2d ago

Which distro would you install on a celeron 2gb ram laptop for a lay person to use?

Friend has an old laptop with windows 10 that he doesn't use because too slow and freezing all the time. Wants to revive it to leave at his lab in grad school for browsing the internet and editing stuff on google docs so he doesn't have to carry his newer laptop everyday.

I suggested Linux but I myself always used Debian and I am not sure it will run decently with such low specs. Was thinking maybe Debian 11 with xfce or something? Any better options?

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My friend always recommended puppy linux fur such devices, he was very happy with it
I personally think alpine might be a good fit, it is very lightweight. It does not use systemd though and is therefore in many ways different than most distros(for some this is a good thing). I know it from postmarketOS (optimised for phone hardware)
Other than that, you may just take Arch, as it comes pretty minimal and you can choose for every package to use the most lightweight solution
Or you can go even more personalised with gentoo, linuxFroScratch or yocto. Just requires some skill, but skill can always be acquired by learning and doing.

Why wouldn't Debian run?
Debian is the OS, with its package manager and some applications suggested by default. You can install Debian with X, without X, with a certain window manager or another, etc. So... Debian WILL 100% run, the question rather is WHICH software should you pick that gives the best compromise between ease of use (specific to that person) AND performance (specific to that computer).
PS: to be clear, that's the same for other distributions. There are distributions that specifically target older hardware and that in turn might facilitate the process but usually if you do check how such distributions are done, they are basically Debian (or NixOS or Alpine or whatever) with a specific package selection. It's rare (if ever? counter-example) to have anything special that would somehow "boost" performance for hardware, especially here when it's rather common hardware.
- FWIW I did run on old hardware with ratpoison and had a blazing fast experience, much more responsive than "top" hardware back then. So... yes IMHO it's about the wm/de usually, the rest follows. Obviously you can't run super demanding software, e.g. video editing, 3D modeling, etc but that's usually rather obvious.

AntiX.

This is good RAM for any 32 bit OS which is still being maintained.
64 bit OS require minimum 4 GB.
I don't think Google will like any 32 bit device though. Go for an older version from libreoffice.

Run a 32 bit distro. It is the only thing that will run well on 2 GB of RAM. It will run better than you think.
Q4OS, Antix, MX Linux, Damn Small Linux, and even pure 32 bit Debian are decent candidates. If you use Q4, give the Trinity desktop a shot.
I like Andelie Linux as well but MUSL may cause problems for an unsophisticated user.

I put Antix on a 2Gb 64bit HP Atom. Worked well for notes and browsing. Oddly an SSD seemed to make little difference to performance compared to the previous HDD. Old architecture I guess.

To be honest, I wouldn't on a 2Gb laptop. It'll run Linux just fine but the minute you use a browser or office suite you'll have memory problems.
- Yup, two years ago I installed Q4OS with TDE (basically KDE 3.5) on an old Penitum 4 1.8 Ghz computer with 2 GB of RAM and integrated graphics (Intel Extreme Graphics, part of the Intel 845G/845GL/845GE/845GV chipset as far as I remember). I wasn't pleasant, even just using the computer was sluggish.
- Maybe he's going to run Links and Wordstar!
- Last time I checked (a few years ago) Firefox has half the memory usage of Chrome, in practice.
- This!
  Even 4GB RAM is low for web browsers and they're gonna struggle, A LOT, even with just one tab open, is going to be painfully slow to not want to use it anymore.
  Old laptops like this, don't have hardware video decoders for YouTube or any video in AVC or HEVC códecs that is used everywhere today.
  You can use Gnumeric for spreadsheets and Abiword for docs if Libreoffice is too slow.

I was always a fan of crunchbang when I used a couple of eee pcs as servers. It ran very light.
- Is Crunchbang still maintained?
  
  Crunchbang was amazing, but it's sadly no more. Development stopped on it some time in 2015 I think.
  Bunsenlabs is a direct successor to it, and should be good on OP's system.

As another said on the thread — it’s not really Linux that is the issue here as much as the internet. Browsers are just memory hogs now and you’re not going to get an enjoyable experience on 2gb of ram imo, if the goal is to have a functional laptop. OTOH, it would be a great little project server to play around with things like pihole or your Arrs🏴‍☠️ or other self hosting goodness.

Probably Fedora.

