For a old laptop with Intel atom processor and I think 2gb ram.
I’d go for Alpine Linux in such case.
Might be overkill (or underkill), but Tiny Core Linux is the most lightweight I know. While having an up to date kernel (6.1.2) and glibc (2.3.6).
What are the minimum requirements? An absolute minimum of RAM is 46mb. TC won’t boot with anything less, no matter how many terabytes of swap you have. Microcore runs with 28mb of ram. The minimum cpu is i486DX (486 with a math processor). A recommended configuration: Pentium 2 or better, 128mb of ram + some swap
I want to daily driver this for fun for a while. Only problem, just installed Arch, so I need to wait a bit
If you want to take it to the extreme, Alpine is probably one of the best options.
As other have already alluded to, any distro with a lightweight desktop environment should work on that laptop. However, we don’t know if it would work out for you; simply for the fact that you haven’t given any other information.
You can use whatever distro you want that you can install on it (btw it is a eeepc?), just avoid to install heavy programs and/or DE.
IIRC there should be a Debian derive distro for atoms, I used it on a eeepc, don’t know of still a thing
thank you, I will check it.
Debian with XFCE or LXDE.
A request was made to sticky it
I checked this yesterday, but could not decide. So had to ask.
You can do a really slim install of Debian that should work. For DE I recommend LXQT.
If you’re feeling adventurous, Alpine might be slightly lighter. It’s a good distro.
Those specs are not going to get you a terribly fast experience, but my laptop runs Debian ok and it’s in the same ballpark.
Lubuntu. Do not bother with anything else if you want easy to use solution. You could use LXQt with Debian if you are advanced, but it will lack a lot of the polish that Lubuntu will give with networking/WiFi related things.
DietPi is always a good option. It’s designed for raspberry pi, but you can absolutely run it on a laptop and install your desktop environment (XFCE etc)
If it’s 32-bit, your options dwindle somewhat.
Armbian is lightweight, and has an x86 version.
Arch, with a lightweight desktop environment. If you have time and dedication, obviously.
arch with i3
Fedora MATE or LxQt
In my personal experience void linux ran the smoothest on all my old laptops (compared to stuff like arch and antiX, I defo didn’t try everything).
I’m running it on a dual core 2.5ghz with 1800MB of ram, no complaints!
