Switching to Linux, but WHICH ONE?

[Gat Pelsinger]

The only purpose for me to switch to Linux is because of my old and slow PC. Windows's performance is just unacceptable. So I am looking for a light and performant Linux distro which has less memory requirement, boots faster, and has less stuff going on and not eat my disk usage. Had used Lubuntu before, can say was definitely impressed, but I couldn't install drivers, but I think I definitely can install some drivers. Ah yes, for the driver support, this system only has an old Intel IGPU(4th gen), but I think it is possible to find a driver for it I believe, but, what about for stuff like wifi, ethernet, bluetooth, chipset, touchpad, etc.? I found out the most of these stuff just work out of the box in Linux, but that doesn't mean that those default drivers have optimal performance, right? And for the distros, I believe there are even better distros than Lubuntu. Obviously, if I want to most performant and lightweight distro, I would be better off with TinyCore, but I am also looking for a good ratio of performance and usability. I am willing to try multiple distros, so TinyCore is definitely on my list on the most extreme side of the performance slider, but I also want to try other distros that are either performant in different way, or are better usable, and stuff like that. Also, please help me with drivers.

 

Btw, one more thing, I know there is stuff like Arch, Debian, Fedora, and stuff like that, is there any better advantage in using one over other? What is the actual difference?

[RONOTHAN##]

18 minutes ago, Hensen Juang said:

I know there is stuff like Arch, Debian, Fedora, and stuff like that, is there any better advantage in using one over other? What is the actual difference?

The big difference between them is the package manager. Arch and its derivatives uses Pacman, Debian and its derivatives use apt, Fedora and its derivatives use dnf, OpenSUSE and its derivatives use zypper, etc. Each of them do have pros and cons to each other for how they behave, Pacman is usually the most up to date, though tends to have a bigger learning curve than the others, while dnf is very straightforward to use with some really cool features but tends to be very slow to operate. There are a lot more nuances to it than I'm going into, a lot of this is just personal preference, plus there's some backend stuff that will change as well, though for the majority of people the biggest difference they'll run into when using one of the different major distros is the experience using the package manager. 

 

22 minutes ago, Hensen Juang said:

I found out the most of these stuff just work out of the box in Linux, but that doesn't mean that those default drivers have optimal performance, right?

Most of the time, the optimal driver is the one out of the box. The only exceptions to that are really when you're using a Nvidia GPU or a more obscure device that only has closed source drivers. For everything else, the open source drivers are pretty good, and they're all baked right into the Linux Kernel. 

 

If I was going to recommend a distro for this application, it would be Lubuntu. It's a good balance of creature comforts, reliability, and not being overly heavy to run. Another option I've done in the past is use EndeavorOS with the LXQt desktop environment, that gives a similar look and feel to Lubuntu (same desktop environment), but you end up with an Arch-based system instead with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings along with it. In theory that is a bit lighter as there's less pre-installed software, though in practice I doubt you'd actually notice and personally I've never had an Arch install survive longer than 3 months without some sort of major break. 

[Eigenvektor]

20 minutes ago, Hensen Juang said:

Btw, one more thing, I know there is stuff like Arch, Debian, Fedora, and stuff like that, is there any better advantage in using one over other? What is the actual difference?

The primary difference between distributions usually comes down to:

• Which version of the Linux kernel is used by default
• Which desktop environment (DE) is pre-installed
• How recent are software packages
• How often do they receive (breaking) changes?
• Some config files may be in different locations or use a different syntax
• The package manager may be different
• Is proprietary software (like Nvidia drivers) in the repo or easily installable?

For example Debian is primarily aimed at servers and values stability over everything else. It will only include well tested packages. These packages will only receive bug fixes and generally no major version upgrades within a Debian version. It also typically isn't used with a desktop environment.

 

Arch on the other hand is a rolling distribution that will always have the latest versions of everything. Good for supporting newer hardware and when you want ultimate customizeability. Bad when you expect stability.

 

Ubuntu is somewhere in the midddle and generally aimed at people with less Linux knowledge. It is based on a snapshot of Debian Testing, which means it has newer versions than a release version of Debian, but they are tested and patched before release.

 

Manajaro is based on Arch, but not quite as bleeding edge and packages are held back for some time to mature, so it should have less risk of breaking changes on updates.

