Hey there,

I've been using linux on and off to mess around with programming for years but that is the limit of my knowledge, basic installation of simple Ubuntu versions on my main desktop.

I have an old laptop I would like to keep using as I know it has life left but was getting cripplingly slow with Windows 7, so I installed Ubuntu and it is still pretty slow. Perhaps there is a smaller distro or version that would run much faster.

Laptop Specs:
Toshiba Satellite L355D-s7815
Processor: 2x AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual-Core QL-60
Memory: 763MB
Current OS: Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS


Any thoughts? Obsolete hardware? Different OS? Need more info?

Cheers,
Newbie

Try switching to a lighter desktop environment, it's probably Unity that's killing you. Ubuntu should have XFCE or LXDE available in the repositories, if so try installing one/both of them and then logging out and switching over.

1 members found this post helpful.

This should help:
https://www.complete-concrete-concis...e-xfce-desktop

I have a s7825 satellite running Fedora 24 Xfce. I boosted ram to 3gb. It's still kinda slow though, there's only so much you can do to speed up limited hardware that's 8 years old

You should definitely add more RAM, that should improve things.

Hello and welcome to the forum

AntiX 16 might run well your system.

Regards...

1 members found this post helpful.

That CPU isn't too bad for general web browsing, IMO. The main limitation is the low RAM. If you're using Ubuntu's default Unity desktop environment, then it's going to be sluggish (as others have noted). Besides consuming a lot of RAM, it also relies on heavy 3D accelerated graphics; your old laptop's graphics chip probably isn't really up to the task.

I second the recommendation to try a lighter desktop interface such as XFCE4. You're still going to be limited by the amount of RAM, but even 512MB of RAM is livable if you only browse one or two tabs at a time.

1 members found this post helpful.

My light desktop uses the Fluxbox WM and a Rox pinboard for the icons. If XFCE is still too heavy, there is hardly anything better.., maybe Fluxbox without Rox. But that sucks... ;-)

watch your mouth!
millions of fanatic desktop purists will be on you like a swarm of angry bees!

I know they use this wording, but really: Define Desktop. Me too, I prefer my (wooden) desk empty. But it happens that I keep paper-crayons or a fountain-pen (!) ready for instant action... I even leave them there for later, sometimes.

So the question is why threads like this get started all the time by new members who most of times never come back to respond?

Is this done for fun? It is guaranteed to get lots of replies, everyone has their own recommendation and vision about "light distro".

If they do not come back, then the problem is either not “real”, the answers that the thread produces disturb the OP more than the original question or in the contrary, bring him the ultimate feeling of relief and put her/him in a state of trance, where she/he forgets, amongst others, to give us further feedback.

As we will never know, I choose to either abstain from further contributing to the discussion or try to make it a pleasant experience.., in whichever possible way. As my time permits it. And you and the others are already here, so I do not struggle to be “original”.

I think that a lot of one time posters honestly are asking for advice, but they post the same question to multiple forums and it's too much to respond to all of them. So they only reply to one or maybe two of them where the replies seem helpful.

IMHO:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/un...ding-firmware/https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude

...have fun!

I forgot to specifically put: netinst... http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...0/#post5544589