Which OS to install on a low-end netbook

[Krakish]

Hi i have a Lenovo U165 primarly used for net browsing, watching movies and youtube. Specs are: Amd Athlon II Neo K125 CPU, Mobility Radeon HD4200, upgraded ram to 4GB and a Intel 60GB SSD.
I tried:
windows 7   -slow
windows10  -still slow and has a compatibility problem with gpu driver.
Ubuntu - better but still not much faster, same problem with gpu driver.. i dont know much about linux and the driver instalation in ubuntu was a nightmare.

Is there anything not outdated i could use on this netbook?..where all drivers will work. Only software i need is internet browser and hw accelerated movie player basically.
 

[GodSpoon]

Xubuntu or Kubuntu if your looking for lightweight but modern derivatives of Ubuntu 

 

They would run much faster 

[Krakish]

What is the difference between them? 

[Burusutazu]

What is the difference between them? 

The desktop environments, Xubuntu uses XFCE, and Kubuntu uses KDE. KDE is not for low end computers and would probably run slightly better then Ubuntu's Unity. XFCE can run on very low end hardware, and should be very snappy on your specs.

http://www.kubuntu.org/

http://xubuntu.org/

[Stadin6]

arch linux with i3 window manager

[Krakish]

so i installed Xubuntu 14.04.3 LTS and it runs great but i still need GPU drivers, i had problems with that in ubuntu because my GPU has no longer support from AMD and i cannot figure out how to install legacy drivers. Can you help me with that?

[Burusutazu]

so i installed Xubuntu 14.04.3 LTS and it runs great but i still need GPU drivers, i had problems with that in ubuntu because my GPU has no longer support from AMD and i cannot figure out how to install legacy drivers. Can you help me with that?

Installing the legacy drivers is out of my reach of knowledge, and from what I read up on about it it is not really worth the hassle. If the open source radion driver is working for your igpu I would just stick to that.

[Opask]

Xubuntu or Kubuntu if your looking for lightweight but modern derivatives of Ubuntu 

 

They would run much faster 

KDE lightweight lol. Its the heaviest DE that you can possibly find.

XFCE is pretty lightweight so if you need a DE its the better choice.

 

To go ultralight weight while still extremely functional you would want arch or gentoo because they have virtually nothing pre-installed. But neither are noob friendly.

[Krakish]

Xubuntu runs great compared to any windows i had there, thanks the open source radeon drivers that were pre-installed ale fine except the igpu runs a bit hotter on temps, not overheating but could be better. and there is a hybernation/suspend bug. But now it runs very smooth and it can even hande several tabs open at the same time which is very nice.
Is there any SSD optimization i need to do or is it fine as is?  

[driib]

@Krakish thank you for posting a follow-up! Do you still have that machine? I am going to install Xubuntu on an AMD Athlon II based laptop and wanted to check if recent versions of Xubuntu like 22.04 still support it (esp. the iGPU) or if I should go for Xubuntu 20.04 or 18.04?

[Biohazard777]

33 minutes ago, driib said:

@Krakish thank you for posting a follow-up! Do you still have that machine? I am going to install Xubuntu on an AMD Athlon II based laptop and wanted to check if recent versions of Xubuntu like 22.04 still support it (esp. the iGPU) or if I should go for Xubuntu 20.04 or 18.04?

Necroposting... 
It is best to either start a new topic or find more recent threads, the person you mentioned hasn't been active since 2019...

Anyhow, here is a lot more recent thread, relevant for you:

TL;DR version: you might need to install 18, then do a couple of "do-release-upgrades" to get to the current LTS version.

[dight]

puppy linux

it’a based on Slackware but there’s versions with compatibility with packages from different distros like debian and arch

failing that just use any distro with lxde or lxqt. if you want you could even take the plunge into tiling window managers. if you don’t wanna use linux idk windows xp tiny7 or tiny10