I recently installed XFCE Mint on my HP Chromebook 11 G4, which has mainly been a YouTube machine since I graduated. I was hoping to set it up for external storage and make it a Plex media server too. However, I'm finding it really slow – especially with just browsing on the pre-installed Firefox. The CPU usage often spikes to the 90s and it just freezes when I try to watch YouTube videos. I have 4GB of RAM and an Intel GPU, but it seems like it's really struggling. Should I just go back to ChromeOS, or are there ways to make this work? Also, I'm facing an issue where I can't shut down using the start menu. Can someone explain this in simple terms? This is just day one of trying to figure all this out!
2 Answers
I'm running Ubuntu on an old Acer Chromebook and it works great! Mint is based on Ubuntu, so the difference might not be huge, but it could help to try plain Ubuntu or something even lighter like Bodhi Linux. They're designed to work better on low-spec machines.
XFCE is a solid choice for a lightweight desktop environment! You might want to test out other distros with lighter setups like MX Linux or Antix. They could be more suitable for your old Chromebook's hardware. Just grab a USB stick and try them out before making a full switch!
Would it really make a big difference? I've heard Mint is good for low-end hardware.