Linux better for weak laptop?

[Jbay]

Hi there. I have a pretty old laptop with limited resources, I have a fresh install of windows 10 on and I struggle to play YouTube videos at 60fps. I will be upgrading the ram soon (to 4gb from 2) which should help but I'd like to know if the Linux OS is more light weight than windows 10. Since I won't be doing anything more than browsing the web and watching videos, I really only need the lightest OS possible to free up some power. 

 

Thanks.  

[zzzzzzzhhh]

Definitely, try out Lubuntu.

[Jbay]

Thanks, where can I acquire the OS, and are there any special steps I need to take to install it? Could I create a bootable USB ISO and install like that?

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, Jbay said:

Thanks, where can I acquire the OS, and are there any special steps I need to take to install it? Could I create a bootable USB ISO and install like that?

 yeah.

[RadiatingLight]

if you want, you could also experiment with remix OS. which is android for PC.

[Jbay]

Cool, sounds good. Thanks for the insight everyone, I appreciate it:) 

[pipnina]

3 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

if you want, you could also experiment with remix OS. which is android for PC.

My only experience with android is bloat.

My moto G3 might not be the most powerful phone, but it runs like crap and has ever since it updated to android 6.

[Brennan Price]

20 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

if you want, you could also experiment with remix OS. which is android for PC.

Have you ever tried that? It is horribly slow on even my main Desktop PC and there are bugs and ads everywhere. Highly do not recommend, sorry bruh.

[Dat Guy]

2 hours ago, Jbay said:

I really only need the lightest OS possible to free up some power.

 

Try OpenBSD.

[H0R53]

6 hours ago, Jbay said:

Hi there. I have a pretty old laptop with limited resources, I have a fresh install of windows 10 on and I struggle to play YouTube videos at 60fps. I will be upgrading the ram soon (to 4gb from 2) which should help but I'd like to know if the Linux OS is more light weight than windows 10. Since I won't be doing anything more than browsing the web and watching videos, I really only need the lightest OS possible to free up some power. 

 

Thanks.  

Try Windows 7. I have a laptop with 4GB RAM (3 usable), a Core 2 Duo T7200, and AMD X1600 graphics. It's from 2006, and it plays 60FPS YouTube just fine.

 

Windows 7 is far better than any other version of Windows to date.

[RadiatingLight]

6 hours ago, Brennan_Price said:

Have you ever tried that? It is horribly slow on even my main Desktop PC and there are bugs and ads everywhere. Highly do not recommend, sorry bruh.

I have actually. dual-boot it on my main PC.

works fine for me.

 

what problems have you experienced?

[Guest]

I second LuBuntu. 

 

Edit:

its a version of (arguable) the easiest and most popular version of Linux-Ubuntu. 99% of people will say Ubuntu is the best Linux distribution for beginners. However it's still great for intermediate, and advanced users. 

 

Also so lubuntu has a similar layout to Windows XP... and if you read enough of my posts; Windows XP is my favorite OS of all time! 

[H0R53]

10 hours ago, Tibbles said:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/GetLubuntu

Use a program such as Rufus to create a live USB.

DON'T USE RUFUS ON USB 3+ DRIVES

IT CORRUPTS THE MEMORY CONTROLLER

 

I had a $200 USB 3.1 256GB drive I planned to use as a portable Ubuntu drive. Worked fine until I used Rufus on it.

 

The way it writes the EFI tables corrupts the drive beyond repair.

 

Mine shows up as 2704 PRAM Device now - even though the drive was brand new.

[th3runninggeek]

Lubuntu has brought back the oldest of XP machines for me!

[noahdvs]

18 hours ago, H0R53 said:

DON'T USE RUFUS ON USB 3+ DRIVES

IT CORRUPTS THE MEMORY CONTROLLER

 

I had a $200 USB 3.1 256GB drive I planned to use as a portable Ubuntu drive. Worked fine until I used Rufus on it.

 

The way it writes the EFI tables corrupts the drive beyond repair.

 

Mine shows up as 2704 PRAM Device now - even though the drive was brand new.

I used it many times on a 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive and that didn't happen, but I suppose that's something to look out for. So you couldn't even make a new table using a tool like gparted?

[H0R53]

4 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

I used it many times on a 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive and that didn't happen, but I suppose that's something to look out for. So you couldn't even make a new table using a tool like gparted?

It depends on the image you use, and the method, but the one I did it with was shot after Rufus was done.

[Brennan Price]

On 16/07/2017 at 4:33 AM, RadiatingLight said:

I have actually. dual-boot it on my main PC.

works fine for me.

 

what problems have you experienced?

It was just generally really slow in practically any task I do compared to actually using Android on a phone. Plus, there was things that kept popping up for no good reason. This was a fresh install btw so it didn't have a virus or anything. I just didn't like it compared to using my Favourite OS of all time Linux Lite 3.0