I recently set-up some old laptops with Debian 12 and GNOME. I noticed that 4GB RAM still works without issues. But in two cases the devices do have only 1 GB of RAM. And this doesn't give a pleasant user experience with GNOME. Therefore, I wondered what max RAM capacity those devices have. It is usually easy to find this information online if I know the exact model of the device. But in this case I struggle to find this information and I wonder if any of you does know an online archive where I might be able to find this information.
The laptop is a: HP Pavilion G3000 RM455EA#ABD
Unfortunately, I don't have the device with me, so I can't check on the device itself. (This information is probably not listed on the old BIOS, but there might be a terminal tool/command that can still access this information on such old hardware. I tried "dmidecode" but it couldn't access this information. Probably because it expects newer hardware/standards.) From my research I learned that this laptop still uses DDR2 and it seems that the usual maximal capacity of such modules is 2 GB. (On Wikipedia even 8 GB is mentioned, but this does seem to be a rare exception and it probably is only true for desktop RAM anyway.) I figure, if the device has two banks it should be possible to upgrade it to 4 GB. And it seems this would allow GNOME to run just fine on this device.
In the past I used the LXDE desktop on such old hardware but since the system needs to be easy to use for random people who never saw free software before, it seems sensible to set those devices up with a desktop that is comfortable and very easy to use. Unfortunately, some common things like the management of wireless connections are more tricky to do with LXDE. (I could use one of the other desktops like LxQt, Xfce or Mate, but I don't have much experience with those and therefore it would be hard for me to troubleshoot them if the need arises. And since GNOME has become noticeable less demanding in recent years I was bold enough to use it on these old laptops. I suspect compared to most other desktops GNOME isn't as much heavier than for example Xfce like it used to be.
The laptop is a: HP Pavilion G3000 RM455EA#ABD
Unfortunately, I don't have the device with me, so I can't check on the device itself. (This information is probably not listed on the old BIOS, but there might be a terminal tool/command that can still access this information on such old hardware. I tried "dmidecode" but it couldn't access this information. Probably because it expects newer hardware/standards.) From my research I learned that this laptop still uses DDR2 and it seems that the usual maximal capacity of such modules is 2 GB. (On Wikipedia even 8 GB is mentioned, but this does seem to be a rare exception and it probably is only true for desktop RAM anyway.) I figure, if the device has two banks it should be possible to upgrade it to 4 GB. And it seems this would allow GNOME to run just fine on this device.
In the past I used the LXDE desktop on such old hardware but since the system needs to be easy to use for random people who never saw free software before, it seems sensible to set those devices up with a desktop that is comfortable and very easy to use. Unfortunately, some common things like the management of wireless connections are more tricky to do with LXDE. (I could use one of the other desktops like LxQt, Xfce or Mate, but I don't have much experience with those and therefore it would be hard for me to troubleshoot them if the need arises. And since GNOME has become noticeable less demanding in recent years I was bold enough to use it on these old laptops. I suspect compared to most other desktops GNOME isn't as much heavier than for example Xfce like it used to be.
Statistics: Posted by Onsemeliot — 2024-08-03 10:23 — Replies 5 — Views 95