Trisquel 9.02 mini, 32-bit, Will Not Install or Run Live

Hello and thank you for letting me join this forum. I am a newbie with very little knowledge of Linux. I have 3 old PCs, 2 of which are year 2006 desktops and the other a year 2003 IBM Thinkpad R40e, all running WinXP. XP actually runs well enough but there are problems with apps particularly web browsers. I do have a Lenovo T420 Thinkpad i5 running Win10. Not my cup of tea at all but I need an MS supported device for some tasks.

I want to keep the old IBM Thinkpad running with Linux. I am encouraged in this hope by reading the minimal system hardware requirements of Trisquel and the advice given in a start page that there is experience here with Thinkpads!

I started with Linux by trying to run Puppy but only older versions would run and the included browsers would not work. I found from repeated downloading and burning of distros (all 32-bit) that, in general, those released after about 2011 will not run live or install. Exceptions I found were Bodhi 2.3.0 (year2013) and Mint 16.0 (year 2014) both installed. Mint 17.3 installed but crashed when I tried to open Firefox and then the same opening another app, Gimp IIRC. Mint 17.3 continues running in “fallback mode” after a crash.

2003 IBM Thinkpad R40e System Hardware Info:
CPU Intel® Mobile Pentium® 4 Processor-M, 1.8Ghz.
System Model 2684CVG.
HDD Fujitsu MHS2020AT E (PATA) 16.5GB usable.
RAM 1GB, the maximum possible.
CD-RW/DVD-ROM, TEAC DW-224E.

I have read that:
“Intel Mobile Pentium 4-M is the low-power version of the Mobile Pentium 4. It is built on the NetBurst architecure, which is optimized for achieving performance through high clock speeds. The Mobile P4-M uses the Northwood core.”

And that the R40 CPU is: Not the Intel Pentium M (Banias).
Ref: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_Mobile_Pentium_4-M

I used “lscpu” (the only terminal entry I have ever made!) The resulting list shows no flag for PAE, actually no flags at all.

I tested my CDs and DVDs in my 2006 Dell Optiplex, P4 CPU, 2GB of RAM and in a 2006 Dell Dimension with only 512MB RAM. All worked OK.

When I try to run Trisquel 9.02 mini, 32-bit the first page opens ok but whether I choose run live or install the same happens: after a second or so the screen goes dark with just a flashing cursor at the top of the page. I tried pressing all keys with no result, just stalled. Because Trisquel is too large for a CD I tried it from both DVD and, with the help of Plop, from a USB pendrive.

I do get exactly the same result with “Q4os-4.7-i386-instcd” from CD.

I would very much appreciate any help you can offer to get Trisquel installed to this Thinkpad. I don’t expect to work it very hard, just reading and contributing to my leisure interest forum and watching connected videos. It connects to the internet OK via an ethernet cable, my Huawei router and the 3 mobile network.

.Thanks for reading this, apologies for the length!