[BeerisLife]

For new users I always suggest Linux Mint Cinnamon edition. It has everything you need out-of-the-box and it's easy to install proprietary video and Wi-Fi drivers. Installing and removing kernels is also  a breeze.

 

I like glitz so my main machine runs KDE Neon with the beautiful Plasma desktop, but I do have Mint running on another machine.

 

It also runs well on a ThinkPad Edge 14 0578CTO i5 M520 2.4Ghz 8Gb RAm and 500Gb SSD.

[BeerisLife]

4 minutes ago, BeerisLife said:

For new users I always suggest Linux Mint Cinnamon edition. It has everything you need out-of-the-box and it's easy to install proprietary video and Wi-Fi drivers. Installing and removing kernels is also  a breeze.

 

I like glitz so my main machine runs KDE Neon with the beautiful Plasma desktop, but I do have Mint running on another machine.

 

It also runs well on a ThinkPad Edge 14 0578CTO i5 M520 2.4Ghz 8Gb RAm and 500Gb SSD.

 

[BankHealthy]

I would recommend starting with something like Linux Mint. If you want a light desktop environment, get the XFCE version. It's what I use on my ThinkPad e595.

 

If you want something lighter, AntiX with IceWM would work. This works on my SL410 that has a Core2Duo on it. It will only use 150mb of RAM.

 

 

[mntl]

I want to throw in some more questions and hints, that may help in some areas, but will make the decision a bit harder probably. I think, these are important things to think about and can move you in a right direction.

So first of all a really good thing is, that the distribution is not hard tied to a desktop environment (Gnome, XFCE, KDE, i3-wm, …) like windows or MacOS. Normally all distributions can be used with all of them. Question to answer there is, if you want to us X or Wayland (windowing system). This is a rather technical question and also for a lot of people using Linux for a long time not an easy one. X is not really nice, "old" but mostly works. Wayland is the new "goto", but still has problems. I guess a good thing can be to take some time, try out different setup (maybe also just in a Live system booted from an USB) and see what feels best for you. That being said, with time you will find things that work and some that don't work for you. So with usage there will be changes to what you feel comfortable to do.

Distributions. For me this heavily depends on what you want to do and what you are doing in other areas. I personally am using Debian testing, with setting the repos to not use the current version but the testing tag, as Debian uses release cycles as already said. This setup moves a bit more into a "rolling release" cycle, which I like more. Debian was the starting point for me, as a lot of friends at the time I started with Linux used it too, so one of the biggest factors I see there is, if you friends that are using Linux, start with a similar setup, as then it can be easier for them to help you with questions, which is a huge plus when starting. Another argument for Debian I have is, that in my work I do a lot on Debian systems, containers that build up on Debian derivatives and things like that. For me it is just more comfortable to just use more or less the same things and know how to search for solutions for problems, as they are quite similar. Coming from an academia background in numerics and machine learning a lot of things are setup to run on Ubuntu (also a Debian derivative), which again makes things sometimes a bit easier. All in all a big consideration can be, what other people are using to do the things you want to do. If you want to game a lot other Distros like Pop OS or even Arch could be a good choice, as for example the SteamDeck is built upon Arch.

The most important thing is, to not discourage yourself and take time to find solutions for problems. It will probably be a rough ride in the beginning, but there are a lot of resources to learn new stuff and normally all problems you will have are problems that other people already had. That means, learning how to search for solutions will be a big part of the story, but for me it was totally worth it and I learned not only a lot on a technical level, but also how to more efficiently search for example.

[Xiee]

If you use an Nvidia card, I recommend going for distros that package the Nvidia drivers along with the ISO for easier installation. A good example is PoP_OS. 

[LloydLynx]

I'd recommend you start with Ubuntu. It's the biggest name with the best support. 4th gen Intel is plenty powerful to run it, as long as you have enough RAM. Don't be afraid to try other distros though.

 

Drivers work differently on Linux than Windows. Hardware makers typically don't provide drivers to the end user. Rather they try to get their drivers merged into the Linux kernel so everything is included when you install the OS. There are exceptions though, such as Nvidia. Unless there's an issue, just use the drivers that came with the distro.

 

Light weight isn't necessarily proportional to performance. Extreme distros make sacrifices to be so light weight, like using an older kernel or modifying the kernel to be more minimal. This means modern features and optimizations for modern hardware might not be there; for example, the thread scheduler for 12th & 13th gen Intel being created and then improved. This is on major example out of thousands of others.

