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by TillE 1035 days ago
For the sake of argument, let's say a computer where you can install Debian 12 and run a WM and a browser, and it's not excruciatingly slow.

I think you'd want to aim somewhere around the Pentium 4 / Athlon XP era. The docs say it doesn't support the original Pentium, so I suppose you could go back as far as the Pentium II if you really want to suffer.

2 comments

3 years ago I tried to run any modern distro on Pentium 3 (without compiling anything by myself). It appeared I wasn't able due to "invalid opcode" error inside systemd. I switched to Devuan (Debian fork without systemd) and it boot and was as usable as first raspberry pie.
Damn and I still remember when Pentium 4 is the epitome of speed and I have to make do with Pentium 3 and even 2.
Pentium 4 was the epitome of heat. The Athlon XP was generally faster and cheaper during that era.