The most important thing is not the distribution, but to enable ZRAM (or ZSWAP) and use a lightweight desktop. I am not sure how much difference a 32bit vs a 64bit distribution makes, but if possible you could take one for the team and run some trials and report your numbers (RAM usage) back here.
Of course I recommend Debian with a lightweight desktop of your choice, or Alpine.
- I'm not sure that cpu will be able to handle memory compression with a usable speed. I would expect it to make it even slower
- A 32 bit distro will make a BIG difference with that much RAM.

Last time i searched for "lightweight" linux distros (for an old Thnkpad) the ones i saw recommended the most were: TinyCore, Puppy, Porteus, Absolute, antiX, Q4OS, Slax,, Sparky, MX.
I saw Bohdi and other Ubuntu-based distros suggested quite a lot as well but my definition of lightweight means under 1GiB usage.
For a DE go with XFCE or some other lightweight DE.

Mx linux with fluxbox

Your biggest problem is the amount of RAM, not the cpu. Some Linux distros would fit nicely on 2gb with a few native apps open, but the moment you'd want to browse the web, all hell will break loose, as each tab will take hundreds of megs each (youtube takes between 600 and 1200 mb of ram). FYI, even if chrome/ium is hated in these parts, it uses less ram than firefox (there's also a setting to use even less ram).
I'd suggest you use either Alpine Linux with xfce (240 MB of RAM on a cold boot), or even better, Q4OS with the Trinity Desktop (fork of KDE), 350 MB of RAM. The advantage of Q4OS is that it's a debian, so it can run lots of .deb files made for debian. Alpine is cool and all, but it has bugs on the desktop (some of its package management has dependency problems).
A tip: to save ram, don't use background images, only a single color. You can save up to 50 MB of RAM that way, depending on the image you'd be using.
- Q4OS with Trinity is a great pick for this user. Alpine is great but MUSL may cause problems. And I say this as a MUSL use (Chimera Linux). You are not going to find 32 but Flatpaks and Distrobox may be too complicated. So, I would stay away from MUSL based distros with 32 bit Linux on a 2 GB system.
  MX and Antix are also Debian based and have 32 bit versions.
- I did not know, that background images could have this enormous effect! Good to know!!
- I agree the question here is not so much which distro but which browser.
  Todays low-end laptops often come with 8 GB of RAM. Even common phones have more than 2 GB of RAM.

puppy linux. ironically its made to run completely in memory but only needs like 500meg

Puppy Linux is what I usually see recommended for such low specs. It's also available with a Debian base.
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/

Puppy would fly on there, or even DSL 2024. Heck, both those distros would fly even on a Pentium 4 of all things.
- But web browsers and video players are going to be painful with any distro.
  
  The Goanna browsers will run on pretty low-spec hardware, and there's also h.264ify for sites like YT, unless Google blocked YT from loading on Goanna browsers.
  
  You would be amazed how much 32 bit helps. If you do not open too many tabs, the web should be fine. Video no problem ( at reasonable resolutions).

Debian, lxqt and x11.
If you can get an ssd in there then there’s some zram or something or other that can make it even better.

Windows 10 has a bug with 100% disk utilization that goes away if you have an ssd. You should look into upgrading the ram to 4 or 8 gb. ddr3 ram is dirt cheap on ebay. It would probably cost $10-$15 for 8gb and another $10 for a 120gb ssd.

I think antiX would be a nice option. I installed it on a 20 years old laptop and it runs quite fast.

Puppy or Debian with openbox or another light wm , is crunchbang still a thing ?.
- Bunsenlabs is the successor to crunchbang.
  
  Good to know. I always liked #!

for linux and the most basic of basic tasks, i'd look at peppermint. it's what i put on all the old crap here with 'marginal' specs that choke on windows. debian stable xfce based. base install is pretty sparse, not even a browser is included initially. a utility pops up after first boot to facilitate installing a browser, media player, and a few other things if you want them, or the entire debian stable repository is also available. one thing of note. with only 2gb ram, it's gonna be tight, whatever he runs on it.
his use case is screaming for a cheap chromebook, though. so at least consider that instead. an old laptop like that might make someone a nice little pihole or something, if it's not ready to be put down for good.