[joey7597]

Speaking from personal experience I started with Ubuntu back when I first got into Linux because its package manager is the easiest to use even in the terminal and it really is one of the less intimidating distros out there. I eventually got a steam deck which runs Arch in a KDE desktop environment and I I have really enjoyed it so much so I retired my desktop and do a lot of my computing on a docked steam deck running in desktop mode. The more I used it the more use to Linux I became and since its a system designed for Linux I never had to worry about driver support. I did have to go out of my way to unlock the read only partitions on the steam deck in order to install things like CUPS (printer drivers) and what not but aside from that its been smooth. Since then I tried installing Kobuntu on my laptop, a ubuntu distro with a KDE desktop and it simply did not work well for me, I was experiencing a lot of issues with the logon screen and setting up things like the fingerprint reader that I eventually gave up on using it. I am not a expert Linux user YET but if I was I am sure I might have eventually figured it out but instead I moved to Manjaro Linux which has more in common to the OS running on the steam deck. It is Arch Based with a KDE desktop and they offer other desktop environments if KDE is not your thing. So far it has been smooth sailing and it runs a lot snappier at least on my computer then Kobuntu did

 

My recommendation is definitely Manjaro. So far I really like it and my experiences with it has been positive. Keep in mind though I am a college student and most of my computing is in cloud VM's, word processors, and web browsing. Manjaro also doesn't feel as bloated as Ubuntu can sometimes. Also just be prepared to spend hours figuring out solutions to problems you may encounter in Linux, its kind of a right of passage but as you become more familiar with it those hours will turn to minutes over time.

 

As for drivers I think most distros are pretty good at driver support unless you are running a dedicated graphics card like NVIDIA etc.

[HeroRareheart]

On 8/16/2023 at 3:47 AM, Hensen Juang said:

I am looking for a light and performant Linux distro...most of these stuff just work out of the box in Linux, but that doesn't mean that those default drivers have optimal performance, right?

Glad you've decided to dip your toes into Linux! Without having more details about your system, such as amount of RAM and a more precise CPU model, it's difficult to pin down a recommendation that will preform well on your hardware. Seeing as you are newer to the Linux space I'd advise distros that brand themselves as user friendly, such as Linux Mint or Ubuntu, over things that are more advanced like Arch or GenToo. User friendly distros tend to include an option to use proprietary drivers when and where appropriate, but most drivers will be in the Linux kernel that ships with the distro and will preform optimally. Don't worry if you try a distro and it doesn't feel right or isn't what you're looking for, there are many options to choose from.

On 8/16/2023 at 3:47 AM, Hensen Juang said:

I know there is stuff like Arch, Debian, Fedora...is there any...advantage in using one over other? What is the actual difference?

There are many advantages and disadvantages to different Linux distros, but as a new user there are only a few things you need to be concerned about. People talk a lot about package managers and packaging formats, packages are how software is packaged and distributed to end users on Linux. Package managers can vary across distros, most of them work similarly and will have mostly the same software when it comes to common utilities so it's not worth over thinking. Most user friendly distros will have some kind of graphical interface for installing software and as a newer user that's mostly what you'll end up using, the backed isn't very important.

One of the big differences that you should know about are release models. There are several way to go about releasing Linux distros and several ways of keeping them up to date but the most common models are point releases, rolling releases and something in between often called a semi-rolling release;
-Point releases release similarly to Windows, every so often the distro gets a new version with more up to date software and new features. These distros are often refereed to as stable and tend to offer high compatibility with older hardware and run into fewer issues but ship with older software. Often you don't get feature updates until the next point release but will get security updates. Examples include Debian, Ubuntu, and Linux Mint.

-Rolling releases throw all caution to the wind in favor of having the latest and greatest at all times, often refereed to as bleeding edge. These distros can frequently break and require a lot of technical knowledge to maintain and use. They're often refereed to as bleeding edge and tend to support things sooner then other distros. Examples include Arch, Rhino, and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

-Semi-rolling releases fall somewhere between these two and can be refereed to as cutting edge. They maintain a good amount of stability while also offering more up to date features and better compatibility with newer hardware. Often these distros have point releases but tent to push more minor feature updates along side security updates.The only example coming to mind right now is Fedora.

