Linux Would linux be faster on old laptop versus windows 7?

My GF laptop has a 30gb SSD, the laptop is single core celeron M and came from the Vista era. It came with Vista installed.

It has 2gb ram and the processor is 64bit.

Windows home premium 7 on it now is a more recent install I did last year but it's still painfully slow.

Would Linux Mint be faster or is it not worth the effort?

 

Depends on the Desktop Environment, some are better on low-end/old hardware than others... I'd create a Live USB and try it out

 

I might create a live USB and try it out....

I just need a USB drive don't I?

I did it years ago with Linux Ubuntu.

 

It really depends on the desktop environment that you decide on. Linux Mint uses the MATE environment, but being a fork of Gnome it is probably not the fastest thing in the world. My vote goes for XFCE, a nice lightweight desktop environment that should work well on old hardware. LXDE is really lightweight, but doesn't look very nice IMO, and if you want to go even further down the performance route there is always OpenBox and FluxBox used in distributions like Puppy Linux.

Linux Mint is one distribution that would work with those lightweight mentioned desktop environments, but you might want to also check out its parent project, Ubuntu, or more specifically Xubuntu for XFCE.

And yes, as mentioned by Red put your chosen distributions on a live USB then test them out without risking the system underneath.

 

Slightly off topic, but you may be able to stick a beefier CPU in. I think even a low end Core 2 Duo would run rings around a single core Celeron and can be picked up very cheaply on the bay of E.

What's the make and model of the laptop? I'll have a nose about for you.

Edit: The above advice only applied if its not the Pentium 4-M based Celeron but if it's from the Vista-era, it's likely a Core based one.

 

Thanks for recommendations...

Maybe I will try a couple of versions but the lighter the better as long as it can show pics and run a few multimedia programs... nothing heavy.

Packard Bell Easynote AJAX C2.

 

I ran Mint 15 on an AMD Athlon XP system (that's 32 bit, single core) with 512mb RAM. It was fine, it was the old HDD that slowed it down mostly.

When people talk of old hardware and Linux they're usually referring to this kind of thing, possibly even older. Any 64bit processor with 2gb memory will have no problem at all.

 

Personally I would go with Lubuntu, Xubuntu (basically ubuntu versions with a light weight desktop), or Linux Puppy (which might be a little more difficult to set up permanently, I haven't done it personally so I'm not sure.)

I found the above runs quicker on my laptop than the MATE or Cinnamon desktops offered with Mint.

But its really easy to make a live USB or CD to try out these various versions.

Even though the processor is 64 bit I would go with 32 bit versions of any of the above.

 

I had an old hp that I put ubuntu (i'd never used linux before) on and it made it a fair bit quicker and battery life was improved too.

Sometimes in older laptops it can be the hard drives causing a problem so a compatible ssd will often make things much quicker.

If you haven't used linux much I'd maybe consider mint as I hear its easy to use and lightweight on hardware, or puppy linux.

 

I couldn't find anything on AJAX C2 but did find machines with the name ARGO C2 and AJAX C3. Is that definitely the right model number?

 

I can't speak for other distros but for [x/l]ubuntu [and Mint] i'd go for 64-bit, multi-arch support is pretty good...

 

I wouldn't go for Puppy Linux, as it's mostly aimed at really old hardware (it's tried to remain working fine on systems with only 128mb RAM) or people who want to run their OS entirely from memory.

XFCE desktops (e.g. Xubuntu) can be slightly quicker, but mostly because there's less to load from disk - which is not an issue for SSDs.

 

I've had issues with wireless drivers not being present on the 64 bit version which worked out of the box on the 32 bit version before. Perhaps this has changed now. But the 32 bit versions appear to me to be the more commonly used.

 

I'm at a few linux sites looking at download sections based on recommendations here.

Yes, obscure laptop that's probably Swedish. GF is Swedish. Even when I looked for it a few years ago I couldn't find that C2 model. It is C2 then... ALP C2 Easynote.

 

If you're willing to, Arch Linux is great, obviously as it ships with nothing, not even X, the learning curve for installing it is a little steep, but that is the great thing about it. You can easily install multiple DEs and switch between them; I like to install Gnome3 first and use GDM, choosing with DE I'd like to use appropriately. I also agree that Puppy Linux is an extreme that you won't need to go to - XFCE on Arch will be perfectly usable. If you do decide to install Arch don't hesitate to send me a message and I can help you out maybe - it's been a while since I've installed Arch since it's rolling release but I still know my way around the fundamentals.

 

I found this:

If your other half's laptop has the same, ATi XPress 200m chipset, then it's likely it'll take a Core 2 Duo CPU.

Check which processor you have at the moment and what socket it uses and put up a wanted post in the marketplace and see if anyone has a cheap CPU, it's worth a shot in my opinion.

 

A more or less constant 100% CPU usage indicates something wrong, it's not at all normal. On a 2003 Athlon I didn't get that. I'd just try an installation and see, there's nothing to lose. On this laptop with an SSD it'd fly. If the graphics chipset is obscure it may need the proprietary AMD drivers, but these are available in Mint for automatic installation.

 

Ok, thanks for help and recommendations everyone. Downloading now and will try via USB drive first.

Processor clocked at 1.6ghz I think and single core only. That's all that shows on processor utils and no HT either.

I have 90% of the windows 7 FX turned off but it still chugs quite a bit.

 

Unless you have more than 4GB Ram there is absolutely no need (and even then you can generally still use PAE), and with 64-bit you'll be using a touch more Ram for programs in memory. Functionally I haven't noticed any difference between 32 and 64 bit (on openSUSE), the only reason I switched to 64-bit was since it was needed for building Android. But it's a pretty unimportant overall.