What distro should I use on my potato?

I have an HP Stream 11 that I want to use for word processing and some light web browsing - I’m a writer and it’s a lightweight laptop to bring to the library or coffee shop to write on. Right now it’s got Windows and it’s unusable due to lack of hard drive space for updates. Someone had luck with Xubuntu, but it’s been a few years and it seems like Xubuntu is no longer trying to be a lightweight distro for use cases like this.

My experience with Linux is very limited - I played around with Peppermint Linux a bit back when it was a Lubuntu fork and I used Ubuntu on the lab computers in college. I can follow instructions to make a live boot and I can do an apt-get (so something Debian-based might be best for compatibility and familiarity) but I mostly have no idea what I’m doing, lol. I used to do DOS gaming as a kid so having to do the occasional thing via command line isn’t going to scare me off but I’m not going to pretend to have knowledge I don’t. I’m probably going to go with Mint on my gaming laptop next year but I suspect it’s not the best choice for my blue bezeled potato (although I might try it anyway).

catloaf,

Debian and xfce, easy

cmnybo,

With only 2GB of RAM, you will need a very lightweight distro. Something like antiX would probably run well. It will probably have trouble with a web browser like Firefox or chrome. There are some lighter weight browsers available, but there are usually compatibility issues with modern websites.

mikyopii,
@mikyopii@programming.dev avatar

Yeah I think the distro is less important. Really it’s choosing a lightweight DE + web browser will determine if a machine that old will work.

jaagruk,

Arch + Lxqt/enlightenment is what I use on my 2GB

sin_free_for_00_days,

It’s been some time since I used it on an old laptop, but Puppy Linux was very responsive on shit hardware.

TDCN,
@TDCN@feddit.dk avatar

I can recommend as well. It is maybe not the most beginner friendly OS since it works quite differently than most other OS’s unless installed in a curtain way. Iirc. The installer is quite helpful in getting it set up correctly.

BaldProphet,
BaldProphet avatar

Puppy Linux was my first ever Linux distro. Great memories.

ososalsosal,
@ososalsosal@aussie.zone avatar

I have debian 32bit running on my extremely underpowered 2009 eeepc - 1.6ghz atom, 1gig ram. Cinnamon as DE

It’s up to date as well.

Websites are pretty useless but it works well as a music server and can digitise my vinyl with several plugins without dropping any packets.

With 2gig you’ll be able to browse the web

BaalInvoker,

Definitely Linux Lite run on a potato. Maybe you should try it

Magister,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

MX Linux 32 bits (it’s debian+XFCE) will run fine, AntiX too.

Tempo,
@Tempo@lemmy.ml avatar

I run AntiX on my EeePC 701, the original with a 630mhz Celeron. Runs a treat.

clubb,
@clubb@lemmy.world avatar

DO NOT RUN A 32BIT VERSION OF LINUX ON 64BIT HARDWARE. I looked into the celeron in the computer, and it supports 64bit instructions. Just run Debian with xfce.

leadore,
leadore avatar

Just like Debian which it is based on, you can get AntiX in either 64 or 32 bit, whichever you need for your processor. It's a very good lightweight distro. I'd recommend it, as well as Crunchbang++ for something like this. (edit to add that Crunchbang++ uses Openbox window manager, very lightweight but easy to use--something to consider for whichever distro you decide on).

LeFantome,

If you have 4 MB of RAM or less, I would recommend 32 bit regardless of CPU.

The machine he linked to has 2 GB of RAM. A 64 bit distro will eat half of it getting to an empty desktop and a couple browser tabs will eat the rest.

Anything with more RAM, I completely agree with you.

clubb,
@clubb@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, I feel that the 4mb (I assume 4gb) of ram needs a 32 bit os claim is downright untrue.

I have a Thinkpad X301 that’s been upgraded to 4gb of ram, and I run Debian 12 stable, 64bit, and performance, even on a laptop from 2008, like mine, as long as I used pale moon for browsing, was stellar. I use xfce on that laptop.

Dagamant,

I second Debian with LXDE. I run it on much older hardware with no issue.

FQQD,
@FQQD@lemmy.ohaa.xyz avatar

Can confirm!

bigmclargehuge,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Just something to note, LXDE is no longer officially maintained by the original devs (there are some community maintainers). LXQt is the new project from those devs and still seems to be going strong.

Not saying to avoid LXDE, just that updates may be few and far between.

