Should I Install Linux On My Laptop?

[Muhlis]

Hi,

 

I have an old laptop, which is a hybrid laptop with only 32 GB of space, 2 GB of RAM (DDR3), and an Intel Atom Z3735F CPU. I've been using it for 4 years in total. Currently, it has a Windows 10 (32-bit). Nowadays it feels slow, even if I format/factory reset it.

 

I start to think about switching to Linux on it but should I? I'm a bit concerned about hardware compatibilities like audio or display brightness.

 

Ubuntu has high system requirements, the same for Linux Mint. I found out that Xubuntu and Lubuntu may be the sweet spot for my laptop. But are they good? Are there any better alternatives?

 

On the laptop, I'm planning to stream videos locally or from the web.

 

And one more question, can any program that has a Linux version can be installed on any Linux distribution?

 

Thanks.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why not try a live usb? It should answer all of those questions.

 

Most linux software can run on most distros, esp ubuntu vs xubuntu, where the only differnce is the ui

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Muhlis Gursoy said:

And one more question, can any program that has a Linux version can be installed on any Linux distribution?

There are some special cases where a proprietary app is only designed to work with a specific distro and would require jumping through hoops to get to work on another distro. These are really rare, though, and nearly everything can be installed on any of the major distros.

[isaamthegreat]

You can first try using live usb of different distros and then choose the one whit which you are most comfortable.....

I recommend you start with elemenary os 

All the best.. :-))

[pwd0dino]

You should start with Ubuntu one of them LTS Version. 

 

Go in the Live Boot. (Or install it directly)

After Installation make a Update:

 

Quote

sudo apt update

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sudo apt upgrade

Then you should have all drivers installed.

[Koeshi]

On 5/13/2020 at 6:15 AM, isaamthegreat said:

I recommend you start with elemenary os 

He has 2GB of RAM and is concerned about slowness, Xubuntu or Lubuntu would be much better options than going with what is arguably the flashiest distro around.

[Kilrah]

What matters is what you do. Even on a light linux distro loading 2 tabs with modern websites in a browser will fill your 2GB. Minimizing OS use goes some way but in the end apps use much more nowadays.

[sp331yi]

Quote

Are there any better alternatives?

For your hardware -- yes!

LinuxLite is one I can vouch for  If it will work on a P4 with one gig RAM, it'll work on your Atom with two gigs. 

Any viable distro for your current hardware will be 32bit.

 

[isaamthegreat]

53 minutes ago, Koeshi said:

He has 2GB of RAM and is concerned about slowness, Xubuntu or Lubuntu would be much better options than going with what is arguably the flashiest distro around.

Well I said that because I am also using the same on my 2 gig machine and it works just fine for normal work like browsing, streaming etc. But still I agree with you..

[Wild Penquin]

Choose a desktop which consumes only a little RAM. Some comparisons I could find quickly was this, however even that is 3 years old. Things might have changed, but generally, anything is better than Unity or Gnome. KDE Plasma used to be bloated, but isn't these days. If you want a modern DE with good RAM usage, give it a spin. If it uses too much RAM, try something even more lightweight. (EDIT: noticed it has only 32GB of storage. KDE Plasma might take up a lot of that space, even though it is lighter on RAM usage.)

 

If you are a nerd and can use something heavily depending on keyboard shortcurts, reading documentation and writing configuration files by hand, try i3 window manager. It is not a full-blown desktop environment (but a tiling window manager) but might be just the right thing for some nerdy people out there .

 

A middle ground could be xfce or lxde, as these seem to be quite light on memory usage.

 

EDIT: lxqt or Mate seem to be lighter on RAM usage these days (it is a bit difficult to find up-to-date information); xfce is only on-par with Plasma and lxde seems to be unmaintained for a few years (nope! It seems active, but doesn't have a web page currently). Enlightement is another alternative, but it is less user-friendly than i3 the last time I tried. I don't remember the issues / gripes I had with it exactly, so it might be still worthwhile to test! See this this (from 2019)

 

The choice of distribution is not as important as the choice of DE. You can slim down any distribution to shut down unnecessary background stuff, however this will give some tens of megabytes (max 50mb), but with only 2GB every tens of megabytes can count. Of course a distribution which is already quite light is better and easier on maintenance for the system administrator (you ).

 

That computer would quite a bit more useful, if you can double it's RAM to 4GB with new (or second-hand) RAM sticks. It probably uses DDR3 SO-DIMMs (unless it is integrated / soldered on the MB), and in that case upgrading RAM is certainly feasible (even quadrupling up to 8GB).

[sp331yi]

EDIT:  for even better performance than LinuxLite, try antiX 19.1

good luck!

[lyiriyah]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:59 PM, Muhlis Gursoy said:

Hi,

 

I have an old laptop, which is a hybrid laptop with only 32 GB of space, 2 GB of RAM (DDR3), and an Intel Atom Z3735F CPU. I've been using it for 4 years in total. Currently, it has a Windows 10 (32-bit). Nowadays it feels slow, even if I format/factory reset it.

 

I start to think about switching to Linux on it but should I? I'm a bit concerned about hardware compatibilities like audio or display brightness.

 

Ubuntu has high system requirements, the same for Linux Mint. I found out that Xubuntu and Lubuntu may be the sweet spot for my laptop. But are they good? Are there any better alternatives?

 

On the laptop, I'm planning to stream videos locally or from the web.

 

And one more question, can any program that has a Linux version can be installed on any Linux distribution?

 

Thanks.

Manjaro is pretty easy to use and you get access to the AUR which has A LOT of software.