 

As a new user I believe the most important thing for you to consider are desktop environments. In a nutshell, desktop environments is the GUI you use to interact with and use your computer. There are many different ones that work very differently from each other and support many different things. Unfortunately I cannot tell you which one is best, it's all highly personal and dependent on what your hardware can handle. Although you can install any desktop environment on any Linux distro I advise new users to just focus on what ships OOTB and try a new distro if they don't like the desktop environment it ships with, as the process of switching desktop environments is complex and daunting. I personally recommend trying out Gnome, Cinnamon, Budgie, or MATE. Here is a rough breakdown as to why I think these are good choices;
-Gnome is highly focused on having a consisting, modern, friendly interface with a hefty focus on efficient keyboard heavy navigation. It's very different from what most people are used to and an excellent way to discover your personal preferences, however it's a very resource intense desktop environment. Fedora ships stock Gnome OOTB and Ubuntu uses a modified version that resembles a more traditional layout that's more friendly to mouse navigation.
-Cinnamon is very traditional desktop environment bound to make users from the Windows XP and 7 era feel at home. It's mid weight on resource use and although an official Fedora Cinnamon spin and Ubuntu Cinnamon flavor exist I think it functions best with Linux Mint.

-Budgie is similar to Cinnamon in that it is a close analogue to an established mainstream UI but instead of invoking a look and feel similar to older Windows it feels more like MacOS. Ubuntu has a Budgie flavor available and Fedora has an official Budgie spin.
-Lastly MATE. MATE dosn't really invoke the look or feel of any mainstream desktops like Windows or MacOS, however it's rather intuitive albeit a bit old school. It's lightweight and nothing special but it's also nothing to scoff at, Ubuntu has a MATE flavor and Fedora also has a MATE spin available.

There are a few honorable mentions which I would only advise after you've gained some comfort with Linux and wish to branch out more, like tiling window managers and KDE. Tiling window managers are stupid simple, open an application and it fills your screen. If you open second app and screen automatically resizes the current open window and places the window you just opened beside it. They tend to be lightweight and customizable but NOT friendly to new users and often require manual configuration editing to get the behavior you want. KDE is a super customizable desktop environment and while the OOTB config on most distros is good enough the real reason people use KDE is the absolutely insane amount of features and customization. If you can think of it you can probably do it on KDE.

If you have any questions or want clarification feel free to ask in the thread or DM me. If you'd like to communicate on another platform for one reason or another I'm comfortable with that, just reach-out in a forum DM first.

Edited August 18, 2023 by HeroRareheart
Added context to the added a line.

[Gat Pelsinger]

@RONOTHAN## @Eigenvektor @BeerisLife @bgomez @mntl @Xiee @LloydLynx @joey7597 @AlignedTrack432 @HeroRareheart

 

I might be a "Linux newbie", but not a computer or software newbie. I've tried a few distros by now. Pls don't recommend Mint, Ubuntu or Manjaro because I've tried them and their performance and resource hogging is still very similar to Windows. I am not saying that they are unoptimized, it's just that they are very heavy because their aim is to be user-friendly, which makes any OS use up more resources. The lighter an OS gets, generally, the more technical it becomes to interact with it.

 

If somebody knows me, I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I am willing to install scratchy Linux distros and experiment. I am a very optimistic guy. Even if my PC specs are good enough to run any OS, I want that OS to take a reasonable amount of resources. On my older laptop on which I am installing Linux, I have 4210U,4GB,HDD,IGPU. Please don't bombard me with telling to at least upgrade my ram and storage. I will be able to do to that after a while.

 

Also, I absolutely do not care about stuff like latest features and all. My PC is already old that all Linux distros today should have features for it. And generally the older the OS is, the lighter it is to run. And I also don't care much about security. It's like paying for insurance, expect the time to use the insurance "might" never come and instead I would have made huge profit by taking that risk.

 

Just because modern hardware is getting better doesn't mean mean we would not optimize software. In my opinion, an OS should not take more than 2-3 gigs of memory at idle, and also should not be more than 20-30 GB in space. I could go hours ranting about Windows, but now it's not the time.

 

Also, pls don't write walls of text, I hate reading them it's boring.

[sageofredondo]

> Had used Lubuntu before, can say was definitely impressed, but I couldn't install drivers

What drivers did you have issues with? From the latter part of your wall of text it seems like you got things working?

 

> but that doesn't mean that those default drivers have optimal performance, right?

