CentOS - Jul 2019 - 32-bit CentOS

It appears that CentOS 7 was the last one with a 32-bit version. I'm
trying to install it on an older laptop and having some trouble. I have
CentOS-7-i386-Everything-1810.iso and have verified it. Using either dd
or mediawriter to put a copy on a 16 GB thumb drive seems to work. But
then the laptop reports, "no boot image found". Note that the first 32
KB
of the iso is all zeros, meaning that there is no MBR or partition table
included.

According to the 0_README.txt on the CentOS mirrors, the Everything ISO,
"contains the complete set of packages for  CentOS Linux 7. It can be 
used for installing or populating a local mirror. This image needs a
16GB USB flash drive as it is too large for DVD isos... You can burn
these images to a DVD or 'dd' them to a USB flash drive. After the boot
media has been prepared, boot the computer off the boot media."

Does anyone know what I don't understand about this procedure?
-- 
         Dave Close, Compata, Irvine CA       +1 714 434 7359
       dave at compata.com              dhclose at alumni.caltech.edu
  "Fairness is a concept that was invented so kids and idiots could
   participate in debates." --Dogbert

On Tue, 9 Jul 2019 at 14:40, Dave Close <dave at compata.com> wrote:
> It appears that CentOS 7 was the last one with a 32-bit version. I'm
> trying to install it on an older laptop and having some trouble. I have
> CentOS-7-i386-Everything-1810.iso and have verified it. Using either dd
> or mediawriter to put a copy on a 16 GB thumb drive seems to work. But
> then the laptop reports, "no boot image found". Note that the
first 32 KB
> of the iso is all zeros, meaning that there is no MBR or partition table
> included.
>
>
Depending on the age of the laptop, booting from USB sticks over 8 GB may
not be possible. Larger usb images I believe use a different layout format
(GPT?) which also may not work with older hardware. I would try a smaller
one first and see if that works.


> According to the 0_README.txt on the CentOS mirrors, the Everything ISO,
> "contains the complete set of packages for  CentOS Linux 7. It can be
> used for installing or populating a local mirror. This image needs a
> 16GB USB flash drive as it is too large for DVD isos... You can burn
> these images to a DVD or 'dd' them to a USB flash drive. After the
boot
> media has been prepared, boot the computer off the boot media."
>
> Does anyone know what I don't understand about this procedure?
> --
>          Dave Close, Compata, Irvine CA       +1 714 434 7359
>        dave at compata.com              dhclose at alumni.caltech.edu
>   "Fairness is a concept that was invented so kids and idiots could
>    participate in debates." --Dogbert
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.

> On Tue, 9 Jul 2019 at 14:40, Dave Close <dave at compata.com> wrote:
>
>> It appears that CentOS 7 was the last one with a 32-bit version.
I'm
>> trying to install it on an older laptop and having some trouble.
I tried to resurrect a 32-bit desktop with a Pentium 4 processor by
installing CentOS 7 32-bit version.  Everything installed OK, but after
the first boot, the performance was unusable.  And, the X11 would
crash repeatedly.  CentOS 7-32 is completely useless.

Then, I tried Ubuntu 16-32 with the Gnome desktop.  No crashes, but the
performance was unusable, although much better than CentOS 7-32.

Then, I tried Lubuntu 18-32, and I have a usable system now.  Lubuntu is
Ubuntu with a light-weight desktop designed for computers with limited
resources.

I have also installed Xubuntu 12 on a laptop with a Pentium M processor
(pre-PAE capability for extended memory addressing).  It performed
acceptably.  Xubuntu is another light-weight Linux with the XFCE desktop.

Todd Merriman

Dave Close <dave at compata.com> wrote:
>  It appears that CentOS 7 was the last one with a 32-bit version. I'm
>  trying to install it on an older laptop and having some trouble. I
>  have CentOS-7-i386-Everything-1810.iso and have verified it. Using
>  either dd or mediawriter to put a copy on a 16 GB thumb drive seems
>  to work. But then the laptop reports, "no boot image found".
Can you post the exact command you used with "dd"?

(How old is this "older laptop"? Debian is worth trying on older
machines; it can be just as light as distributions specifically
designed for old computers.)

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille
<yan at storm.ca>