On a laptop that old, I highly recommend a 32 bit distro.
Q4OS with Trinity: https://q4os.org/
Antix https://antixlinux.com/
DSL https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
You could also enable ZRAM If it is not already.
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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replace HDD with SSD, number one thing to do if possible.
lxde or lxqt are quite a bit lighter then xfce.
you could try tiny core linux. it really depends what programs you want to run.
Looking up the specs of a D270, looks like the memory is upgradable.
It also looks like the Intel Atom N2600 it has (from my reading) is actually a 64-bit processor
I'd probably say you shouldn't have much trouble finding a bigger DDR3 memory stick for it for dirt cheap or free from an e-wasted notebook
Ultimately it depends if the performance loss you're finding is memory limited or CPU limited right now, but I would think that giving it 2 or 4GB + giving it 64-bit would go a long way
Use an old distro?
I first installed Ubuntu 4 or 5 on a Thinkpad T42 with 512 MB of RAM. I used it until about version 10, when they forced everyone to use left-handed window controls. It all ran about as well as XP did on that machine. Might be unsafe to bring online, nowadays, but if it gets borked do you really care?
You do not necessarily have to use an old distribution. In some ways, a modern one is even more efficient.
The biggest problem is the shift from 32 to 64 bit which makes the same software take 2 - 3 times more RAM.
Next is the desktop environment. KDE is surprisingly light compared to 4 but GNOME is a beast and KDE 3 lighter. KDE is still available as Trinity. GNOME 2 (still not that light ) is available still as MATE. Most of the X11 Window Managers from back in the day or still available and still as fast and light as ever.
A modern 32 distro with a decent DE is more capable than old stuff and almost as performant.
Check out Q4OS 32 bit with Trinity for example.
Antix linux is a very begginer friendly distro with very light specs
either you go the easy route and use a distribution targeted towards low spec systems like damn small linux or you go the difficult route and implement the same measures that they implement onto your debian installation.
last time i was in your situation i ended up doing both and i'm glad i did because my version of the build never worked as well as the custom distro.
Maybe try bunsenlabs? It's uses openbox instead of a de.
I run it on a pentium m laptop and it runs well enough
Pentium m 735, 1 gb of ddr ram
It seems like you've got plenty of choices already, but how about an OS that's already been cut down to work on the limited RAM of a Raspberry PI? It bills itself as a good alternative for limited hardware.
Oooh. So I keep a Dell Mini 10 (1GB RAM, ~1GHz Atom) around with Haiku on it. It's brilliant! The UI is super snappy even on such an old machine, and I can even run pretty modern software on it. I used it yesterday to work on my website a bit. :)
I didn't know Haiku had actual hardware support!
Oh yeah, I completely forgot, that laptops real old, so go ahead and regrease the cpu.
I have two roughly 10 years old laptop that is completely usable, how do I go about regreasing the cpu (M14x r2 & A1502)?
Check on youtube there is probably a video on how to open and do it your laptop model
Locate the service manuals or some kind of tear down. Confirm that the process will be within your capability. Order some thermal compound. Disassemble the laptop until you remove the heatsink from the cpu. Clean the old cpu and heatsink with isopropyl until it’s as clean as can possibly be. Apply new thermal compound. Reassemble laptop.
this might be the service manual for the alienware
A1502 could be a lot of laptops, use the emc number or serial to find out which one or just look for the MacBook Pro NN,n number in the about option under the Apple menu. It doesn’t matter which one you have, they’re all really easy to work on and well documented.
I am currently running Antix on my Acer Aspire One D255 with mixed results, Falkon to browse the "modern" web, and netsurf for simple websites, can't play 1080p videos smoothly so I have to first resize them with ffmpeg (it takes a long time but it's doable), other stuff like libreoffice works flawlessly.
AntiX
I have that exact machine in my electronics "graveyard".
Peppermint OS was my GO-TO for speed and driver support out of the box. You can also stick in a 2GB SODIMM of ram. It will only recognize 1.5GB but still 50% more ram.
Use Dietpi as your main distro, do a minimal install, install sway and then your usual stuff.
t. Got a orange pi zero 3 w/ 1GiB of ram, did exactly as my suggestion implies and everything works as intended.
First install an SSD if you haven't already. Next install ublock origin in Firefox ESR and tighten down the security settings to max plus turn off all telemetry, studies and other "features." Don't use a Mozilla account as that adds overhead.
It still will be slow but it should be usable with a few tabs. Do not try to do video playback as the old GPU doesn't support modern video formats so the CPU ends up decoding it all.
SSD upgrade
This will be the single biggest change you can make. Swapping an hdd for a cheap 256gb ssd will make a bigger difference than any DE changes.
And then ZRAM and swap like hell
I thought it's either swap or ZRAM - could you use both at the same time?
Yes Fedora uses swap and zram by default. Just compresses the memory in RAM (more memory available) and on disk (less data written, less wear)
Wow, that's supercool actually! I had no idea...
Won't that kill the SSD on short notice? Or can they make do with it for years?
I mean, worth the tradeoff? Zram would just make the cpu work more. Swap... kill the ssd
But over time. SSDs can handle a lot, like a couple of years?
Not really, if you would spend a lot more on SDD drives instead of getting a modern computer
Do you have numbers? I dont think its that dramatic
Won't be a couple of years if you're constantly swapping, no.
Do not run Slitaz as is fully of security problems and vulnerabilities. What's worse is that there website has security holes on it. There is a page on the bug tracker that runs arbitrary JavaScript and prints out the time as an example. It also has been abandoned and is no longer maintained all that well.
1gb of ram is quiet a bit. I've ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware it it works with a few tabs. The problem is the modern internet is graphics heavy and the old GPU doesn't have a lot of power. If you don't block ads with Ublock origin it will grind to a halt as the video and image rendering will be done by the CPU as the GPU is to old.
I’ve ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware
OP did say he tried Debian with xfce and it was slow, I don't see the point in insisting on using that
Because it isn't going to be faster to use something else else. Unless they added a ton of stuff it shouldn't use more than a quarter of the ram. Firefox suspends tabs under ram pressure so that shouldn't be an issue either.
I've done work on a old Atom with 1gb of ram. It isn't fast but it gets the job done. You can't just make old hardware run fast by changing the desktop
You can try something like antiX but it won't do good as a desktop. I use my netbook as a home server with pi-hole in it.
Try antix. its requirements are 256mb ram. And it's actually usable.
It isn't going to be faster than Debian. I think the issue is the GPU not supporting modern encoding which leads to the CPU doing everything the GPU is suppost to do
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