I have a laptop that's around 25 years old with an Intel Pentium M 1.3 GHz processor, 256 MB of DDR333 RAM (possibly upgraded to 1 GB), and a 40 GB HDD. I'm looking to use it primarily for reading ebooks. What lightweight Linux distribution would be the best choice for energy efficiency and performance on such an old machine?
5 Answers
For a laptop with under 1 GB of RAM, I'd recommend trying antiX. It's designed to be light and should boot right up from your hard drive. If you prefer to run it live from a USB, Puppy Linux is a great alternative.
Honestly, it might just be time to retire that old laptop. 😂 But if you really want to try, antiX would still be a solid choice.
Try checking out the distro selection page in the Linux4Noobs wiki for more options. You can also search for distro recommendations on their subreddit. Just remember to back up your data regularly and test new things in a VM first!
You could also go really old school with Debian Potato—it should still run fine on a machine like that!
I think antiX has live boot capabilities too, but it requires a few steps for personalization on the USB. Personally, I've enjoyed using MX Linux, which is a collaboration between the antiX and MX Linux communities and is also live-boot friendly.
Related Questions
How To Get Your Domain Unblocked From Facebook
How To Find A String In a Directory of Files Using Linux