I wanna try Linux but I don't know which distro I should use

[TukangUsapEmenq]

I got an old PC. Running a really old equipment like so:

Quote

Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 (1.8 GHz dual core, no HT)

1 GB of DDR2 RAM

40 GB of HDD, forgot if that's an IDE/SATA

Integrated GPU from the motherboard, I forgot what kind of Intel GMA

 

and probably that's it that is important enough

It's currently running on Windows 8 Pro, un-activated (because why would I need a license anyway). Well, it's still good enough for basic usage, actually (although with really noticeable slowdowns). Even managed to run a Minecraft server on it.

 

Here's the catch. I want to run Linux on it. With few requirements like so.

Quote

• Lightweight enough to at least reduce the slowdowns I feel on the Windows 8. And probably won't dual-boot because of the space constraint of the 40 GB HDD anyway
• Linux-noob friendly GUI, preferably kind of familiar with Windows machine because I use Windows for... Basically all my life. But something new and simple is good either.
• Well, I wanna run some Windows-based apps, like Microsoft Office (specifically, 2016) on it because it's kinda hard to make college journal using the format that use a .docx file. And yes, I tried LibreOffice already on Windows, didn't work that well actually.
• It can run Steam on Linux because I wanna try RimWorld on it lol

Welp, thanks in advance!

[mahyar]

pay a visit to lubuntu its a light distro based on ubuntu but for ms office you have to use alternative

[Nayr438]

For something usable with those specs, this is probably your best bet. http://www.tinycorelinux.net

Whether or not it's user friendly, I have no idea. It's going to be hard to find something very user friendly to run on those specs however.

Nearly anything you open will probably max it out and cause slowdowns.

[pythonmegapixel]

I'd say go for Ubuntu Mate. https://ubuntu-mate.org/

 

For Steam, it's Debian-based, which generally seem to be the most compatible for Steam games.

Also pretty much all tutorials for other varieties of Ubuntu will work.

Mate (that's the desktop environment) is reasonably lightweight while also being easy to learn and not too different from Windows

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, Nayr438 said:

For something usable with those specs, this is probably your best bet. http://www.tinycorelinux.net

Whether or not it's user friendly, I have no idea. It's going to be hard to find something very user friendly to run on those specs however.

Nearly anything you open will probably max it out and cause slowdowns.

tinycore is an abomination of a os to use even for a linux hobbyist like me

[Kilrah]

Would recommend lubuntu as well.

 

It's not going to do miracles though. The OS can be as lightweight as you want, but when opening a browser with a single webpage uses half a gig of RAM and runs relatively heavy scripts such old hardware will be unbearable for any of the usual day to day activities.

[Nayr438]

55 minutes ago, mahyar said:

tinycore is an abomination of a os to use even for a linux hobbyist like me

I have to disagree after testing it out a vm, I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you could shed some light on why you think its an abomination.

Maybe it's not as user friendly as other options, but it is lightweight sitting at around 108MB of memory usage at idle and spikes up to 600MB while playing a youtube video at 480p in firefox. For a low specced system its perfect imo.

[mahyar]

2 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

I have to disagree after testing it out a vm, I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you could shed some light on why you think its an abomination.

Maybe it's not as user friendly as other options, but it is lightweight sitting at around 108MB of memory usage at idle and spikes up to 600MB while playing a youtube video at 480p in firefox. For a low specced system its perfect imo.

well for start it has a bad gui and its desktop ia very limited and i have experienced files went missing! like i copied a file to it and after reboot it was just gone!

[mahyar]

8 minutes ago, mahyar said:

well for start it has a bad gui and its desktop ia very limited and i have experienced files went missing! like i copied a file to it and after reboot it was just gone!

and software support is terrible 

[Nayr438]

Just now, mahyar said:

well for start it has a bad gui and its desktop ia very limited and i have experienced files went missing! like i copied a file to it and after reboot it was just gone!

Well yea it has a simple user interface and nothing more. The base applications are just meant to provide basic functionality, it's meant to be lightweight not pretty.

It uses FLTK and FLWM to provide a basic X Desktop, which I guess can make it seem very dated.

I was unable to reproduce the file issue, so not sure what happened there, however its nice to know.

 

4 minutes ago, mahyar said:

and software support is terrible 

It's not meant to have wide software support. Being a lightweight distro targeted at low spec devices, the target audience is probably just web browsing, some document editing, and remote work in the terminal, all of which it does fine at. Chances are, if your running tinycore, you probably can't run much of anything anyways.

 

Anyways the entire point of the distro is to be as lightweight as possible and really nothing else, I think it does a decent job at that.

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, Nayr438 said:

Well yea it has a simple user interface and nothing more. The base applications are just meant to provide basic functionality, it's meant to be lightweight not pretty.

It uses FLTK and FLWM to provide a basic X Desktop, which I guess can make it seem very dated.

I was unable to reproduce the file issue, so not sure what happened there, however its nice to know.

 

It's not meant to have wide software support. Being a lightweight distro targeted at low spec devices, the target audience is probably just web browsing, some document editing, and remote work in the terminal, all of which it does fine at. Chances are, if your running tinycore, you probably can't run much of anything anyways.