What makes you say that? If things work as well as Windows does what is the issue?


> Obviously, if I want to most performant and lightweight distro, I would be better off with TinyCore

 

Not obvious, never heard of TinyCore. Heard of Puppy Linux. If you can handle how limited FLWM is give it a try.


> The only purpose for me to switch to Linux is because of my old and slow PC.

One of the biggest reasons why Windows slows down is hardware mitigations that slow down the OS. Windows makes it very difficult to disable them, but Linux allows you to disable them pretty easy. Add this to your /etc/default/grub's GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX mitigations=off i915.mitigations=off (just before the " at the end of the line) and regenerate your kernel entries.

On Lubuntu this would be update-grub if I remember correctly.

 

Keep in mind, you do risk security issues. Esp if you run a VM or a container one day. But meh, likely fewer security issues that Windows.

> I know there is stuff like Arch, Debian, Fedora, and stuff like that, is there any better advantage in using one over other? What is the actual difference?

Update frequency, types of packages that get updated, and compatibility with the Nvidia driver. If you have a newer AMD igpu laptop you would want Fedora or Arch for fresher drivers. Arch requires a lot of work to learn and setup, if you want to learn more Linux as a platform, use Arch. Fedora has a turn key installer, but you do not see many updates for the GUI outside of GNOME. More of an issue for KDE than LXDE. Fedora would be great if you are planning on getting Red Hat certs in the future.

As a new Linux user, Lubuntu is fine, and has a good implementation of LXDE. If you just want a quick OS replacement, use it.


> Also, pls don't write walls of text, I hate reading them it's boring.

Spacing out your own walls of text makes it easier to read and less... boring.

[LloydLynx]

3 hours ago, Hensen Juang said:

@RONOTHAN## @Eigenvektor @BeerisLife @bgomez @mntl @Xiee @LloydLynx @joey7597 @AlignedTrack432 @HeroRareheart

 

I might be a "Linux newbie", but not a computer or software newbie. I've tried a few distros by now. Pls don't recommend Mint, Ubuntu or Manjaro because I've tried them and their performance and resource hogging is still very similar to Windows. I am not saying that they are unoptimized, it's just that they are very heavy because their aim is to be user-friendly, which makes any OS use up more resources. The lighter an OS gets, generally, the more technical it becomes to interact with it.

 

If somebody knows me, I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I am willing to install scratchy Linux distros and experiment. I am a very optimistic guy. Even if my PC specs are good enough to run any OS, I want that OS to take a reasonable amount of resources. On my older laptop on which I am installing Linux, I have 4210U,4GB,HDD,IGPU. Please don't bombard me with telling to at least upgrade my ram and storage. I will be able to do to that after a while.

 

Also, I absolutely do not care about stuff like latest features and all. My PC is already old that all Linux distros today should have features for it. And generally the older the OS is, the lighter it is to run. And I also don't care much about security. It's like paying for insurance, expect the time to use the insurance "might" never come and instead I would have made huge profit by taking that risk.

 

Just because modern hardware is getting better doesn't mean mean we would not optimize software. In my opinion, an OS should not take more than 2-3 gigs of memory at idle, and also should not be more than 20-30 GB in space. I could go hours ranting about Windows, but now it's not the time.

 

Also, pls don't write walls of text, I hate reading them it's boring.

Debian. It has a 3 year release cycle with a 5 year life span per release, and gives you options of what desktop to install when you install the OS. It is more of a techie OS, but by far not the most difficult. 

https://www.debian.org/

[Cosmic Emotion]

7 hours ago, Hensen Juang said:

@RONOTHAN## @Eigenvektor @BeerisLife @bgomez @mntl @Xiee @LloydLynx @joey7597 @AlignedTrack432 @HeroRareheart

 

I might be a "Linux newbie", but not a computer or software newbie. I've tried a few distros by now. Pls don't recommend Mint, Ubuntu or Manjaro because I've tried them and their performance and resource hogging is still very similar to Windows. I am not saying that they are unoptimized, it's just that they are very heavy because their aim is to be user-friendly, which makes any OS use up more resources. The lighter an OS gets, generally, the more technical it becomes to interact with it.

 

If somebody knows me, I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I am willing to install scratchy Linux distros and experiment. I am a very optimistic guy. Even if my PC specs are good enough to run any OS, I want that OS to take a reasonable amount of resources. On my older laptop on which I am installing Linux, I have 4210U,4GB,HDD,IGPU. Please don't bombard me with telling to at least upgrade my ram and storage. I will be able to do to that after a while.

