Smallest GUI distro (for a low-RAM Chromebook)?
4d 11h ago by programming.dev/u/Flagstaff in linux@programming.dev
PeppermintOS? I'm trying to prepare an ancient Chromebook C202S for Linux and have had some ideas from antiX to MXLinux and Loc-OS, but it seems that PeppermintOS may be among the best choices.
The tech level of this Chromebook's end user is unlikely to work well with Arch + BSPWM, which was recommended to me by someone else.
honestly the distro is not going to make much difference unless you go to some special distro that runs off the ram (instead of the ssd) like tinycore or porteus
the de/wm matters most actually, in this case i'd recommend icewm, xfce or lxde.
I think AntiX and Puppy Linux are RAM-based distros, yeah, or something like that. But I think I'll try Devuan + Runit as per another commentator here who uses this same machine... sounds promising! I've never heard of icewm, though, thanks; I'll check it out.
i3/sway in Manjaro/CachyOS or just install it on raw arch/debian
Any lxQT based desktop will be fast on low end devices. Try Linux Mint LxQT edition
Noted!
AntiX Linux has been the most efficient distro on my netbook. You gotta be okay without systemd though. For the most part I didn't need it but some things are highly dependent on systemd to work.
WattOS was good too but AFAIK it's not actually open source so I couldn't trust it.
some things are highly dependent on systemd to work.
I'm fearfully curious about what these are...
I think Incus was one I had trouble with. It did run without systemd but part of the installation I had to do manually.
I have not used it at all, so I cannot speak for it, but look into Puppy Linux.
Oh, right, I read up a bit on that, as well as MenuetOS...
Maybe puppy linux? Its very light on resources.
I recently revived a circa-2014 Thinkserver with a core install of antiX, and was pleasantly surprised. I went for the smallest footprint possible by installing only the core distro, and then choosing the packages I wanted/needed.
Same question for an old EEE pc with like maybe 1gb ram, trying antix now, may try Slax next, will look into peppermint.
Oh, right, I had also heard about Slax... keep me posted!
The last "tiny linux" that I used was BunsenLabs. That was for a netbook, though. No idea about Chromebook compatibility. https://www.bunsenlabs.org/
If you're constrained by the user's "tech level", it's unlikely that you'll find anything significantly lighter ... some other distro might shave off 50MB of RAM, but if it's more difficult to use, that's not really worth it.
Try OpenBSD. It's not Linux, but its RAM requirements are perfect.