Which distro for fastest web-browsing and nothing else?
 

I have an i7-3520m processor and 8gb ram. For work purposes I need the fastest web browsing possible, nothing else. Preferrably, I'd like to use google chrome. Which distro would be recommended?

Welcome to LQ, Ten1Ten.

I don't think the choice of distro will have very much of an impact on your browsing performance. Your computer's specs are indicative of a fairly powerful machine, so hardware isn't an issue.

The determining factors will be more choice of desktop environment and browser. You've already decided you want to use Chrome, so that leaves you with a choice of DEs. Again, you don't really have to worry with the system you have, but if you absolutely want to maximize performance, pick a lightweight DE that will leave as much CPU and RAM as possible to the browser. Good choices are XFCE4, LXDE or even a simple window manager on top of a bare system.

If you have any more information concerning your objectives, let us know and we may be able to narrow it down a bit more. Also, let us know how familiar you are or not with linux so that our recommendations may be more appropriate for your level of experience.

Cheers.

Thansk Rickkkk, your post was very helpful. I didn't know that the Linux distro wouldn't likely affect the browsing performance. I have another machine that has an i3 processor and 4gb ram running lubuntu, and it's much faster than the i7 8gb ram running Windows 10 when it comes to browsing.

You mention LXDE, which are some of the post popular distros in that category?

Last question. I was also thinking about using Linux Mint. If I were to go that route, between Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce and KDE, which would be the lightest, Xfce?

Hi Ten1Ten,

The distro you are using on your other machine, Lubuntu, is the version of Ubuntu using LXDE - so you're already familiar with that ... Might be a good place to start on the new machine.

As to your other question, XFCE4 is the lightest DE of the four you mentioned, followed, in order of increasing "bloat": by Mate, Cinnamon, and KDE, in my opinion.

Hope this helps - let us know how you make out - Cheers !

Perfect. I appreciate it.

You bet - you're quite welcome.

Best of luck with the project - don't hesitate to pop back should you have any other questions.

Cheers !

If you want the lightest option, install Slackware, then select a window manager such as Fluxbox or Blackbox as your GUI. Window managers are lighter-weight then every desktop environment. Alternatively, you could install and use a window manager on Lubuntu.

If you want to go all the way, use a text browser such as lynx or elinks or w3m. The last one, w3m, is capable of tabbed browsing and can display images. You won't even have to start X to use one of them. I'm not saying that Slackware is necessarily the lightest distro. I am saying that you can't get much lighter than not using a GUI at all.

Lynx ... Wow - I remember that from the early 90s ... Didn't know it was still around ...

Good suggestions, frankbell ...

hi

hmm if I was a newbie I might think that somehow Slackware was the smallest distro that can run web browsers....or chrome. Which is not quite true, heh heh

Maybe the Original Poster could say what types of sites he/she may like to visit as there a number of web browsers such firefox, fifth and other GUI browsers without the member needing to use a text based browser.

eg coming from windows...he/she probably wants some kind of flash capable browser, ignoring the fact that windows will soon not ship with a flash browser in the near future. AFAIK

2) probably wants youtube support, meaning html5

3) with up-to-date certificates or a distro that regularly updates certificates.....and is a reasonably secure browser to boot?

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so my suggestion is don't try to install any distro......instead download live cd or dvd distros (most can also be flashed onto usb sticks) and try them out.

the ones at the top of distrowatch tend to be easier to use
http://distrowatch.com/

In the spirit that one member suggesting a certain distro I too shall spruik a distro...MX (but its ranking it about 23)

https://mxlinux.org/
https://mxlinux.org/mx16videos
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mx-16

I must admit that, in making my post, I succumbed to temptation . . . .

Frankly I would have thought that the network cxn is going to be the limiting factor (inc load on the end server).
A lightweight desktop might help a bit, but if all you are dong is web browsing, most other installed stuff won't even be running (or just barely ticking over).

Smallest distro might be TinyCore Linux, just a few mb's, but the browser you want is big. ;)

Smaller does not mean faster, which is what the OP wants. For example an extremely small distro may not include any drivers to optimise performance of graphics cards, drive NICs "natively" etc.

I'd think that a system built exactly for your system and with options set to maximize your use would be fastest outside of a "toram" sort of system.

Have you considered Chrome OS?