Bodhi vs Mint Xfce (at my hardware)
 

Hello Guys!

I got a old but really good laptop, Compaq 6910p :
https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-compaq-6910p/specs/

Last years I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon but I think my computer is not "strong" enough for that distro. When I using Eclipse with a JBoss running the computer gets really hot and some times the screen is freezing. The fan almost make the laptop lift from the table.

I got the advice that I should change to linux Mint Xfce instead. Any day now Mint will release a new version of Mint.

1)
But what do you think guys would Bodhi be more suitable for my hardware and tasks (Java developing with Eclipse and JBoss) than Xfce?

2)
Do you think I could test it with booting and running Xfce and Bodhi from a USB, will I be able to execute Eclipse and JBoss that I have installed in my present Mint Cinnamon?

Best regards
Fredrik

1) Bodhi might work ok - I liked it on old kit.
2) Better to install the XFCE desktop on your current Mint and select it at startup. Much cleaner, and everything should "just work". There should be a meta package to pull in what you need.

Your computer is trying to tell you that it's overheating. This is a hardware, not a software problem. Clean out the vents and fan of dust and lint. Put the computer on an elevated stand for better air flow. Consider investing in one of those laptop cooling trays. Set aside some money each month, to save up for an upgraded laptop someday.

Bodhi vs Mint Xfce (at my hardware)
 

It can be sw issue. "Fat" distros are hungry for hw resources and it can cause the overheating. Anyway the cleaning the fan is not a bad idea at all. I dont know the tool you want to use. Hard to say if possible to install under live session. If you are able to install bodhi on the free partition it will be the best test for you. Bodhi is suitable for old hw and I also want to recommend you to install the legacy version for better hw support.

Bodhi's Moksha desktop is a bit lighter than most configurations of XFCE these days. More in line with the resource usage LXDE uses, while offering more options.

Mate desktop actually uses up less RAM than xfce.

But this is NOT all that you should be looking at. I'm on Mint 18.3Mate (after trying 18.2Cinnamon). XFCE certainly is an older DE, which has been tested and tweaked in features. Mate is probably still evolving (I hope).

I would never put Mint-anything onto my weaker computer (I would have a decade ago, but not today's Mint).

I researched this question extensively (and I tend to do so every half decade or so), have looked at many distros, and received lots of commentary and suggestions, some from expert users, some from dummies who just use one distro without ever looking at anything else and want everyone to use it.

Here are a few distros I strongly recommend you take a look at:

• AntiX a lightweight distribution with low system requirements (although it seems to be designed with more experienced Linux users in mind)
• Bodhi 5.x series has that nice polished look and has very reasonable system requirements (5 is still in Beta. the 4-series still has the menu that doesn't work as expected when opened near the right of the screen that newcomers to the distro may find annoying, but 5 fixes that). The interface is very nice, it's intuitive, and the configuration panel is well organized.
• MX-17.1 this is a well tuned distro that many have recommended to me. Everything works out of the box, although the appearance is more XP-ish than it is Mint-ish (which is a turn-off to some (like me) but fine for others), and almost as polished as Mint (see a recent review (2018) on MX-xfce versus Mint-xfce). It is considered a "medium-weight" distribution as opposed to "lightweight" AntiX from the same team.
• PepperMint is a very nice operating system. I was created by a guy who left the Mint team, I believe, to put together a lighter distro when Mint started "growing" a little. It is very well laid out, tested, reliable, and well polished. But it's not as snappy as it once was, and I can no longer use it on my (low-powered) netbook since after it's version 5. It might be OK on yours though. I estimate it's probably about the same "weight" as MX.
• SLITAZ is tiny and super-fast (50MB download), needs about 80MB and loads completely into memory. It uses the OpenBox graphical environment requiring a small fraction of the system resources that others need, and includes over 200 Linux commands. If you can find what you need in their repositories, this may be your best performance choice. It doesn't need to be installed - will run directly from live media, auto-detects your hardware, and reads a configuration file on boot (that I believe it generates, and that becomes your "persistence"). You can read up on Slitaz here. The only other distros that are as "lightweight" as this, look significantly antiquated in comparison.

EDIT: I see that the specs of your laptop is a maximum of 4GB. You may need the non-pae version. So if one doesn't work, try the other.

For testing, you can "burn" all of those distros onto a single 4GB or more USB stick or SD card using MultiBootUSB available for many operating systems, or YUMI for Windoze only.

Bodhi Legacy is to be used with Non-PAE processors only. "Legacy" here does not denote old hardware compatibility - it only makes the distinction for "non-pae" and nothing else. I'm quite sure that all versions of Bodhi have the same hardware support (aside from the processor, of course) and drivers.

Legacy Version
 

There is one big difference between the legacy version and other versions which wasn't mentioned. The legacy version is 32 bit and will definitely run better on older hardware with lower system resources.

Yes, as Randi says, legacy is for 32-bit.
If you want to install a PAE kernel you can do that too after installing the legacy dist. PAE kernel is for 32-bit systems with > 4Gb of RAM.

Moreover the legacy version is based on linux 3.2 version and it better suits for old HW. I can confirm my testings with old machines and GPU or touchpad support.

Seems like a laptop that would love Bodhi.
It's linux, give them both a try and see which one you like better! :)

Hi. Have tested "light" (i.e. how efficient are) distributions for light and old x86 computers for the last couple of years. And I couldn't summarize it better than Timmi did above

A fully booted Bodhi with Moksha eats 70 MB RAM and <1% CPU cycles on an eg. old Intel Atom single core with 1 GB RAM! Same for antiX. XFCE takes more RAM (~190 MO) but, provided it's clean it takes no more CPU, and is as responsive as the first two DE (Desktop Environments) on super weak computers.

I see some are debating the versions of Bodhi and 32 vs. 64bit vs. Legacy etc.

Here's the deal:

Up until version 4.5, there is a 32bit regular (with PAE, which is memory paging for systems with more than 4gb), a 32bit "Legacy" non-PAE, and 64 bit. It is your CPU+motherboard architecture that determines which is better to use - not drivers.

For 5.0-RC, there is 32bit Legacy (non-pae), and 64bit. that's it. If the Non-PAE does not work on your system, you have to use the 64bit one. They might introduce a 32bit PAE at the final release, but it's not guaranteed, as they have expressed a desire to reduce the number of versions they have to create and support.


In theory, 32bit OSes are often "lighter". However, I suspect that the 64bit version doesn't call upon the 64bit instruction set, still using the 32bit mostly, and only using the 64bit's larger memory addressing capabilities. So you may actually see very similar performances.
(if someone benchmarks these two on the same system, please report back with your findings, it would be good to know)

Can you please stop posting non-sense speculation in these forums? It is the reason you lost your posting ability on our old forums.

There will not be an official PAE disc by default for 32bit. If you have a 32bit system that has 5+ gigs of RAM still, you can install a PAE kernel from the repos after installing the Legacy version.

The 64bit version does not have any 32bit libraries installed extra by default. It is a normal 64bit Linux OS.

We only know what you post on your website. Comments were based on info published on your website at the time.
If you don't want people to be confused, try and have your minions do a better job of communicating and keeping it up to date in a more timely manner.

As for banning people because they're quoting information off your website, I guess that makes for a good reason to come to these forums, than to subject oneself to the dictatorship and mood-swings of a developer with too much work on his hands and not enough resources to help him out. I've been on here long before Bodhi - so not sure why you're trying to chase people down after you threw them out.