I decided to try the desktop version of bookworm on my Model B, doing it as hippy suggested: booting to the CLI but with the desktop available. Bookworm desktop DID NOT RUN on a 256MB machine (though it MIGHT work on a 512MB one - I don't have one to try). Bookworm Lite is fine on any Model B. You could try legacy (bullseye) desktop and see if that works.I would still recommend installing Bookworm Desktop then setting 'Boot to Command Line'. A GUI may be as slow as a sloth dragging itself through treacle but at least it's there should you ever want or need it. It shouldn't be using any resources beyond disk space if not started at boot-up.
I haven't however actually tried Bookworm on a 1B or with just 256 MB.
I burned a December bookworm 32-bit desktop image via sdm, doing all my customization including setting the swap to a gig, and choosing to boot to the CLI and ask for a password. I rebooted after all the initial stuff was done, and it took 1 minute and 26 seconds to get to the CLI login prompt. It took 13 seconds for the login (from me hitting enter till the prompt came back.). I tried "startx" but it failed with "xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused".
I wondered if updating would help, so I did "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade", and that (including a kernel upgrade and all that "update-initramfs" stuff bookworm requires) took 64 minutes! I rebooted, which took 1min 35sec. I logged in which took 14 sec. I tried "startx" again, and it failed the same way. So, I conclude it's not possible to run the Bookworm desktop this way on a 256MB Model B.
Statistics: Posted by tinker2much — Thu Feb 08, 2024 7:01 pm
