I have an older Lenovo ThinkPad 13 "Sentry" Chromebook with a Skylake CPU, 4GB of RAM, and only 16GB of non-upgradable storage. It is out of official support, but I replaced the firmware with UEFI, so it can boot standard Linux distributions. ChromeOS Flex runs, but audio is unsupported and there doesn't seem to be a practical way to add it. Ubuntu detects and plays sound correctly, but it takes up too much space to install comfortably. What lightweight Linux distribution and desktop environment would you recommend for this hardware?
3 Answers
MX Linux with either XFCE or Fluxbox is another option. Fluxbox will leave you more room and memory, while XFCE gives you a more complete desktop without being especially demanding.
Arch could work well if you keep the installation minimal and use a lightweight window manager or desktop environment. With only 16GB of storage, avoid installing unnecessary packages and keep an eye on cached files.
Debian with Openbox is a good fit for older Chromebooks. It stays small, uses very few resources, and in my experience the hardware—including audio—works properly.
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