I've just picked up a laptop with a weedy AMD E2 (1800?) APU and 4 GB of DDR3. It was running Win 7 on an HDD and I'll pop a 128GB SSD in it with a lightweight OS. What do people recommend these days for this? I was wondering about a lightweight 'buntu or Zorin Thanks as ever
Win11 https://www.m3datarecovery.com/windows/windows-11-ltsc-iso.html What do you want to run on it apps wise You could try chrome on something like that?
I've found MX linux to have the best support for old hardware as they still patch legacy drivers so they continue to work against the current Debian stable LTS kernel.
I wouldn't - that's an abandoned project, it doesn't get updates (including security updates) any more. The last release was four years ago.
I mean any current distro, but with a lightweight UI, should work. I avoid Ubuntu nowadays, given they're committing to adding AI-sloppification "features" which sound annoyingly like those added in Windows 11 and being one of the many reasons I moved away from Microsoft in the first place. You could use Debian, with XFCE, since that's the upstream Ubuntu bases on anyway, or you could run a variety of Arch like CachyOS, again, choosing XFCE or one of the other lightweight UIs. Puppy Linux is also a well-known lightweight distro also based on Debian, use the Trixie based for longevity.
Our old friend Mint, I can grab the XFCE variant and take a look Win 11 Even cut down, I have visions of a snail on fire! It's really to see if an old machine is worth running for basic tasks like web browsing and Libre Office at this late date. I may be able to scrounge another 4GB SODIMM to get it up to 8Gb in dual channel That's a new one to me, I'll check it out thanks Thanks for the steer GH, I'll give it a miss AI slop? just what a weak old laptop doesn't need! I've heard of CachyOS, added to the trial list Tiny looks pretty cut down and hardcore, Kolibri is another to check out Thanks guys, I will grab some ISOs and USB sticks this weekend and spin up a few options to compare how they run
it is on my 2010 i7 840QM for shits and giggles, runs fine, I have the IOT version which is proper barebones, its fast
Realistically, any distro that offers a version with a lightweight desktop environment like XFCE will do fine. I’d suggest sticking with something that’s derived from Ubuntu or Debian, purely for the ease of package management & distribution. If something is built/distributed for Linux, you’ll almost always find a .deb file or an apt repo available. Unless you want to run updates every day, personally I’d stay away from CachyOS. It’s based on Arch, so it’s a “rolling release” distro; that means you always get the latest most bleeding-edge updates… but you also get a lot of updates, and all the potential issues & incompatibilities of being on the bleeding edge. A worthwhile tradeoff for gaming, definitely, but not for “day to day” use IMO. Honestly, Mint is hard to argue with as a starting point.
To be fair, I haven’t seen any “bleeding edge weirdness or compatibility issues” with CachyOS so far. And Arch-based distros can be pretty damn snappy. But the constant drip-feed of updates is a bit tiresome. Especially on my 8th-gen-i5 StinkPad laptop when an AUR package needs a massive compilation run in order to update.
Oh, I must have got my wires crossed somewhere, I didn't realise how old that version is. I was probably thinking Raspberry Pi OS, but now thinking about it, is it even built for x86?
Nope - that's only compatible with the Raspberry Pi family of Arm SBCs. Raspberry Pi Desktop was a spin-off for x86, but like I say was abandoned years ago. They're both just Debian with tweaks, though, so you can just run Debian and you're golden.
Yes, I had a moment on Sunday to put Mint Xfce on it using a spare 128 GB SSD. It seems to run OK, not as zippy as expected though. The dual core is probably struggling, I'm going to find a cheap 4GB SODIMM to bump it up to 8GB and dual channel Maybe more experiments at the weekend if I'm not busy
I think I may have one kicking about that you could have Tre but I'm out of the country until next week. If you're still looking give me a nudge on Sunday/Monday and I'll have a look.
Back from hols, I'll start a hunt for this today. I'm sure I have some, now it's just a matter of which place I've put useful stuff in that I put it in...
Still looking for these Tre. I offered them up on here back in 24 and they never got taken (and I never throw things like this away - hello ddrr and ddr2 sticks, lol). But then we moved house and currently in a rental with things still in boxes so their location is still avoiding me. I have to find them now TBH it's done me a favour, I've already got rid of a few bits of useless non pc stuff that need to go before our move so there's that. Anyway, onwards and sidewards!
