Advice on computers for children

[RogerCig]

I have many old laptops dating back to the days of 3.5" floppy drives with OS (no HD).
I would like to install the same version of Mint on all of them if possible so that the children can help each other.
Questions:

• 1. Is this even possible?
  2. Would Xfce work?
  3. What CPUs are compatible with Mint? (Yes, I searched for this answer)

No, I'm not going to support them AT ALL.

[JoeFootball]

I have many old laptops dating back to the days of 3.5" floppy drives with OS (no HD).

Do you have options for DVD and/or USB? I'm unaware of any 3.5" floppy images for Linux Mint, and doubt that such exist.

What CPUs are compatible with Mint? (Yes, I searched for this answer)

Too many to list here. What CPUs do you have? They would need to be at least x86-based 32-bit, but I could understand support being dropped for some older ones via the Ubuntu codebase. You could always try it, and determine compatibility fairly quickly, as it will either work or not work.

What do you have for RAM in these? I believe you'll need at least 1 GB.

The "lightest" version of Linux Mint that's still supported (until April 2023) is LM 19.2 Xfce, which does have 32-bit images.

[Hoser Rob]

No hard drive? 3.5" floppies? They're pretty antique.

You can't run Linux from a floppy drive. With no hard drive you'd have to install persistent Linux on a USB stick of at lease 8Gb size, preferably a lot more, but those machines aren't going to be able to boot off USB either.

I'd say it's not possible myself, at least with Mint, there's a limit to this "Linux is the saviour of old hardware" stuff,

[mikeflan]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
1) Yes in most cases
2) Yes very possibly
3) That is far too hard to answer. Many thousands I am sure.

I might have one computer where LM would not install. This 19 yo computer:

Although I have not tried. LM 18 might install fine on that machine - I don't know.

I think you might find LM 19.3 will install on most machines that had WinXP on them originally. But pay particular attention to 32 bit vs 64 bit. If the machine is 32 bit, then use 19.2 32 bit or less. If 64 bit, 19.3 and above may work. If Ram is 2 GB or less, then use xfce. If Ram is 4 GB or more, then Cinnamon might work fine.

I might modify this post if other correct what I have said.

[benali72]

I don't believe Mint will run only off of 3.5" floppies.

A computer from the last decade or so would work without a hard disk, because you could still boot and run Mint off the USB port. But older computers won't boot off the USB.

If you're really down to floppies with no hard disk or bootable USB, I would suggest Puppy Linux https://puppylinux.com/. Puppy can do it, but it's harder to set up and work with than Mint. Probably not a worthwhile approach unless you're a dedicated geek.

Bottom line, if you could install hard disks, this project is way more doable.

If you could provide more detailed hardware specs (eg, CPU, ram, manufacturing date of the PCs, and the like), folks here will be able to provide much more targeted advice for your specific situation.

[ralplpcr]

I don't believe Mint will run only off of 3.5" floppies.
.........Bottom line, if you could install hard disks, this project is way more doable......

I'll have to agree. While it is possible to run Linux - as in the kernel purely from floppy, you can't even run a full version of DOS just from a single floppy disk. You can run a trimmed-down version, with a subset of utilities & programs....but not the full DOS 6.3. Even tinycore Linux requires about 11MB to install - far exceeding the 1.44MB limitation of a floppy. Even Linus Torvalds had slated removal of floppy support from the kernel back in 2019. (I think it's still hanging in there, but that's another discussion....)

tomsrtbt is a Windows 95-era single floppy Linux distribution that *may* still work, if you can find it... but it's going to be quite limited compared to any modern Linux distribution. Or you can download floppinux, but that's also going to be quite limited compared to a full Linux distro like Mint.

If you can install even an old 40GB hard drive in those systems, it would open up a world of possibilities. We can't say whether or not a semi-modern version of Mint could be made to run without knowing more about the hardware....but I can be pretty confident in stating that any Mint distro from the past 10 years will require a hard disk with at least 20GB to install, or USB support to run a live session.

[Petermint]

Who starts the machine each day?
The really old machines could start up with an ancient Linux loaded from paper tape or whatever if an experienced person steps through the complications. After the messy start, the children could run Tux paint. A classroom or library could operate like that. Less experienced people would give up on those complications and just buy a Raspberry Pi 400.

What will they run? Eight year olds can use high level languages for robotics, music notation, and other projects that will never run on an old machine. You will need to cull out the older machines as the children progress to more complex applications. A Raspberry Pi 3, equivalent to a 10 ~ 15 year old notebook, is already too slow for many projects and lacks the network speed for others. A Raspberry Pi 4 is the minimum speed and is equivalent to an average 10 year old notebook.

If it lacks USB 3 but has gigabyte Ethernet, install an SSD and use it for Web browsing. Anything too old for SSD is only good for recycling as copper and other raw materials.

[Grayfox]

Floppy and no HDD limits you heavily.
These computers will have very low levels of ram, like sub 32MiB
A 1GB HDD would help greatly as it is allows you to install something onto, but finding a small PATA 2.5" HDD is not going to be easy, nor cheap.
If you have a CD rom on one of these laptops you could get Tiny Core Plus.

Tiny Core Plus is as bare bones as it gets with linux well with a GUI at least, Tiny Core is 20MB and has a basic GUI and few drivers, and Core is 16MB and is CLI based..
Tiny Core Plus has an 160MB iso Size, it will come with a GUI, but it will come with no browser or word processor, but you can add them afterwards.

[RogerCig]

Thanki you for all of the suggestions. I will try some with the oldest and go from there.

[Petermint]

I look forward to you posting the successes and failures, to help other people with similar machines.

[DisturbedDragon]

For computers that old with no HDD I will suggest Plop Linux via PXE (network boot).