Dagamant,

I didn’t know that. I usually recommend LXDE because I have used it for a really long time. LXQt is also a great option, I haven’t used it in a few years but I remember it being nice and lite.

t0mri,

I use arch (btw) and always lie around tty. Id recommend the same for you, coz most my work, i.e programming (writing), anime and youtube can be done in tty itself. Id recommend highly any terminal based text editor. I enter GUI environment almost only for web browsing (if you guys know something for web browsing from tty, pls mention it) im gonna assume you need it more as a writer, and you are familiar with debian and not that familiar with dirty works on cli, so i cant recommend u to go with window managers like hyprland or something but if u want ram usage under 250M thats what u shuld use (i can help with setup and everything, if you want). So you may use debian with kde, ig.

zloubida,
@zloubida@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve done that on my potato, I installed Debian without a DE. It’s great, but I needed an insane amout of time to make it actually usable.

t0mri,

What do you mean by “make it usable”?

zloubida,
@zloubida@lemmy.world avatar

For example : I write in French. It wasn’t easy for me to have a way to type É or Ç. Tmux wasn’t easy to configure. It took time to understand how to use USB drives. And now I didn’t use it for some time, and I’d have everything to learn again if I had to turn it on.

I’m no computer scientist. All these things may be trivial for someone who works with computers, but it’s not my case 😅.

t0mri,

Totally understandable. 👍

AlligatorBlizzard,

Someone else mentioned the browser issue so I went looking for what was available (and I’ll probably try Firefox first), but I found Lynx, maybe that’s what you’re looking for?

t0mri,

Thanks. So u chose anything?

AlligatorBlizzard,

Not yet, I’ll try live booting some of the suggestions like Lubuntu, AntiX, and Debian (probably LXDE) and see which one works the best. Debian is about as much of a challenge as I’m willing to take on for this project, but I figure I’ll learn something at least, and if I do get it running it’s probably going to be solid. If all else fails I’ll look at a Puppy.

barbara, (edited )

I don’t play games but isn’t bazzite.gg the latest and best shit for gaming? If so, it would be good to try a live image of another atomic fedora image fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops . I’d recommend a tiling window manager because it uses less RAM. You can also easily start with KDE and rebase to a tiling window manager if it doesn’t work out as planned.

TerkErJerbs,

Obligatory Bunsenlabs plug. Nice light Debian based distro with no DE. It cleverly uses openbox wm and tint2 and some other tricks to make it feel like you have one though.

Confirm it runs awesome on potatoes.

TDCN, (edited )
@TDCN@feddit.dk avatar

I’m surprised noone have mentioned Lubuntu yet. It’s a debloated and light weight version of Ubuntu and can run on very old hardware. I’ve used it in the past before on shitty hardware with great success

JustMarkov,

Imo, using XFCE today (as some people suggested in this thread) is a bad choise, as it is virtually unmaintained, slow and not lightweight at all.
You should be perfectly fine with LXDE or LXQT on top of vanilla Debian

entropicdrift,
@entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Mint with XFCE or MATE

eugenia,
@eugenia@lemmy.ml avatar

I’d go for Mint with XFce or xlde/lxqt for this one, or Lubuntu. Basically, you need anything that uses less than 700 MB of RAM (ideally around 350, like the Raspbery Pi version of Debian, but that doesn’t exist in the x86 world unless you go really low end, like DamnSmallLinux), and then you need to be very careful to not open more than 1-2 tabs on your browser, or you will start swapping. The biggest problem on your PC is not the speed, neither the size of the drive. It’s the 2 GB RAM. It’s a strict minimum of 4 GB these days to do adequate web browsing. But it’s still possible with 2 GB if you’re very careful what you’re loading, and how many tabs you’re using. My mom’s laptop has 2 GB of RAM too, and it’s equally slow in CPU speed, but it works for her, because she doesn’t know how to use tabs (she uses the browser with a single tab), and that’s enough at 2 GB.

And I know what I’ll suggest next is an anathema in these parts, but it’s true: Chrome uses less ram (there’s even a setting for it) and it’s significantly faster on older computers than Firefox. I have put together at least 8 old computers with Linux for friends and family, and that has been my experience consistently. On newer hardware it doesn’t make much of a difference, but on old hardware (e.g. anything less than 1500 Passmark CPU points, like yours), it does, visibly so.

Other suggestions: turn off start-up services on the xfce prefs about services you don’t need. For debian xfce, you will also need to edit a text file for policy-kit (somewhere on /usr) to make the laptop sleep on its own without intervention (otherwise it will tell you that it doesn’t have permissions to do so). Finally, Chrome might not load up on debian xfce, you will need to edit the launcher to include the basic password store chrome option, to make it load. Other ways to save RAM on xfce: include only 1 panel, don’t use applets you don’t really need, and use a color instead of a picture for background (you will be amazed how much ram that takes!).

Final advice: update the bios firmware via windows before you delete it. This will allow you to disable the fwupd service on linux, to save more ram (there are not going to be any new versions for that old model anyway).

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

Ideally you would want something that sets up ZRAM, which is a way to compress your RAM. From what I’ve heard it can make your potato PC pretty swift but I haven’t set it up myself yet. I know Garuda linux does that by default. They also offer XFCE desktop which should be fairly lightweight.

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