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.

atomkarinca,

alpine and void linux are pretty lightweight.

Grant_M,
@Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

Bodhi! Another I’ve found to be lean is Zorin Lite

ipsirc,
@ipsirc@lemmy.ml avatar

*buntu can’t be counted as lightweight.

WalrusByte,
@WalrusByte@lemmy.world avatar

Alpine is very lightweight. I think it was built so that it would run well inside docker containers, which means it should be fairly easy for low-end computers to run it.

Afaik, it doesn’t come with a DE out of the box, so it won’t be very user-friendly

lemmyvore,

It has a script called setup-xorg-base that will install the basic graphical support, and you can add a specific DE on top. For example.

WalrusByte,
@WalrusByte@lemmy.world avatar

Oh ok, cool!

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I guess it depends on what comes with the distro. If you start off with a basic Linux install and add a DE that is low on system resources, like LXQt, you can breathe life into a machine.

Bodhi, antiX and Linux Lite come to mind.

You can also start with a minimal base, Arch, Debian, Alpine, anything, and then add packages.

hollyberries,
@hollyberries@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Puppy Linux is what I shove on old Atom netbooks

mfat,

Can I run regular browsers on Puppy? Or have to use their own apps only?

hollyberries,
@hollyberries@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’m afraid I can’t answer that, It’s been quite a while. I think qutebrowser is the one that ships with it?

nyan,

Subject lines on their forum suggest Firefox and Chromium are both possible.

ipsirc,
@ipsirc@lemmy.ml avatar

Try: github.com/marmolak/gray386linux <– It was designed for really old hardwares.

I’ve already tried MX Linux on an old Thinkpad SL400, and didn’t see any difference from plain Debian.

Because it’s the stock Debian + custom themes/skins + some crappy useless minitools. The 99% of packages come from the official Debian repository, the rest are only the rice.

If you have newer machine than a real 386:

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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