Could I have some lite distro recommendations for my old but handy HP 64 bit Notebook? I have Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon on my home computer but I don't think that the Notebook has the necessary memory (1005524 KB) or CPU (Intel Atom 155GHz) to run Mint without problems.

Thanks, Gael.

AntiX - https://antixlinux.com/

TinyCore - http://tinycorelinux.net/

SliTaz - http://www.slitaz.org/en/

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My choice differs :-) Mainly because I like things that are easy to install, and are long term support, and am not that good with some Linux installers. I found tiny core too minimalist and had issues. Slitaz I haven't tried. I tried antix once but wasn't keen on the installer. It's fine but I prefer Bodhi for every day use.

Bodhi Linux (runs on just about everything and will be fast, even with just 1GB ram and an atom processor). 5.1 is supported to 2023.

Or upgrade the ram to 2GB and install Linux Mint XFCE, and turn off compositing (visual effect - doesn't make much difference to the look but speeds it up a lot). 19.1 is supported till 2023.

Actually if you wanted Windows back on it then Windows 10 does run on these atom netbooks and not too slow if you turn transparency off. But you would need more ram and an ssd drive. (Unless it's a cedartrail atom processor - that will only run Windows 7 and there is no graphics driver for most Linux either but Bodhi does work on that processor and displays ok!).

If Linux is through choice I would try one of the above. Bodhi would be better with only 1GB ram than Linux Mint. It looks very different from Linux Mint and is minimalist. But you just add the software you want from the software manager and there are various themes and icon sets if you want to change them for the look. Adding your own wallpaper makes it look like everything else.

Which atom processor is it? What is the model of the HP notebook. I have things a lot older than 10 years old running all sorts.

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There's always 'Puppy' Linux if you want something a bit different. One of our community members, 8Geee, has for years specialised in creating and supporting a variant of Puppy specially optimized for the Atom-powered notebooks. He's just released a brand-new 'upgrade - "AtomicPup 2020" - which includes all kinds of security-related upgrades, mainly on the net-facing side of things (since this is where all your issues generally come from).....and it's fully-patched against Meltdown & Spectre, and variants thereof.

8Geee is fanatical about security; even though the included browser is quite old, it's been upgraded in all the important areas and is as secure as any 2020 browser..!

Puppy Forum thread here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=109692

Download (approx 150 MB) here:-

https://archive.org/details/atomicpup2020


Mike.

You can save some memory by using a 32-bit version. Some 64-bit Atoms actually ran 32-bit Windows because of driver problems. Something like MX Linux would then work in 1 GB. But if your Atom is a single-core model, then they are much slower than the frequency would suggest and an Xfce distro might be too much for it.

I don't know Atomic Pup, but Puppy was always been good quality, so that is worth considering.

lxde lxqt and xfce are pretty decent with low spec machines unless you want to go "really light weight" then there are other alternatives

I checked out all the suggestions and some more and eventually chose Lubuntu 18.10 32 bit.
I guess they are all good in their own way, but I chose Lubunu because I am familiar with the environment.
Thanks for all the suggestions.

Gael

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