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.
Debian with LXQt. Good luck.
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
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
something that runs xfce
Manjaro XFCE ftw
Artix or archbang. For the debian side, antix linux.
Debian XFCE
You can use quite a number of “underlying” distributions, it mainly depends on what you like (Arch-based ones, Debian-based ones, etc).
As a desktop environment, have a look at XFCE or LXDE.
You could try out BunsenLabs, it’s loads of fun and reasonably lightweight. Basically Debian with a few tweaks.
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.
ZorinOS Lite
I have successfully run Arch with Openbox as WM on machines even older than that. Arch has a learning curve, though.
And therefore it should not be recommended to Linux beginners… It is not a beginner distro.
There is no such thing as a “beginner distro”. There are distros that need little to no intelligence to set up and maintain. Arch needs you to read and follow instructions. It is a myth that it is impossible for beginners to use Arch. There are several good installations instructions in the wiki, select one and follow it till the end.
There are also plenty of Arch derivates that preconfigure the system for you.
There are distros that need little to no intelligence to set up and maintain
It’s not a matter of intelligence but prior knowledge, Arch wiki is the best thing ever for everyone, even if you don’t use Arch, BUT you need some Linux knowledge - at least Linux “lingo” - to be able to understand it.
That’s something a Linux newbie doesn’t have yet, exactly the reason why Arch is not recommended for newbies.
I beg to differ and say, even when the Arch wiki is a great source of knowledge, setting up own Arch system and maintaining it requires keeping on track with updates, to understand what is wrong with your system to look up the right keywords and so on. In my opinion it is better to stay on a stable, periodically released distro with tested repos like Debian, Mint or Ubuntu at first. Afterwards, you can still switch to Arch.
You’re way too deep in the linux world lol.
There are distros that need little to no intelligence to set up and maintain.
One might call that… suited for beginners.
You’re way too deep in the linux world
Yep.
beginners
Beginners need to learn anyways, why not skip the “not-for-beginners stuff” and go all in? :)
Overwhelming beginners with more than they can chew is not the best way to welcome them to Linux, giving them the chance to learn a bit at a time is instead.
Beginners need to learn anyways, why not skip the “not-for-beginners stuff” and go all in?
Because most people will likely want something that works out of the box so they can learn over time
MX Linux!
Mx Linux or Antix Linux. If you need more GUI and handholding try OpenSuse Leap
Kind of two parts to this question: Linux for low spec hardware? And beginner Linux?
When I got started with Linux in 2017, I started listening to a lot of Linux related podcasts which was really helpful to get my head around a lot of terminology and Linux technologies. A friend of mine runs Arch so I knew I wanted to get there eventually, but for the first couple of years I ran Linux Mint, then Ubuntu, and for the last year or so I’ve been on Arch.
Regarding the low spec hardware thing: I have an ASUS net-top with a Celeron CPU & 1GB ram & spinning disk HDD. I’ve run mint xfce on it with a lot of success. Tiny core Linux is extremely performant on really old gear, but it’s very old school & different to popular distros
