I have an old Subnotebook (at least 10 years old I think) which runs Windows 7 atm. I would like to run Linux on it. I‘m a Linux noob, but would like to try and learn a few things. Any recommendations?
Being lightweight or not doesn’t depend on the distro but the desktop manager (the graphic interface). Unlike Windows, the graphic in Linux is separated from the system so you can use different desktop managers on the same distros.
The lightest DE is LXQT but it’s pretty barebone, XFCE has more features while still being very light, avoid GNOME and KDE.
That being said, I suggest you try Linux MX XFCE or Mint XFCE first, if that’s not light enough for your liking, try Lubuntu, that’s Ubuntu with LXQT as default DE.
Mint XFCE
This is first stop, if this is slow than try something else.
My guess is it will be too slow, but it is worth a try.
exactly the way I see it too it’s the lightest of the no compromise linux environement, after that you’re starting to see the gears
Debian XFCE
Debian with LXQt. Good luck.
Mint XFCE or Lubuntu. I would try Mint Cinnamon first, to see if it runs properly. If not, try one of the above.
Mint xfce! Its a res spell for old hardware
Thank you for all the suggestions, I don’t have access to the laptop right now, so I can’t get the specs, I’ll try to post them tomorrow
I daily drive a netbook and I use Debian 12 with KDE Plasma on it. The netbook is a 2014 ThinkPad 11e with a Celeron and 4GB of RAM. I find it comfortable for writing and even some Python and JavaScript development. I remote into my servers/cloud infra for more intense development tasks.
+1 for upgrading whatever you can before installing linux. An SSD in particular will go a long way to make it feel snappy.
Artix or archbang. For the debian side, antix linux.
ZorinOS Lite
Idk your laptop’s specs but I’ve been running Arch with XFCE on my Thinkpad T400 for a while now and it was decent enough to do college assignments, take notes, watch videos and stuff like that a year or two ago. Debian is also decent nowadays, and heard good things about Peppermint but I have no experience with it.
Truth is, it doesn’t really matter as long as you use a lightweight DE like XFCE, lxqt or cinamon. The thing that will inevitably kill older machines is the modern JS heavy web. Youtube and Reddit were really pushing the limits of that old machine sometimes but it struggled through.
You could try out BunsenLabs, it’s loads of fun and reasonably lightweight. Basically Debian with a few tweaks.
I would just buy a cheap RAM stick and install one of the mainstream distrobutions with KDE Plasma on it. You can turn off most of the desktop effects and unnecessary background services.
If nothing else works(Mint, Arch, Elementary, Fedora) for you use Alpine. It’s a bit weird with how small it is and it won’t be full features but the whole OS is measured in MBs. There is an option to install a desktop client.
something that runs xfce
Manjaro XFCE ftw
I recomend you to max out the ram, replace hdd with ssd and thermal paste while cleaning the dust with compressed air. It’ll work with Linux faster than ever.
You can try out different distros in Live-mode (no installation/format requirements) if you just format your biggest usb stick with Ventoy2Disk and drag and drop any .iso-file you want to try: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_ventoy2disk.html
I don’t say what distro you should use. But if you’re considering Linux Mint then try LMDE5 instead and here’s why: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=374128
Thank you for your recommendation, but I really don’t want to spend any money at all on it. I’d like it to be a toy to learn a bit about Linux, not a daily driver 😁
then void linux would be the perfect fit for you
its highly tinkerable and has a smooth learning curveThe 128 gb ssd’s are like 20-30 bucks and used probably even cheaper. Used ddr2 or ddr3 ram sticks are like 5-10 bucks each.
Thermal paste should be replaced every 2-3 years into every computer. Because the cpu isn’t modern nor fast in today’s standards, cleaning the dust and replacing the thermal paste will make cpu to thermal throttle way less which means faster run overall.
But obviously the choice is yours and I’m not forcing you. Happy Linux learning times!
Thanks 😁
