I'm looking for some good Linux distribution recommendations, ideally user-friendly ones. I have a few specs to consider: I'm using an HP ProDesk 600 G2 MT with an i5 6500 CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and 2 slow 512GB HDDs at 5200 RPM. It would be great if the distro could run well with around 2GB of RAM or less, but I also want it to look good and be stable. Also, can I use multiple package managers from different distros for better compatibility, or is that not advisable?
5 Answers
Honestly, any Linux distro I've tried idles comfortably under 1.5GB with a full desktop environment. You don’t really need multiple package managers; just stick to one solid package manager with repositories that include everything you need. Debian is great for that with its huge repos!
All your hardware looks good, but keep in mind that those HDDs are going to be a bottleneck. An SSD could massively improve speed and overall performance.
For your setup, any Linux distro will do just fine, even the ones with heavier desktop environments shouldn’t exceed 2GB RAM usage. If you're looking for my top picks, I'd say Fedora (with either KDE or Gnome), but you might find ZorinOS, Ubuntu, or Mint more user-friendly. Just choose one that you feel fits your needs best!
What’s your main use for the system? Knowing that can help narrow down the best distro for you!
It's usually best to have one binary package manager along with a couple of universal ones like Snap or Flatpak. Using more than one binary package manager could lead to problems, though some quirky distros do it. Keep it simple!
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