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On that hardware I would run Manjaro Plasma. IF I wanted a faster WM, there is an XFCE version.
BTW: nearly ANY distribution will run fine on that hardware. You might have issues with the GNOME full desktop slowing application startups slightly, but it is unlikely to be significant and you may not even notice.
The more important factor is how well the DE fits your way of working and your preferences.
When trying a lot of distros, I suggest using Ventoy - you can set up a USB stick and just load any ISO-files into so you don't have to flash a new iso image every time you want to test a different distro.
Just be aware that some older computers may have problem booting from USB if the device capacity > 8GB.
Frankly, nonsense. This desktop has 4GB and runs Xfce. Currently, it's running Pale Moon and OpenOffice — 2GB used, 2 GB free.
It isn't "nonsense;" it's based on experience.
I said 1 or 2 apps running on LXDE would be fine; you are running 2 apps on xfce with half your RAM gone: there's not a huge difference between those two scenarios.
Last edited by starkid; 02-21-2023 at 09:50 PM.
Reason: punctuation
you are running 2 apps on xfce with half your RAM gone
The two applications are using less than 10% of the memory, so adding more would not use up the remaining 50%. Half of the usage is actually buffers and cache, and Linux will tailor that to the space available.
When trying a lot of distros, I suggest using Ventoy - you can set up a USB stick and just load any ISO-files into so you don't have to flash a new iso image every time you want to test a different distro.
Just be aware that some older computers may have problem booting from USB if the device capacity > 8GB.
Thanks. And what is different Ventoy with easy2boot?
Thanks. And what is different Ventoy with easy2boot?
Ventoy is simple compared to E2B. In fact, the last couple of releases of E2B use Ventoy because it nativly supports some things E2B neer could. By leveraging code between the projects both became better.
Use either one. E2B organizes images better in a subfolder structure, but you have to maintain that by dropping ISO images in the right places. If you have a lot of tools and images then E2B helps, but for a small number of live or install images Ventoy might be better for you. If you really do not care, they are both very good.
Kali GNU/Linux 2023.1 bare metal on a Lenovo N23 Chromebook with an Intel Celeron N3060 @ 2x 2.48GHz, 4GB RAM, Intel Integrated Graphics, wi-fi, Bluetooth, the original 16GN storage space for System files and microUSB cards for the rest using Xfce for a DE.
htop showing real-time resource usage as I viewed this thread. FYI Only as a 4GB RAM box running Xfce.
I would never recommend anyone else use Kali as a desktop OS. Only ascended beings dare risk the sky falling...
Last edited by Trihexagonal; 07-15-2023 at 02:05 PM.
The most technically suitable (Linux) system for old hardware has actually not been mentioned in any comments yet.
Alpine Linux
1. Incredibly low RAM usage
2. Fastest init system of all Linux distros which is super useful for systems that use a HDD or slower SSD
3. One of the most secure Linux distros
4. Possibly fastest package manager of all Linux distros
5. Very easy to use and support for XFCE, Gnome and KDE
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