I want to revive an old Lenovo laptop with an AMD A6 2.6GHz and 4GB ram, what would be the best option for a DE?
- OsrsNeedsF2P ( @OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml ) 22•3 months ago
PSA no matter how light your distro, any modern app or webpage will use all that power
- Trent ( @Trent@lemmy.ml ) English19•3 months ago
I usually go with Xfce.
- Eugenia ( @eugenia@lemmy.ml ) English10•3 months ago
That’s fast enough to run the latest Linux Mint with Cinnamon. I have two laptops with the exact same cpu speed (passmark score) and 4 GB of ram. With 2 GB swap file you will be in business.
Oh, that’s pretty neat info. I’m more of an Arch user but I might give Linux mint a try now that I know that. Thanks
- Zier ( @Zier@fedia.io ) 9•3 months ago
I’m running Kubuntu on less than that on a desktop and it works just fine.
- edric ( @scytale@lemm.ee ) 8•3 months ago
Technically not a DE, but I like plain openbox.
- CarlCook ( @CarlCook@feddit.de ) 2•3 months ago
Wasn‘t there a crunchbang project putting this nicely together with debian? I remember it fondly, but that is centuries ago…
- MyNameIsRichard ( @MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml ) 4•3 months ago
Bunsen Labs and Crunchbang ++ carry that flag now.
- OopsAllTwix ( @OopsAllTwix@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English2•3 months ago
There’s also Mabox, Archcraft, and Arco.
- stoy ( @stoy@lemmy.zip ) 8•3 months ago
If you are still using X, get Fluxbox, very lightweight, requires some config, but that is fairly easy.
- qwerty ( @qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de ) 6•3 months ago
KDE plasma. From my experience it uses less resources than lxqt and xfce and works out of the box while lxqt and xfce required extra work to get wifi, screen brightness controls and audio working. I can have 10+ tabs in a chromium based browser open without lag on an old laptop with 2GB ram and 1.33 - 1.83GHz 4 core intel atom from 10 years ago.
- Sina ( @Sina@beehaw.org ) 6•3 months ago
A window manager like i3 or Openbox. If you are curious what that’s like, then try out Bunsenlab Linux. (XFWM4 is also a great choice, but it requires some know how to properly rip out the rest of Xfce, like the relatively heavy desktop and the panel)
- cerement ( @cerement@slrpnk.net ) 6•3 months ago
- the big guns: Gnome or Plasma
- the middle tier: Xfce or LXQt
- the lightweights: tiling window managers (and there’s a LOT to choose from)
- the alternative crowd: Mate, Cinnamon, Regolith
- RandomLegend [He/Him] ( @RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 6•3 months ago
OP asked for desktop env, and tiling window managers are… Well only window managers and not desktop environments…
I think gnome and KDE Plasma are just too heavy. And I would use a WM if it was for me, in fact that what I use in my daily driver but it is for someone not that tech savvy. I may check one from the alternative crowd tho. Thanks for the answer
- folkrav ( @folkrav@lemmy.ca ) 3•3 months ago
I seem to remember hearing about Plasma having similar memory usage to XFCE. Don’t quote me on that lol
- boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) 2•3 months ago
Try KDE Plasma, you can strip out a ton of it, for example XOrg entirely, baloo, animations, etc.
- krash ( @krash@lemmy.ml ) 1•3 months ago
Got any guides on how to strip plasma down to the bare necessities? I have it on a machine with 4 GB RAM, but I don’t know how to optimize it for such old hardware.
- boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) 2•3 months ago
I updated this project once. This is a very good start on what packages you need.
There are metapackages different for each distribution, like
plasma-meta
on Arch orplasma-workspace
on Fedora.This may be too bloated, but leaving out some core components (like infocenter or display) may result in random Systemsettings pages missing.
Also on Fedora, the “Netinstall” “minimal” variant is impossible to include wireless packages (“hardware support” group) so it is easier to start from a normal KDE install and just remove things you dont need.
Some things are also settings like
balooctl disable && balooctl purge
- loiakdsf ( @mr_pip@discuss.tchncs.de ) 1•3 months ago
not sure, if cinnamon still qualifies as alternative considering the massive Linux Mint crowd.
- MonkderDritte ( @MonkderDritte@feddit.de ) 1•3 months ago
- the alternative crowd: Mate, Cinnamon, Regolith
Middle tier too.
- kbal ( @kbal@fedia.io ) 4•3 months ago
Does Xfce count as light? It’s got plenty of features. Should fit in 4gb well enough though.
- RandomLegend [He/Him] ( @RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 4•3 months ago
If xfce doesnt count as light I don’t know what would
Well when I used tu it like 12 years ago it was very light. I’ll have to check now. Thanks for the answer
- poinck ( @poinck@lemm.ee ) 4•3 months ago
You could try Niri. I have tested it with a ~10 year old notebook with a 1st gen Core i5 cpu.
But, even newest Gnome runs smooth on this machine.
- GolfNovemberUniform ( @GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml ) 4•3 months ago
Xfce, LXQt or just install JWM and enjoy the 30 Mb idle RAM usage
- geoma ( @geoma@lemmy.ml ) 4•3 months ago
I would go mx linux fluxbox
- Dessalines ( @dessalines@lemmy.ml ) 3•3 months ago
Its fairly difficult to find “up-to-date” performance / RAM comparisons of Linux Desktop environments, but here’s a decent one from 2019 comparing memory usage of different Ubuntu flavors.
The most surprising thing is that despite KDE Plasma’s reputation as being more ram-hungry, it actually used less ram than XFCE, meaning its developers have been making performance a focus.
- phanto ( @phanto@lemmy.ca ) 3•3 months ago
I have a thumb drive with Mint Mate installed on it and it runs fine on a 4gb i5 - 3rd gen.