like openSUSE is straight forward and easy through their graphical installer, albeit not exactly quick (at least not compared to Arch) and allows you to explore Linux at your own pace.
Using the SteamDeck was also very easy but maybe that was just because I daily drive Arch? At least getting EmuDeck to run is just point and click.
It’s so goddamn liberating! Enjoy the journey!! I installed Linux mint on some super old 32 bit, low powered (arm or atom processor) netbooks from 15 years ago. And it should be said that they were completely unusable 2 years after purchase, with all the extra bloat of windows running on them. Anyway, these netbooks were still underpowered for my purposes today, but I configured them to instantly boot up the sugarizer desktop learning environment, and my 3 and 5 year olds love them. Shortly after this experiment I purchased a SteamDeck, and I couldn’t be happier or more impressed. I’m not a hardcore gamer, and with a 3 and 5 year old, who could have the time? It’s perfect for the few waking minutes after the kids go to bed. Since all this, I’ve been updating more recently “obsoleted” laptops with Linux, and I can totally see my household completely switching over to Linux OS in the next 5 years. Speaking as the house IT guy….
The laptop was apparently too old for Arch as it had a 32 bit processor. I found a fork of Arch that was meant for 32 bit systems and attempted installing that instead. It was an awful experience.
I then tried PuppyOS, but I was still not happy with it and just decided to junk it instead. I hope someone was able to get some metals extracted from it or something.
Unfortunately some old tech does just start becoming obsolete at some point. sure you can force old software on to it but unless its designed to just interact on its own or with some other equipment thats stuck in time, it usually ends up not being worth the trouble or time, especially when you can get pretty powerful (comparison wise) equipment for cheap. chrome books for example are dirt ass cheap and some times a better solution than trying to get a super old system running again.
Alas, I have to agree, hardware becomes obsolete ‘at some point’. The '7 32 bit laptop still ruins nicely though, with a clean debian install and ctwm as window manager. Most of the times memory is the biggest challenge though, as even the current browsers balloon like crazy.
I’ve been using Linux since '94 and until now I haven’t had to replace a piece of hardware running linux due to hardware limitations. Every one of them that got replaced, died on me with the dying part not being repairable or replaceable. (I even soldered a sd card slot back in place on an RPi 3)
The only ‘obsolete’ hardware I now have are my BananaPi R1 and R2, as software support (bananian) stopped on the R1 and the R2 still needs to be dusted off to see if it can be used. (rare hardware has it’s limitations) They’ll still work and function how I left them, but it’s not wise to use them for the task I bought them, core router, without security updates. (so kinda more a support issue)
Came here to say that. Arch may be daunting for a complete beginner, a preconfigured distro may be a better starting platform. For Arch the main ones people talk about are Endeavor / Garuda
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