44

It's an old model (Acer One D257) Processor is Intel Atom. Memory is 1GB DDR3 with 320 GB of HDD. I currently Have MX 21 running on it, but I need to reinstall because I forgot the root password. Since I'm reinstalling the OS, I thought I'd ask here for recommendations for an OS that makes the most of this oldie.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Fabrik872@lemmy.world 29 points 2 years ago
[-] rambos@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Isnt min suggested 2GB for debian? Well I was running it on 1GB

[-] Yoddel_Hickory@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

I installed it successfully on a 512 MB machine the other day, with LXQT. Didn't run very well though.

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Yeah it's going to be a debian-based at least, that's for sure

[-] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

Debian based distros can be very different from each other. Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!, etc are all based off debian. I think what the commenter you're replying to is saying is to install the stock debian image, because that's the lightest version of debian.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 12 points 2 years ago

The Distro is not important, just debloat it. Something like Alpine is actually smaller, but in the end the Desktop needs to be tiny.

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago
[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 3 points 2 years ago

If you can run the Raspberry Pi Desktop that would be good. Wayland and I think very light.

I am thinking about installing that on Fedora, rebranding and all, to have an actually small Wayland Desktop, because the current options are either WMs or bigger Desktops

[-] sv1sjp@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Personally I am using a netbook like this as a headless server with Ubuntu.

You can try to run Lubuntu, or even TinyCore and Puppy Linux on this for simple tasks.

Generally speaking, with 1GB of ram and Intel atom, as you stay away from video streaming platforms and use simple tools for writing text or run simple code in python, you would be fine. However with less than 100€ you can find laptops with core i5 4rd generation with 8gb ram. I am not sure if it worths it.

[-] EfreetSK@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I had similar netbook like OP and was running Lubuntu for a very long time but afaik they dropped support for 32 bit architectures some time ago. I think 18.04 was the last 32 bit LTS? Not sure, I'd need to check it

[-] Qkall@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

Puppy Linux is very active on the 32bit land.

[-] timicin@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 years ago
[-] Molten_Moron@lemmings.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

There's also TinyCore, made by the lead developer of Damn Small Linux after it stopped being developed.

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Thanks! I'll check it out

[-] olafurp@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I'd recommend Alpine and running it headless. Realistically you'd need 4GB+ of ram to run a modern desktop session so that's not ideal. However running Alpine headless will leave you with 800M to run programs.

You can still run a GUI desktop on it but I'd recommend having a nice sized swap partition/file to make up for it. It'll be slow as soon as you hit the 1GB memory and starting swapping out.

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 3 points 2 years ago

It's not the desktop that needs 4 GB, it's large apps like modern browser or office. The desktop will run fine on 1 GB. May want to look into Midori and Abiword as alternatives.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] joyofpeanuts@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago

Debian with the choice of LXDE as window manager. Debian offers high configurability to remove any heavy component.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] ik5pvx@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

You might be able to reset the root password by booting to single user, or using a rescue usb.

That said, you could take the chance to try one of the BSDs.

[-] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 years ago

Whatever distro you install, make sure you enable zram, it makes old computers with low ram much more usable, and an out of memory killer too.

[-] piexil@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Ooms are much less necessary with MGLRU if they keep to a new kernel

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Atemu@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

See if you can get the memory upgraded. DDR3 SO-DIMMs should be dirt cheap.

I'd also get a cheap SSD aswell, especially if this is for a child who might not be very careful with the machine.

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

Hmmm yeah I hadn't thought about upgrading the laptop, that's a big idea, and indeed it should be super cheap

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

I use super old hardware as well. An SSD will blow your mind.

[-] Frederic@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

yeah MX21 32bits is what I would install, or AntiX.

Can't you boot on a USB key and reset the root password on your HD partition?

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

AntiX! Of course. I thought Antix had merged with Mepis to create MX. Didn't know they were still around. probably the best choice since it still seems to be based on Debian Stable

[-] Frederic@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

AntiX is awesome on old HW, everything works, just don't load a big website in the browser or it crawls :)

[-] LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Alpine Linux could be worth giving a shot very lightweight!

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Interesting. I search for Alpine Linux and the first search result was a Lemmy community. Looks interesting. Thanks!

[-] Tibert@jlai.lu 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I have no experience for this matter, nor a lot of Linux either, but there seem to be some interesting choices here (there isn't best and worst, it's just a list, and the most adapted to what you need).

https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/

Obviously the minimum system requirements should not be your max amount of ram. You need to account for apps or tools you'll run.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Krtek@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

If you don't have to use it but want to keep it functional, why just not reinstall MX again? You know that and how it works

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Because it does give me a functional piece of software to grab YouTube videos without actually opening YouTube, but it cannot really run Firefox with uBlock, which basically means web browsing is impossible

[-] RubyWitch@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

One distro that I've recently found runs pretty well on older/slower systems like this is wattOS. It's a distro focused on power efficiency, but because of that it does well on underpowered systems.

[-] Lemmchen@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'd probably try a minimal Debian installation with the Openbox WM.

Link, in case you're having trouble locating the .iso: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-12.2.0-i386-netinst.iso

[-] yum13241@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Arch Linux 32.

[-] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago
[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks but the laptop is for my 3-yeard old daughter. I hope she becomes a linux user but she's not there yet (to use FreeDOS) :)

[-] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago

I put galliumOS on the laptop for my toddler... he likes it! But thats a specific distro for a specific netbook. Whatever you get, try GCompris, it's a good collection of educational software

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks! I'll check it out

[-] coolmojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Something like Sugar or Doudoulinux would perhaps be more suitable for your daughter.

Doudoulinux has not been updated since ages , but it will run very well on any old laptop.

[-] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check those out

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
44 points (92.3% liked)

Linux

56078 readers
779 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS