Recommendation for running an old program

Posted Dec 11, 2025 21:51 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876)
In reply to: Recommendation for running an old program by abatters
Parent article: Mix and match Linux distributions with Distrobox

In my experience, it will be a bit of work to try to create a Distrobox from a distribution that old. It can probably be done but it will fight you. I ran into a few roadblocks trying to create a Distrobox for a version pre-Fedora Red Hat Linux.

You are also going to have trouble finding a container registry with something that old in it. So, you would at be at least creating and managing your own container.

If you have had luck running your app on "old" but not "ancient" versions of Ubuntu, I would target that version instead. If that works for you, Distrobox will be fantastic.

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Recommendation for running an old program

Posted Dec 11, 2025 22:01 UTC (Thu) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (1 responses)

FWIW the Docker registry still has versions of Ubuntu going back to 14.04. All LTSes, I think. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever with the example I gave using 20.04 here. But, yeah, I'd suggest going with the newest old version that works for compiling gthumb without headaches if that's the goal.

Recommendation for running an old program

Posted Dec 12, 2025 22:48 UTC (Fri) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link]

Ubuntu 14.04 did not install right out of the box for me. See my comment above for how I worked around it. Ubuntu 14.04 has gThumb 3.2.7 in it which I think is the UI he is looking for.

I think I replied to the wrong comment. He may not even see my post.