Mint.
It's extremely stable Linux for your grandma, that comes with every tool that she will ever use and on the cinnamon interface all those tools are exactly where she will expect them to be if she is used to using Windows.
I've gotten three boomers to use it and they hardly ever ask for tech support because it's so stable.
- Linux Mint Debian Edition: xfce, Firefox running, 12 tabs open, just under 3GB utilized. All my usual stuff open too, Telegram, Next cloud, etc.
  I bet you'd be good with it and an SSD and a bit of swap. (I have no swap used.)

Debian is on the right track. XFCE might work - I remember it running pretty well on a laptop with 4 gigs.

Upgrade that box or repurpose it for something else. Web bloat has made 2gb machines useless for browsing and 4gb marginal, if the user needs Google docs, put in 8gb or more.
- I recently had to use a friend's old 4gb macbook for some weeks because my laptop was stolen. I was surprised how well everything worked, even when using a few web apps in firefox. I think with using zram and avoiding web / electron apps where possible, you might get quite something out of a 4gb machine.
  
  I'm on a 4gb machine right now and it's tolerable if I don't do too many things at once, but Google Docs bogs in particular bogs it down.

Raspberry Pi OS or antiX.

honestly the distro doesn't matter so much as long as the hardware i supported. run a minimal desktop, disable CPU hogs and file indexing etc.
I used fvwm on Debian for many years on old computers. worked great. now I have kde/plasma on arch. my 10 year old laptop handles it fine...
- disable CPU hogs and file indexing etc.
  Do you have some tips for that?

alpine

There are plenty of distros for very low end pcs, but they tend to require more tech skills to use. I have experience with a friend in a similar situation. I installed with mx linux for her and she is liking it. The performance is pretty reasonable and it comes with various tools that make it easier for people with less tech skills. The only extra thing I did was install the 32 bit version of firefox, because it makes a huge difference in low ram devices.
- 32 bit version of firefox, because it makes a huge difference in low ram devices.
  How so? What CPU does she have?
  
  How so?
  32 bit pointers take up half as much RAM as 64 bit pointers. A complicated application like a web browser consumes much more memory as a 64 bit app than it does as a 32 bit app. That is true of most programs but you are really going to notice it in both desktop environment and your web browser.
  
  I assumed a x64. Debian (the distro mx linux is based on) offers multiarch support, so i just had to enable it by running:
  undefined
  
  sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 sudo apt update
  Then, to install 32-bit firefox, I first uninstalled it and then installed the 32-bit version:
  undefined
  
  sudo apt remove firefox-esr sudo apt install firefox-esr:i386
  With the standard 64 bit version, the browser would struggle with just 2 or 3 tabs, and with the 32 bit version, she can use like 10 tabs without problems

Debian can be pretty light/small on a clean install and xfce should run fine on 2gb. Although the biggest thing is gonna be if the laptop has fast storage or not. Since its a celeron it might not be upgradeable, and if it doesnt already have an SSD any desktop will feel slow
Personally if I really wanted to squeeze all the performance I could for web browsing I'd go with minimal Debian and RiverWM but thats a bit more involved

ZorinOS

If your friend is not tech savvy person, i would go with Mint XFCE (maybe Zorin OS Lite). Surely, it will be not as lightweight as Debian, but it will be much more user friendly for him
If he actually feel comfortable tinkering with OS - along side Debian maybe Bodhi Linux or antiX? I tried both of them on one of (in)famous Intel-based netbooks with 512mb RAM and they worked quite well.

With low specs like that, the experience will never be great, but with a very light desktop you can make it work. Debian is fine, but with some set up, Alpine could be one option. It's a really light distro.

I think Slitaz is still around, I always liked that for older machines, I was going to try it on an AMD C-50 laptop I pulled out of storage recently, except I don’t have time for messing around.

VoidLinux
- It is probably the best solution to the low memory problem, but it is also the least common and may be the most difficult.
  
  There is a xfce live edition and a good wiki. Not having systemd is a great thing for these old specs in my experience.

AntiX or Alpine

AntiX but sadly all it's desktops only support x11.
- How is that sad for an old machine?
  
  Oh yeah older Nvidia drivers hate Wayland.

minios https://minios.dev/

Fedora.
It seems to be easy to manage and fast to install.
SUSE is slow to run and self-update.
Debian is far behind and Ubuntu seems to always have an issue during or right after installation.

Lubuntu has always been solid for me for low spec machines.
With only 2 gb of RAM it will be slow, there is almost no avoiding that part.
- it will be slow
  Then it's a bad recommendation.

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