Hey everyone! I'm looking for some recommendations on which Linux distribution would work best for my old PC. It has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a Pentium processor running at 2.60 GHz, and an NVIDIA GT 520 graphics card. I've been considering Linux Mint since I'm a beginner, but I'm not sure if it's the right choice. Any advice?
3 Answers
Mint isn’t the best for your setup given its RAM demands, so I’d suggest alternatives that are lighter on resources. Look into something like Lubuntu or even Arch if you're feeling adventurous! They’re designed to run smoothly on older hardware and won’t bog you down.
Given your older hardware, you might want to steer clear of Mint. For your NVIDIA card, especially if you plan on using a current distro, you'll be stuck with the unofficial drivers that could be slow and buggy. Instead, consider lightweight options like Lubuntu or Fedora's LXQt version. They’ll be much more friendly with your specs! If you lean towards an older system, something like Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 with proper NVIDIA driver support might be better, though it’ll require some tweaking.
MX Linux could be a solid option too. Their NVIDIA installer works pretty smoothly, and you might find their Fluxbox edition really helps for your 2GB RAM situation. It's simple but you can customize it to look nice!
LXQt is a great call! I’d also recommend trying out antiX or Debian if you're comfortable with a bit of setup. Both offer a good balance of performance and light resource usage, which should suit your system just fine.
Definitely consider Chromium over Firefox since it can handle low RAM much better. You might want to turn off swap memory as well – it keeps things snappier!