Best Linux for an old "CrapTop"

[PowerPCFan]

I have a laptop from 2011 with 6gb RAM, AMD A6 CPU, and a hard drive - unknown size. 

 

It's TERRIBLE. I have a new laptop so I don't use it, but I like to repurpose old tech. 

 

Windows 8 and 10 run terribly. ChromeOS Flex is fine but not great. 

 

I want to try a Linux. What's the best Linux distro that's super lightweight, looks nice, user friendly, and has the functionality of Windows and the nice UI elements of MacOS? I've heard Lubuntu and Linux Mint are good - is that true?  

[Needfuldoer]

I'll generally go to Ubuntu MATE as my first choice of distro, mostly because I'm old and stuck in my ways.

[PowerPCFan]

6 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

I'll generally go to Ubuntu MATE as my first choice of distro, mostly because I'm old and stuck in my ways.

Is it lightweight and does it run well? Looks pretty good

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

Is it lightweight and does it run well? Looks pretty good

Its fairly lightweight for  a modern linux distro.

 

I think you issue here is the browser. Doesn't matter how lightweight your os is when your browser is gonn be slow on tht CPU with modern websites and browsers

[Biohazard777]

25 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

and a hard drive - unknown size. 

SSD would help, a lot.

 

25 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

I've heard Lubuntu and Linux Mint are good - is that true?  

Sure.
I still have an Asus Eee PC (from 2012, Atom N570, just 1GB of RAM) and it runs Lubuntu 22.04 LTS just fine.
 

25 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

looks nice, user friendly,

LXQT will be fugly right out of the box, but slap on a different theme and icons and it can look pretty good IMO:

 

PS When I installed it it shipped with Snap version of Firefox, which was painfully slow to start... like ~15 seconds.
I removed that and installed Flatpak version of LibreWolf, and it starts up in a reasonable ammount of time, like 5x faster.
TL;DR avoid Snap as much as possbile on older hardware.

 

PPS If you want more screenshots I can boot it up and take some.

[PowerPCFan]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Its fairly lightweight for  a modern linux distro.

 

I think you issue here is the browser. Doesn't matter how lightweight your os is when your browser is gonn be slow on tht CPU with modern websites and browsers

The browsing speed was actually reasonable on ChromeOS, I feel like Linux would be just as good, but I agree, that CPU is definitely the limiting factor! It could also use a repaste but I don’t care about that laptop anyways so I won’t do that

[TimedPing]

I personally would go with bare Debian with XFCE, or even go with KDE Plasma if the laptop have more than 8GB of ram (both option without the debian GUI package option), but to safe the hassle, go with Linux Mint with XFCE, good for beginner to novice linux user.

[PowerPCFan]

4 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

I personally would go with bare Debian with XFCE, or even go with KDE Plasma if the laptop have more than 8GB of ram (both option without the debian GUI package option), but to safe the hassle, go with Linux Mint with XFCE, good for beginner to novice linux user.

I’ll probably just go with mint because it sounds easy to use (I’m a very experienced computer user but I’ve only touched Linux once) and it seems to just be good overall. 
 

is the Cinnamon desktop too heavy for this old of a computer? I really like how it looks  

[TimedPing]

30 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

is the Cinnamon desktop too heavy for this old of a computer? I really like how it looks  

I think XFCE look not as bad tho

[Rahro]

On 2/27/2024 at 4:59 AM, PowerPCFan said:

I have a laptop from 2011 with 6gb RAM, AMD A6 CPU, and a hard drive - unknown size. 

 

6GB of RAM is very nice!

I have an ancient MSI U270 running with AMD E450 with 2GB of RAM. currently it's running Linux Lite and before that I used Lubuntu on it. 

 

It depends on your use case. If you want it to be easy to use Lubuntu, Peppermint and Linux Lite would be great choices.

But i think with your hardware and since you like Cinnamon, You would be fine just installing Mint!

[goatedpenguin]

Your laptop is not that all low spec compared to other more "lower end laptops for Linux" if you want something really snappy then I would go with Puppy Linux, or if you are more experienced CachyOS would be a great option too. But given your current specs just go with a distro your comfortable with and don't use Gnome becuase of its bloatware etc. I would stick to xfce or i3. Btw don't underestimate the laptop or any old laptop they are usually way faster than you think and they can almost run any distro/app(except AAA games or 3d rendering etc.) I have a 9 yr old macbook pro and I still use it as my secondary laptop, it works like a charm but my only gripe for it would be its battery life, not that I take it outside or anything like that.

[PowerPCFan]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:42 AM, goatedpenguin said:

Your laptop is not that all low spec compared to other more "lower end laptops for Linux" if you want something really snappy then I would go with Puppy Linux, or if you are more experienced CachyOS would be a great option too. But given your current specs just go with a distro your comfortable with and don't use Gnome becuase of its bloatware etc. I would stick to xfce or i3. Btw don't underestimate the laptop or any old laptop they are usually way faster than you think and they can almost run any distro/app(except AAA games or 3d rendering etc.) I have a 9 yr old macbook pro and I still use it as my secondary laptop, it works like a charm but my only gripe for it would be its battery life, not that I take it outside or anything like that.

I installed Mint with XFCE, it's good enough for me - I'm not daily driving it (I have a much nicer new laptop) but it's working enough for a backup machine. 

[PowerPCFan]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:41 AM, Rahro said:

 

6GB of RAM is very nice!

I have an ancient MSI U270 running with AMD E450 with 2GB of RAM. currently it's running Linux Lite and before that I used Lubuntu on it. 

 

It depends on your use case. If you want it to be easy to use Lubuntu, Peppermint and Linux Lite would be great choices.

But i think with your hardware and since you like Cinnamon, You would be fine just installing Mint!

I did XFCE because the old 5400RPM HDD is soooo slow. It was successful, read my previous post I posted a few mins ago.