For a old laptop with Intel atom processor and I think 2gb ram.
I checked this yesterday, but could not decide. So had to ask.
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.
I’ve tried Lubuntu on my old laptop from around 2008 and it works fine. It had more ram (4gb), but I don’t think it was using all of it.
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.
Can I introduce you to Lynx?
Sure, play your youtube videos on Lynx.
We all know that’s one of the main things people use browsers for, that’s not work, these days. ;)
I oftentimes play youtube videos in mpv.
I always play youtube videos with mpv.
Do you just drag and drop into mpv or how does it work? With youtube seemingly trying to prevent the use of adblockers, I have to look for alternatives ahead of time.
I must admit I copy paste the link to the terminal, so it’s not a seamless experience. I don’t watch enough videos to have done anything other than write a wrapper script with my preferred settings for youtube videos and to convert invidious links to youtube links.
I just tried running
mpv --idle=yes --force-window=yesfrom the terminal and drag a youtube link to the window. It plays like it should.yt-dlpis installed locally for my user in~/.local/binand that directory is appended to thePATHenvironment variable. I also haveyt-dlpsymlinked toyoutube-dlfor mpv to pick it up. I guess what’s missing is my preferred options for youtube videos, which I could set up in~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf. Everytime some site breaks, you runyt-dlp -Uto update and cross your fingers.
Honestly, I don’t even use Lynx
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Downloading videos via yt-dlp and playing via MPV will not take all the RAM
Depends on how big the video is and how large you have your mpv buffer set to ;)
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Might be overkill (or underkill), but Tiny Core Linux is the most lightweight I know. While having an up to date kernel (6.1.2) and glibc (2.3.6).
What are the minimum requirements? An absolute minimum of RAM is 46mb. TC won’t boot with anything less, no matter how many terabytes of swap you have. Microcore runs with 28mb of ram. The minimum cpu is i486DX (486 with a math processor). A recommended configuration: Pentium 2 or better, 128mb of ram + some swap
Okay, yeah that’s a bit much lol
antiX I’ve used this before on an old laptop (also an atom and 2gb RAM) and it’s very lightweight. It just doesn’t have defaults that I prefer but if you tweak it enough, it should be fine.
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.
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.
Debian with XFCE or LXDE.
Isn’t LXDE basically discontinued? It got combined with RazorQT or something back in the day and became the LXQT we know today if I’m remembering right.
Seems like you’re right, I just remembered trying it a while ago and thinking it was quite decent.
You can do a really slim install of Debian that should work. For DE I recommend LXQT.
If you’re feeling adventurous, Alpine might be slightly lighter. It’s a good distro.
Those specs are not going to get you a terribly fast experience, but my laptop runs Debian ok and it’s in the same ballpark.
Debian stable or testing, with MATE or XFCE or something crazy like WindowMaker (wmaker)!
Was posted yesterday, like 5 posts down from yours when sorted by new
If you want to take it to the extreme, Alpine is probably one of the best options.
I’ve heard Puppy Linux is good, never tried it myself however.
Any modern browser will probably kill your setup anyway.
