Question Linux on a laptop from 2005, real life experience and thoughts...

I'm running Lubuntu 18.04 on an IBM laptop, after a recent update the laptop can't shutdown entirely, power light is off but fan and screen are still functioning (screen is stuck with the Linux logo). I have to press the power button for 5s to shutdown the machine completely.

After trying some tips given by people around the world including the usage of rescue mode without success, I discovered that if I remove the USB mouse the problem disappears. So for the time being I use an USB hub with switch to disconnect the USB mouse before I switch the laptop off, but it can't be the final solution as sometimes I forgot about it and I turn the machine off directly.

Anyone has the same problem with his desktop or laptop computer with his Linux distro?
 
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The screen remains on until I use the power button to turn it off.
 
Seems your version of Lubuntu isn't supported anymore:

From web site of Lubuntu <link>
Lubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) was released April 27, 2018 and will reach End of Life on Friday, April 30, 2021. This means that after that date there will be no further security updates or bugfixes released. We highly recommend that you re-install with 20.04 as soon as possible if you are still running 18.04.
 
Seems your version of Lubuntu isn't supported anymore:

From web site of Lubuntu <link>

Yes but as it's based on Ubuntu the updater still retrieves and installs some compatible packages from time to time.

Moreover, I should mention that the laptop is from 2005, it's 18 years and I tend to avoid new OS version whenever possible car it seems that the hardware has reached its limitation, I still can browser the web but it's not great, site likes Youtube are barely usable.
 
Ok, can you then provide it's hardware info - that is in terminal, use the command inxi -Fxmz, then copy and paste (use code tags) here.

Hardware info is:

Code:
System:    Host: R51E Kernel: 4.15.0-200-generic i686 bits: 32 gcc: 7.5.0
           Desktop: LXDE (Openbox 3.6.1) Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
Machine:   Device: laptop System: IBM product: 1843AL1 v: ThinkPad R51e serial: N/A
           Mobo: IBM model: 1843AL1 serial: N/A
           BIOS: IBM v: 78ET71WW (1.61 ) date: 12/07/2006
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium M (-UP-)
           arch: Dothan rev.8 cache: 2048 KB
           flags: (nx pae sse sse2) bmips: 3457 speed: 1733 MHz (max)
Memory:    Using dmidecode: root required for dmidecode
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RC410M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M]
           bus-ID: 01:05.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1024x768@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: ATI RC410
           version: 2.1 Mesa 20.0.8 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] IXP SB400 AC'97 Audio Controller
           driver: snd_atiixp bus-ID: 00:14.5
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-200-generic
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM5751F Fast Ethernet PCIE
           driver: tg3 v: 3.137 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR5212/5213/2414 Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: ath5k bus-ID: 04:02.0
           IF: wlp4s2 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 60.0GB (11.5% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: HTS541060G9AT00 size: 60.0GB temp: 35C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 55G used: 6.5G (13%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 56.0C mobo: 41.0C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 3262
Info:      Processes: 136 Uptime: 15 min Memory: 479.8/1882.7MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.201) inxi: 2.3.56
 
Ah, of course it's 32 bit. Ubuntu unfortunately doesn't support 32bit any more.

However, Debian still have a 32 bit version <link> and several other derivatives of Debian also have a 32 bit options. A list of those that I've tested and used myself:
MX Linux, Bunsenlabs (Debian 10), Elive, Emmabuntüs, antiX

From my own experience, testing different 32 bit distros in this days can yield different results - meaning if for a particular piece of hardware, say you cannot get MX to work, you still may get some of the other distros to work. I.e. I know some older graphic cards can be troublesome.

There are others, but in my experience less success than those listed above (either not tested or tested without success on my old 32bit computers):
  • Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 (LMDE5). It works, but because the Mint team use Cinnamon desktop on the 32 bit distro as well, it's quite heavy on RAM on such old systems (unusable on 1GB RAM setups).
  • OpenSUSE Tumbleweed - tested on two computers, didn't get iso image to load/boot.
  • FreeBSD - (not Linux) - I haven't tested
  • Haiku OS (not Linux) - tested on two computers, didn't get iso image to load/boot.

Have fun testing and hope you find one that suits your need.


nx pae sse sse2
You're lucky having pae and sse2 in your arsenal, especially the lack of the latter will render most computers unable to run any modern web browser.
 
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You're lucky having pae and sse2 in your arsenal, especially the lack of the latter will render most computers unable to run any modern web browser.

Yes the SSE2 was already present in the Celeron 1.5Ghz CPU that comes with my laptop, I later upgraded to a Pentium M 740 1.73Ghz CPU.

The max RAM I can have installed is 2GB, so a 64-bit OS is out of the question for me.
 
Well, that is similar problems I had with my old 32 bit computers, the sleep and suspend doesn't work properly. This is an issue I've had with all distribution and I've lost hope to have it solved (because no large groups of people maintaining the 32bit kernels exists).
 
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Well, that is similar problems I had with my old 32 bit computers, the sleep and suspend doesn't work properly. This is an issue I've had with all distribution and I've lost hope to have it solved (because no large groups of people maintaining the 32bit kernels exists).

That sucks, I really want to use the suspend mode to save the battery whenever possible but I don't want to abuse the Power button on a vintage laptop :D
 
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It's interesting to see that the Pentium M can run with temperature as high as 100°C (212°F) without problem.

But because of the CPU temp is always high, I abandoned the idea of upgrading the current 5400rpm HDD by a 7200rpm HDD.

Instead, I disabled the swap file permanently so the system runs solely with the 2GB physical RAM.
 
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