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idk_a_cool_username ,

Try antix. its requirements are 256mb ram. And it’s actually usable.

possiblylinux127 ,

It isn’t going to be faster than Debian. I think the issue is the GPU not supporting modern encoding which leads to the CPU doing everything the GPU is suppost to do

muhyb ,

You can try something like antiX but it won’t do good as a desktop. I use my netbook as a home server with pi-hole in it.

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Slitaz should need only ~60MB of RAM to run. Wireless networking probably won’t work out of the box, tho.

You can also try either MenuetOS or Kolibri, both are super tiny.

possiblylinux127 , (edited )

Do not run Slitaz as is fully of security problems and vulnerabilities. What’s worse is that there website has security holes on it. There is a page on the bug tracker that runs arbitrary JavaScript and prints out the time as an example. It also has been abandoned and is no longer maintained all that well.

1gb of ram is quiet a bit. I’ve ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware it it works with a few tabs. The problem is the modern internet is graphics heavy and the old GPU doesn’t have a lot of power. If you don’t block ads with Ublock origin it will grind to a halt as the video and image rendering will be done by the CPU as the GPU is to old.

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I’ve ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware

OP did say he tried Debian with xfce and it was slow, I don’t see the point in insisting on using that

possiblylinux127 ,

Because it isn’t going to be faster to use something else else. Unless they added a ton of stuff it shouldn’t use more than a quarter of the ram. Firefox suspends tabs under ram pressure so that shouldn’t be an issue either.

I’ve done work on a old Atom with 1gb of ram. It isn’t fast but it gets the job done. You can’t just make old hardware run fast by changing the desktop

Shawdow194 ,
@Shawdow194@kbin.run avatar

SSD upgrade

boredsquirrel ,
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

And then ZRAM and swap like hell

ReversalHatchery ,

Won’t that kill the SSD on short notice? Or can they make do with it for years?

boredsquirrel ,
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

I mean, worth the tradeoff? Zram would just make the cpu work more. Swap… kill the ssd

But over time. SSDs can handle a lot, like a couple of years?

DaPorkchop_ ,

Won’t be a couple of years if you’re constantly swapping, no.

ReversalHatchery ,

Not really, if you would spend a lot more on SDD drives instead of getting a modern computer

boredsquirrel ,
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

Do you have numbers? I dont think its that dramatic

ctenidium ,

I thought it’s either swap or ZRAM - could you use both at the same time?

boredsquirrel ,
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

Yes Fedora uses swap and zram by default. Just compresses the memory in RAM (more memory available) and on disk (less data written, less wear)

ctenidium ,

Wow, that’s supercool actually! I had no idea…

Omega_Jimes ,

This will be the single biggest change you can make. Swapping an hdd for a cheap 256gb ssd will make a bigger difference than any DE changes.

possiblylinux127 ,

First install an SSD if you haven’t already. Next install ublock origin in Firefox ESR and tighten down the security settings to max plus turn off all telemetry, studies and other “features.” Don’t use a Mozilla account as that adds overhead.

It still will be slow but it should be usable with a few tabs. Do not try to do video playback as the old GPU doesn’t support modern video formats so the CPU ends up decoding it all.

GustavoM ,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

Use Dietpi as your main distro, do a minimal install, install sway and then your usual stuff.

t. Got a orange pi zero 3 w/ 1GiB of ram, did exactly as my suggestion implies and everything works as intended.

RustyHeater ,

I have that exact machine in my electronics “graveyard”.

Peppermint OS was my GO-TO for speed and driver support out of the box. You can also stick in a 2GB SODIMM of ram. It will only recognize 1.5GB but still 50% more ram.

Presi300 ,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

AntiX

jpablo68 ,

I am currently running Antix on my Acer Aspire One D255 with mixed results, Falkon to browse the “modern” web, and netsurf for simple websites, can’t play 1080p videos smoothly so I have to first resize them with ffmpeg (it takes a long time but it’s doable), other stuff like libreoffice works flawlessly.

bloodfart ,

Oh yeah, I completely forgot, that laptops real old, so go ahead and regrease the cpu.

TwinTusks ,
@TwinTusks@bitforged.space avatar

I have two roughly 10 years old laptop that is completely usable, how do I go about regreasing the cpu (M14x r2 & A1502)?

bloodfart ,

Locate the service manuals or some kind of tear down. Confirm that the process will be within your capability. Order some thermal compound. Disassemble the laptop until you remove the heatsink from the cpu. Clean the old cpu and heatsink with isopropyl until it’s as clean as can possibly be. Apply new thermal compound. Reassemble laptop.

this might be the service manual for the alienware

A1502 could be a lot of laptops, use the emc number or serial to find out which one or just look for the MacBook Pro NN,n number in the about option under the Apple menu. It doesn’t matter which one you have, they’re all really easy to work on and well documented.

bassad ,

Check on youtube there is probably a video on how to open and do it your laptop model

slembcke ,

Oooh. So I keep a Dell Mini 10 (1GB RAM, ~1GHz Atom) around with Haiku on it. It’s brilliant! The UI is super snappy even on such an old machine, and I can even run pretty modern software on it. I used it yesterday to work on my website a bit. :)

Trainguyrom ,

I didn’t know Haiku had actual hardware support!

Peffse ,

It seems like you’ve got plenty of choices already, but how about an OS that’s already been cut down to work on the limited RAM of a Raspberry PI? It bills itself as a good alternative for limited hardware.

www.raspberrypi.com/…/raspberry-pi-desktop/

notthebees ,

Maybe try bunsenlabs? It’s uses openbox instead of a de.

I run it on a pentium m laptop and it runs well enough

Pentium m 735, 1 gb of ddr ram

eldavi ,

either you go the easy route and use a distribution targeted towards low spec systems like damn small linux or you go the difficult route and implement the same measures that they implement onto your debian installation.

last time i was in your situation i ended up doing both and i’m glad i did because my version of the build never worked as well as the custom distro.

mexicancartel ,

Antix linux is a very begginer friendly distro with very light specs

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