I have two aging devices that I'd like to keep useful for everyday tasks. The first is a 10-inch Microsoft Surface 3 with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor, and a 128 GB SSD. It currently freezes and becomes unusable after about ten minutes, so I'm not sure whether the problem is Windows or failing hardware. I originally used it while traveling to transfer GoPro videos.
The second device is an older Samsung laptop with a DVD drive, an AMD A8-3530MX processor at 1.90 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, and a hard disk drive.
I'm completely new to Linux and would like something that is easy to install, supports installing software without much hassle, and can be customized to look pleasant. I was considering Linux Mint, possibly with the Xfce desktop, but I'm unsure whether that would be suitable for the Surface 3 or the older laptop. What distributions and desktop environments would you recommend, and are there any special settings I should use on hardware this old?
3 Answers
For the Surface 3, I’d choose a lightweight desktop rather than Cinnamon. Linux Mint Xfce, Debian Xfce, or Q4OS would all be reasonable starting points. The Samsung laptop has 8 GB of RAM, so it should handle Mint Xfce comfortably, although its mechanical hard drive will still make it feel slower than a modern system. Enabling zram can also help on low-memory Atom hardware by compressing data in RAM instead of relying as heavily on swap.
Linux Mint with Xfce is probably the easiest recommendation for a first installation and should work well on the Samsung. On the Surface 3, I’d test it from a live USB first and consider an even lighter option such as Q4OS or a Debian-based Xfce installation. Avoid Cinnamon on the Atom tablet if performance is a priority; the desktop environment uses more resources than Xfce or similar lightweight choices.
The Surface freezing after roughly ten minutes may indicate a hardware or overheating problem, so changing operating systems might not fix it. Before installing permanently, boot a Linux USB and check whether it remains stable, test the SSD and memory if possible, and monitor temperatures. If it freezes in the live environment too, the hardware is probably the issue rather than Windows.
The Samsung turned out to have 8 GB of RAM, along with the AMD A8-3530MX and a Hitachi hard drive, so it may be in better shape for Linux than I first expected.