I'm looking for suggestions on Linux distributions that would work well on my old PC, which has the following specs: AMD Sempron 3000+, 1GB of RAM, and 128GB of HDD space. I tried using Linux Mint, but it seemed a bit laggy. Are there any lighter distros or desktop environments that I should consider for this hardware?
4 Answers
It really depends on what you're hoping to do with the PC. If you're looking for something lightweight, I recommend using XFCE instead of Cinnamon, which can be a bit heavy. That might help with performance.
Honestly, it's less about the distro and more about the desktop environment. You should try MATE, XFCE, LXDE, or LXQt. However, with only 1GB of RAM, don't expect to run too many applications at once, especially since modern web browsers tend to consume a lot of RAM.
I think you might want to give Debian with the LXQt desktop environment a shot. It's pretty lightweight and should run smoother than Mint on your setup.
I don’t think any modern Linux distro will run well on just 1GB of RAM. You might want to consider getting something more compatible with older hardware. Maybe it's time to recycle this old desktop, sadly.
I actually wanted to set it up as a home server if possible, but I'm not sure with it being so old. If not, casual browsing and basic tasks would be fine.