Installed Arch 32 Last night

Phydoux · 2020-06-08 16:05:32

I've got an older computer (Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with 1GB RAM) and had a couple of questions. Here goes.

I've got it set up on an HP M700 monitor. The resolution is CRAZY SMALL (1280x1024). Whenever I try to do something with xrandr it is unable to do anything. Even xrandr -q gives me a 'can't open display' message.

I'd like to get the display at the command prompt to 800x600 so that I can read the screen without reading glasses AND my magnifying glass.

Also, I know many of you are probably not big fans of AUR helpers but... I am trying to install yay but it tells me that yay is not supported on the Pentium 4. Is there a way to get a 32-bit version of yay installed on this computer?

One other thing, I was hoping to get a Desktop manager and Window manager installed on it. I enabled gdm but on reboot, the screen just sat there after Starting Version ... comes up it just sits there forever. I have to reboot it. I'm thinking gdm may be a bit much for this system. Is there an even more lightweight dm I can install and use this system with?

I think that's it for now.

levi · 2020-06-08 17:28:38

Maybe I've misinterpreted the name, but I always assumed that xrandr required X to run.

Have you got any graphics on this? An original pentium 4 probably won't have the greatest in-built graphics. I never found any DE that worked on my old minimal headed pentium 3 733MHz, but then again that's a around a decade before your pentium 4 I guess.

Instructions for building AURs designed for full fat Archlinux on Arch32 are pretty standard, although I can't remember off hand where it's been written down. Yay seems to be a fairly straghtforward, it's old enough that it still contains i686 in its arch defintion on line 6 of its PKGBUILD. Just add "pentium4" inside those braces, space separated, and I've a feeling that's all you need.

Phydoux · 2020-06-08 18:40:09

It has an ASUS Motherboard in it and it has onboard graphics. I can't remember how much memory it's using. Probably not much. I'm guessing 64-128MB. But xrandr is a command prompt utility. Also, arandr is the GUI interface that goes with xrandr. I can't use arandr until I can get a GUI going. I'm missing something with xrandr but I don't know what yet. It should work unless there's a conflict somewhere.

But for now, I have it running cmatrix... just to help charge up the CMOS battery again and give it something meaningful to do while I clean out the closet in my office. I am afraid to turn it off because I'll lose everything (Boot settings, Time, Date, etc.) I may need to put a new battery in there because this hasn't been turned on since March of 2010. It had Ubuntu 10.04 on it and obviously it wouldn't update. I put Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE on it the night before last. Then I found Arch 32 and wanted to give that a try. I may go back to Mint on that machine if I can't get any further with Arch.

levi · 2020-06-08 21:02:05

You should be able to find any graphics chips using 'lspci', but if you've not plugged anything in to a physical pci lane, I guess it's just using whatever's in the pentum4 cpu package. My laptop for example says:

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

That's part of my CPU package, but is logically on a PCI bus and detected as such. I'm not sure it that pciutils package is part of the install cd packageset though, so you may need to install that.

AhmadRaniri · 2020-07-03 15:32:48

If you call 1280x1024 is crazy small, mine is 1024x600 (hp mini).

Arch Linux

#1 2020-06-08 16:05:32

Installed Arch 32 Last night

#2 2020-06-08 17:28:38

Re: Installed Arch 32 Last night

#3 2020-06-08 18:40:09

Re: Installed Arch 32 Last night

#4 2020-06-08 21:02:05

Re: Installed Arch 32 Last night

#5 2020-07-03 15:32:48

Re: Installed Arch 32 Last night

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