My oldest computer turns 20 today

I’ve written about how Linux can keep old computers running and out of landfills or recycling streams. My personal favorite is How Linux rescues slow computers (and the planet) and that article discusses one of my computers that had a BIOS date of 2010 but the motherboard died in late 2023. There was no point in repairing a Dell that was that old so I recycled it.

But that’s nothing compared to my oldest computer which turns 20 today, August 30, 2025. I use this date because, according to the Dell service information for it, that’s the date that this Dell Optiplex was shipped from the factory. Unable to even install current versions of Windows, I keep it running using the most current versions of Fedora Linux.

It was gifted to me few years ago and has a BIOS date of 05/24/2005. You can see it in Figure 1, and I’ve named it Intrepid, after a WWII Essex class aircraft carrier, and because it’s an appropriate name for an old computer that’s still running. Since I took that picture, I’ve removed the winblowz sticker.

You can see the specs for this system which are pretty minimal. It has a single 3GHz Pentium 4 processor with Hyperthreading so the equivalent of 2 CPUs. It originally had 2GB of DDR 533 RAM so I added 2 GB for a total of 4GB which is the maximum amount of RAM supported by this system. It has a 300GB hard drive of which I’ve partitioned 160GB for active use, but it’s not even close to full.

#######################################################################
# MOTD for Wed Aug  6 03:29:18 AM EDT 2025
# HOST NAME:            intrepid.both.org
# Machine Type:         physical machine.
# Host architecture:    X86_64
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# System Serial No.:    XXXXXXX
# System UUID:          44454c4c-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-c3c04f423831
# Motherboard Mfr:      Dell Inc.
# Motherboard Model:    XXXXXXX
# Motherboard Serial:   ..XXXXXXXXXXX.
# BIOS Release Date:    05/24/2005
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# CPU Model:            Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
# CPU Data:             1 Single Core package with 2 CPUs
# CPU Architecture:     x86_64
# HyperThreading:       Yes
# Max CPU MHz:
# Current CPU MHz:      2992.458
# Min CPU MHz:
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# RAM:                  3.129 GB
# SWAP:                 11.128 GB
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Install Date:         Tue 13 May 2025 10:21:16 AM EDT
# Linux Distribution:   Fedora 42 (Adams) X86_64
# Kernel Version:       6.15.8-200.fc42.x86_64
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Disk Partition Info
# Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
# /dev/mapper/vg01-root  4.9G   88M  4.5G   2% /
# /dev/mapper/vg01-usr    30G  8.8G   20G  32% /usr
# /dev/sda1              974M  499M  409M  55% /boot
# /dev/mapper/vg01-home  4.9G  1.8G  2.9G  38% /home
# /dev/mapper/vg01-var    35G   12G   22G  35% /var
# /dev/mapper/vg01-tmp   9.8G  2.1M  9.3G   1% /tmp
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# LVM Physical Volume Info
# PV            VG              Fmt     Attr    PSize   PFree
# /dev/sda2     vg01    lvm2    a--     160.00g 67.00g
#######################################################################
# Note: This MOTD file gets updated automatically every day.
#       Changes to this file will be automatically overwritten!
#######################################################################

Naturally, I installed Linux on it just to see how it would work. This old computer works just fine with Fedora 42, the most current release as of this writing. It’s also run just fine all Fedora versions from 35 through 41, previously.

I also have two computers I built in 2012 that are now 13 years old. I can safely expect to keep these computers, built using standard parts, to last the rest of my life — using Linux.

Linux keeps old computers running, and that is an absolute truth. Linux also keeps these old computers safe from malware and bloatware which is what really causes them to slow down. Linux prevents the planned obsolescence continually enforced by the ongoing requirements for more and faster hardware required to support upgrades to ever more bloated versions of Windows. It means I do not need to add more RAM or hard drive space just to upgrade to the latest version of the operating system.

Are you ready to get off the Microsoft upgrade highway and switch to Linux?