For a old laptop with Intel atom processor and I think 2gb ram.

  • space@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    3·
    1 year ago

    It’s not worth it. Ram is dirt cheap, you can get 8gb for like $30. For $150-$200, you can find an used Thinkpad that will perform 1000x better.

    I would only use such a machine for playing with old software like Windows 2000 or XP, old Linux distros.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve heard Debian and Alpine are good lightweight distros

    I think most distros will run fine on most hardware though (please correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the software you run on it (as in, going with a GNOME desktop environment is going to be much more demanding than xfce for example)

  • HerbalGamer@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    You know those Acer mini laptops from around 2010 back when tablets weren’t really a thing?

    Linux Mint runs on those bad boys.

  • vxnxnt@feddit.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    If you want to take it to the extreme, Alpine is probably one of the best options.

  • Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.showEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Also, I’ll just mention that it all means nothing as soon as you open a browser window. Then all your RAM is gonna be used up anyway.

  • throwawayish@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    As other have already alluded to, any distro with a lightweight desktop environment should work on that laptop. However, we don’t know if it would work out for you; simply for the fact that you haven’t given any other information.

  • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    What would you use this laptop for?

    I’ve dealt with similar hardware, using Qtile over a Manjaro base, but had to mostly use CLI/TUI apps. Anything related to web browsing is a pain.

    • heehaw@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      1 year ago

      Not sure. But I have other primary laptop. And this laptop is just sitting so I wanted try something with it.

      • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        If you just want to play around with it, I highly recommend some arch based distro (because you can find plenty of obscure TUI apps in the AUR) with a window manager (be it tiling like Qtile or stacking like Openbox).

        If you want something preconfigured, I’ve recently found instantOS, which seems to work fine for that usecase.

        I use this small laptop mostly for ebooks (using the excellent epy) and music, using one ot the TUI YouTube frontends.