Best lesser-known distribution/DE for low-end machines?

I know Debian and others can breathe life into older machines. But i wonder if there are any distros with serious optimizations that I haven’t heard of. I’ve already tried MX Linux on an old Thinkpad SL400, and didn’t see any difference from plain Debian.

Update: thanks for the great suggestions. Forgot to say many distros feel zippy and fast until you open a web browser. Appreciate your thoughts on which web browser to use too. So far I’ve had a positive experience with Thorium and Chromium.

qyron, (edited )

Bunsen Labs Linux and, for the experience, Tiny Core Linux

Presi300,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

AntiX/MX Linux, I’ve had great success getting them to boot on systems that were refusing to boot anything else, AntiX is my go-to distro for bringing new life to old hardware, it works with literally anything you throw at it.

MigratingtoLemmy,

Puppy/bodhi

spider,

Q4OS

mfat,

Wow they even offer the Trinity DE :) thanks

spider, (edited )

In earlier Q4OS versions Trinity was the only desktop environment. I still run it even though there’s plenty of power on hand to run the others. It just works.

mfat,

I always have a sweet spot for KDE 3.5. I remember how responsive and tast it was on my Pentium PC some 15 years ago.

spider, (edited )

Q4OS will release an updated version within a few weeks, so if you’re interested, keep an eye on the home page’s “Latest News”.

(The developers are quite active in the forum, too.)

llothar,

The problem with older machines is the web browsing, not the system itself. You could use a browser with Java script disabled but a lot of websites will refuse to work.

You have to sacrifice with browser functionality to improve performance.

agressivelyPassive,

Yep. All this optimization you see here about “minimal installs” and which DE to choose is completely moot, if opening Firefox takes up more RAM than the entire operating system.

Even 4gb are really low these days, if you actually want to do something in the browser.

lemmyvore,

I’ve had good experiences with Midori and Dillo as alternative browsers on low-memory machines. Obviously features will take a hit but they’re surprisingly functional. Don’t expect to be able to open many tabs but you can do the usual things including YouTube etc.

ReversalHatchery,

If you have any expectation of privacy, you shouldn’t use chromium based browsers. Their purpose is not privacy, and google actively makes sure it will never be.

Frederic,

antiX should be ok, it’s very light

DidacticDumbass,

Love Antix! It is like the grandfather to MX Linux, but also the little baby?

pastermil,

Peppermint OS!

Caboose12000,

I was really excited about peppermint so I switched my old laptop from Kubuntu. but peppermint feels more sluggish than KDE and now I’m not sure what I did wrong :(

pastermil,

As in responding slowly? I’m aware Peppermint is not meant for aesthetics, but it should be responsive.

0x0,

So Slackware? If you can cross-compile then maybe gentoo. I’m not sure if Raspberry Pi Desktop is x86.

mfat,

Raspberry Pi Desktop does have an x86 version.

KISSmyOS,

Slackware isn’t easy on resources. It needs more space than most and defaults to KDE.

0x0,

I’m pretty sure you can have a minimal slack and choose xfce in the installer.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

c2d era laptop. first step if you haven't yet, swap the hdd for a low-cost sata ssd if you can. if you have some homeless sodimms, up the ram, too, if it won't cost anything to do it.

if you're going with mx, you want the fluxbox spin; or opt for antix with icewm instead.

otherwise start with a debian base install (no de or extra sw at install), then add only what you need. peppermint is another option--a basic debian with xfce out-of-the-box and little else. it's what i've been using lately on similar hardware.

for something 'different', you could look at slax.

mfat,

Thanks. I’ve already added an ssd drive and upgraded tge ram from 3 to 4gb. Another comment mentioned Icewm so I’m definitely giving it a try.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

I used to use WindowMaker on seriously underpowered laptops 10-15 years ago. Seems like it’s still just as efficient. For something more standard interface-wise you could try IceWM.

Another thing to do is build your own kernel without any features you don’t use. Not sure how much of a difference that makes exactly.

BaroqueInMind,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

Just install Arch without a desktop environment.

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s kinda surprising how much you can do in just a tty, the only thing I can’t think of a method for rn is viewing/editing documents.

BaroqueInMind,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

I can’t think of a method for rn is viewing/editing documents

What is the extension of document? I bet you money it's possible in terminal. PDF? docx?

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I mean any kind of document, so yes, PDF, docx, rtf, etc.

Thinking about it, isn’t lesspipe able to view documents?

BaroqueInMind,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

Literally all the extensions you mentioned can be viewed and edited in terminal by various tools.

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I don’t know the tools, but that means you can probably do everything* in a tty without ever installing a graphical environment

*I almost forgot spreadsheets and presentations

BaroqueInMind,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

Do you actually want to know the tools for each of the extensions you mentioned or just having a conversation here?

khorovodoved,

If you want serious optimizations - then Gentoo is your choice. But seriously, there won’t be any serious difference between distributions. What really matters here are DEs and browsers. I would recommend some kind of lightweight window manager like i3 or dwm. If you do not want to configure everything yourself, then your choice is lxde/lxqt. Also, you can use distros without systemd (void, artix, devuan, gentoo etc), but that does not matter that much.

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Another alternative to not configuring is using someone else’s rice

EponymousBosh,
@EponymousBosh@beehaw.org avatar

I use SpiralLinux on my old Inspiron but it’s basically just Debian with some user-friendly tweaks. I guess you could try Tiny Core or Porteus or something really small like that.

aquasteel,

I used to use slax, I don’t even know if it’s still around.

mfat,

It is, and i guess it’s now based on Denian.

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