Which distro would you install on a celeron 2gb ram laptop for a lay person to use?

[kualk@lemm.ee]

It is probably the best solution to the low memory problem, but it is also the least common and may be the most difficult.

[data1701d@startrek.website]

Debian is on the right track. XFCE might work - I remember it running pretty well on a laptop with 4 gigs.

[grumpyduckling@sh.itjust.works]

Windows 10 has a bug with 100% disk utilization that goes away if you have an ssd. You should look into upgrading the ram to 4 or 8 gb. ddr3 ram is dirt cheap on ebay. It would probably cost $10-$15 for 8gb and another $10 for a 120gb ssd.

[solarpunker@slrpnk.net]

There is a xfce live edition and a good wiki

[phanto@lemmy.ca]

Linux Mint Debian Edition: xfce, Firefox running, 12 tabs open, just under 3GB utilized. All my usual stuff open too, Telegram, Next cloud, etc.

I bet you'd be good with it and an SSD and a bit of swap. (I have no swap used.)

[joekrogan@lemmy.world]

Puppy or Debian with openbox or another light wm , is crunchbang still a thing ?.

[adarza@lemmy.ca]

for linux and the most basic of basic tasks, i'd look at peppermint. it's what i put on all the old crap here with 'marginal' specs that choke on windows. debian stable xfce based. base install is pretty sparse, not even a browser is included initially. a utility pops up after first boot to facilitate installing a browser, media player, and a few other things if you want them, or the entire debian stable repository is also available. one thing of note. with only 2gb ram, it's gonna be tight, whatever he runs on it.

his use case is screaming for a cheap chromebook, though. so at least consider that instead. an old laptop like that might make someone a nice little pihole or something, if it's not ready to be put down for good.

[dfx4509b_2@lemmy.org]

Puppy would fly on there, or even DSL 2024.

[0x0@programming.dev]

Last time i searched for "lightweight" linux distros (for an old Thnkpad) the ones i saw recommended the most were: TinyCore, Puppy, Porteus, Absolute, antiX, Q4OS, Slax,, Sparky, MX.
I saw Bohdi and other Ubuntu-based distros suggested quite a lot as well but my definition of lightweight means under 1GiB usage.
For a DE go with XFCE or some other lightweight DE.

[0x0@programming.dev]

32 bit version of firefox, because it makes a huge difference in low ram devices.

How so? What CPU does she have?

[0x0@programming.dev]

How is that sad for an old machine?

[0x0@programming.dev]

it will be slow

Then it's a bad recommendation.

[mynameisrichard@lemmy.ml]

To be honest, I wouldn't on a 2Gb laptop. It'll run Linux just fine but the minute you use a browser or office suite you'll have memory problems.

[gutless2615@ttrpg.network]

As another said on the thread — it’s not really Linux that is the issue here as much as the internet. Browsers are just memory hogs now and you’re not going to get an enjoyable experience on 2gb of ram imo, if the goal is to have a functional laptop. OTOH, it would be a great little project server to play around with things like pihole or your Arrs‍️ or other self hosting goodness.

[nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br]

I assumed a x64. Debian (the distro mx linux is based on) offers multiarch support, so i just had to enable it by running:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 
sudo apt update

Then, to install 32-bit firefox, I first uninstalled it and then installed the 32-bit version:

sudo apt remove firefox-esr  
sudo apt install firefox-esr:i386

With the standard 64 bit version, the browser would struggle with just 2 or 3 tabs, and with the 32 bit version, she can use like 10 tabs without problems

[mwa@lemm.ee]

Oh yeah older Nvidia drivers hate Wayland.

[geoma@lemmy.ml]

Mx linux with fluxbox

[wolf@lemmy.zip]

The most important thing is not the distribution, but to enable ZRAM (or ZSWAP) and use a lightweight desktop. I am not sure how much difference a 32bit vs a 64bit distribution makes, but if possible you could take one for the team and run some trials and report your numbers (RAM usage) back here.

Of course I recommend Debian with a lightweight desktop of your choice, or Alpine.

[ratmoo@feddit.org]

Probably Fedora.

[disonantezko@lemmy.sdf.org]

This!

Even 4GB RAM is low for web browsers and they're gonna struggle, A LOT, even with just one tab open, is going to be painfully slow to not want to use it anymore.

Old laptops like this, don't have hardware video decoders for YouTube or any video in AVC or HEVC códecs that is used everywhere today.

You can use Gnumeric for spreadsheets and Abiword for docs if Libreoffice is too slow.