 

Anyways the entire point of the distro is to be as lightweight as possible and really nothing else, I think it does a decent job at that.

i agree but the thing is she wants steam  

[TukangUsapEmenq]

1 hour ago, mahyar said:

pay a visit to lubuntu its a light distro based on ubuntu but for ms office you have to use alternative

 

1 hour ago, Nayr438 said:

For something usable with those specs, this is probably your best bet. http://www.tinycorelinux.net

Whether or not it's user friendly, I have no idea. It's going to be hard to find something very user friendly to run on those specs however.

Nearly anything you open will probably max it out and cause slowdowns.

 

1 hour ago, pythonmegapixel said:

I'd say go for Ubuntu Mate. https://ubuntu-mate.org/

 

For Steam, it's Debian-based, which generally seem to be the most compatible for Steam games.

Also pretty much all tutorials for other varieties of Ubuntu will work.

Mate (that's the desktop environment) is reasonably lightweight while also being easy to learn and not too different from Windows

 

40 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Would recommend lubuntu as well.

 

It's not going to do miracles though. The OS can be as lightweight as you want, but when opening a browser with a single webpage uses half a gig of RAM and runs relatively heavy scripts such old hardware will be unbearable for any of the usual day to day activities.

Perhaps I'd try some later on after I do more research somehow. 

Lubuntu and Ubuntu MATE looks interesting somehow. But I watched Linus' video for Manjaro, and few videos for Linux Mint with Xfce. What do you guys think of those?

 

2 minutes ago, mahyar said:

i agree but the thing is she wants steam  

Pls, I'm a 'he' here lol

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, dhannemon13 said:

 

 

 

Perhaps I'd try some later on after I do more research somehow. 

Lubuntu and Ubuntu MATE looks interesting somehow. But I watched Linus' video for Manjaro, and few videos for Linux Mint with Xfce. What do you guys think of those?

 

Pls, I'm a 'he' here lol

first sorry  second i used manjaro for a long time its a pretty good distro but its not light enough

[pythonmegapixel]

4 minutes ago, dhannemon13 said:

 

Perhaps I'd try some later on after I do more research somehow. 

Lubuntu and Ubuntu MATE looks interesting somehow. But I watched Linus' video for Manjaro, and few videos for Linux Mint with Xfce. What do you guys think of those?

 

 

2 minutes ago, mahyar said:

 i used manjaro for a long time its a pretty good distro but its not light enough

Agreed. Don't bother with Manjaro for these purposes... it's very bloated, and IIRC less well supported by Steam. It's also more confusing IMO than Ubuntu based distros.

 

Mint has a little more of a focus on customisability, and is probably less light than Lubuntu. I think given how slow your system is Lubuntu is probably your best bet, then Ubuntu Mate. Lubuntu will be faster, but less "noob-friendly" as you put it

[Nayr438]

14 minutes ago, mahyar said:

i agree but the thing is she wants steam  

@dhannemon13

I am not sure steam will run with those speccs, I think the system will still struggle with just steam itself.

The minimum requirements for RimWorld says it needs 4GB, which is really the minium any machine should have now days.

Of course I could be wrong.

[TukangUsapEmenq]

2 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

 

Agreed. Don't bother with Manjaro for these purposes... it's very bloated, and IIRC less well supported by Steam. It's also more confusing IMO than Ubuntu based distros.

 

Mint has a little more of a focus on customisability, and is probably less light than Lubuntu. I think given how slow your system is Lubuntu is probably your best bet, then Ubuntu Mate. Lubuntu will be faster, but less "noob-friendly" as you put it

Lubuntu on the go, then (and turns out I got an old version of Lubuntu iso laying around my old drive. What a coincidence.). But I think I can handle that 'less noob-friendly' with few YouTube videos, I hope lol

[mahyar]

Just now, Nayr438 said:

@dhannemon13

I am not sure steam will run with those speccs, I think the system will still struggle with just steam itself.

The minimum requirements for RimWorld says it needs 4GB, which is really the minium any machine should have now days.

Of course I could be wrong.

 

for someone that runs games wayyyyy lower then their minimum i say she will be ok 

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, dhannemon13 said:

Lubuntu on the go, then (and turns out I got an old version of Lubuntu iso laying around my old drive. What a coincidence.). But I think I can handle that 'less noob-friendly' with few YouTube videos, I hope lol

install newest version not old ones

[TukangUsapEmenq]

Just now, Nayr438 said:

@dhannemon13

I am not sure steam will run with those speccs, I think the system will still struggle with just steam itself.

The minimum requirements for RimWorld says it needs 4GB, which is really the minium any machine should have now days.

Of course I could be wrong.

 

Tried RimWorld before on Windows at the exact machine on old Alpha version. It actually runs really fine (with some little graphics artifacts but yeah, it runs smoothly) with small colonies lol

But, well, again, curiosity. If that doesn't work, it's fine anyway.

[TukangUsapEmenq]

3 minutes ago, mahyar said:

install newest version not old ones

I'd agree with this but.. I use phone data tether here.

Perhaps later when I can get access to public wifi at McDonald's lol

 

edit: I keep my distances on public, fyi. Not those Karen typical who went out to public stupidly. My country McDonald's SOP on this pandemic are actually pretty strict on social distancing while dine-in anyway.

Edited September 26, 2020 by dhannemon13

[mahyar]

Just now, dhannemon13 said:

I'd agree with this but.. I use phone data tether here.

Perhaps later when I can get access to public wifi at McDonald's lol

its not that heavy but if you want ok