 

Also, I absolutely do not care about stuff like latest features and all. My PC is already old that all Linux distros today should have features for it. And generally the older the OS is, the lighter it is to run. And I also don't care much about security. It's like paying for insurance, expect the time to use the insurance "might" never come and instead I would have made huge profit by taking that risk.

 

Just because modern hardware is getting better doesn't mean mean we would not optimize software. In my opinion, an OS should not take more than 2-3 gigs of memory at idle, and also should not be more than 20-30 GB in space. I could go hours ranting about Windows, but now it's not the time.

 

Also, pls don't write walls of text, I hate reading them it's boring.

I mean how far down the rabbit whole are you willing to go? An Arch install with Sway as the Tiling Window Manager is one of the lightest installs you can have. Or you might want to look into Bodhi Linux which is also extrmely light.

[BankHealthy]

How is Manjaro resource extensive? What Desktop Environment did you use? I mean, Manjaro with XFCE will usually just use <800MB of RAM.

 

At this point, I would recommend something like MXLinux with Fluxbox or if you want something much lighter, AntiX with ICEWM.

4GB of RAM is not that bad with AntiX with ICEWM since it will use <200MB on idle. MXLinux with Fluxbox will use about 400MB.

[Gat Pelsinger]

@sageofredondo What is the hardware mitigation thingy you told? Also, about the drivers, I couldn't really find Intel gpu drivers, but probably I didn't try to find it very well. I've seen other people install it.

[Gat Pelsinger]

Conclusion : Install all 600+ Linux distros and try .

[sageofredondo]

14 minutes ago, Hensen Juang said:

@sageofredondo What is the hardware mitigation thingy you told? Also, about the drivers, I couldn't really find Intel gpu drivers, but probably I didn't try to find it very well. I've seen other people install it.

What do you mean you didn't find them? They should have just worked on a live boot.

For Haswell, the 4000 series laptop you have, it needs the i915 driver. This is built into the kernel and mesa; it should work perfectly fine out of the box on a modern distro.

Both AMD (AMDGPU) and Intel (i915 for most modern devices, except Xe, which will handle Intel Arc and 12th gen+ in the future) do have vendor provider drivers like Nvidia does. But unlike Nvidia both Intel and AMD support the open source drivers so you do not have to do anything extra. The open source built in drivers often run better than the vendor provided stuff.

Read more here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/intel_graphics#top-page

You can read more about hardware mitigations here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Improving_performance#Turn_off_CPU_exploit_mitigations

Insert the text:

mitigations=off i915.mitigations=off

to the same line that starts with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=", just before the closing ".

The first item I wrote disables it for the cpu to improve performance. The second disables it for the igpu for Intel machines; otherwise it causes really bad graphical performance on Haswell.

Why don't you try installing a distro and snap a screenshot of what issue you have and post it here?

I have no idea if the above about mitigations works on TinyCore; you will have to get help from them on that. It should work with Ubuntu family, Debian, Fedora, etc. Others can correct me but I think Arch/Manjaro handles grub a little differently?

[HeroRareheart]

11 hours ago, Hensen Juang said:

Conclusion : Install all 600+ Linux distros and try .

Pretty much.

[HeroRareheart]

19 hours ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

An Arch install with Sway as the Tiling Window Manager is one of the lightest installs you can have.

If you go even further GenToo could, in theory, run better.

[Dat Guy]

On 8/16/2023 at 9:47 AM, Hensen Juang said:

The only purpose for me to switch to Linux is because of my old and slow PC. Windows's performance is just unacceptable.

 

Have you considered BSD instead of Linux? Contemporary Linux distributions tend to be large and slow.

[Dat Guy]

2 minutes ago, HeroRareheart said:

If you go even further GenToo could, in theory, run better.

 

Sure, but compiling your system on an aging machine is not fun.

[HeroRareheart]

Just now, Dat Guy said:

 

Sure, but compiling your system on an aging machine is not fun.

ALSO correct. My P4 laptop that I tried it on took days and at the end of it I botched the install because it's GenToo and no matter how well the guidebook is written it's still hard to understand what to do.

[Dat Guy]

My first (and only) Gentoo installation took me a week and I killed it by updating the kernel. Sigh.