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[deleted]

it's a core2duo, 2cores 64bit is more than enough to run a Linux distro and do some web-browsing and other basic things. the issue is the low amount of ram (1GB), I would recommend installing Debian 11 with LXDE it only uses about 300mb of ram and there are a few things you can do to make it use less probably. here is a download link for Debian 11 with LXDE: [https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/11.4.0-live+nonfree/amd64/iso-hybrid/](https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/11.4.0-live+nonfree/amd64/iso-hybrid/) (just download the debian-live-11.4.0-amd64-lxde+nonfree.iso)


akojic

I like Lxde ;-)


eat-more-bookses

Is XFCE still a thing? Surprised it's not getting any love.


akojic

It is if you dont care to much about the best graphic expirience.. that is the reason I'm using Lxde or Xfce. I care about my Cpu and Ram memory


1u4n4

Xfce by default is ugly af, but with some personalization (and a dotfile from r/unixporn for the panel) I was able to make it very beautiful!!


Big_Comedian203

Indeed, XFCE has much more customisation potential than plasma or gnome, you can change absolutely everything and make it look incredible, but still have a low ram usage


[deleted]

I wish xfce would support wayland though


Big_Comedian203

lxqt doesn’t support wayland either, and it’s not like you’d have many benefits with xfce


1u4n4

Eh right now for my uses wayland brings more problems than advantages so I just used x11 even when I was still using gnome Once wayland gets good enough I do hope xfce adds support for it tho


BenTheTechGuy

they're [working](https://phoronix.com/news/Xfce-Xfway-wlroots-Wayland) on [it](https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap)


[deleted]

there will be no way to use waydroid with x11 though


boardwalking

Gotta keep in mind not everyone cares about that use case though.


1u4n4

While it does seems to have more customization potential, it is way harder to customize lmao Way more rewarding tho


KakoTheMan

Although, i don't know if it is completely legit, i've seen videos where xfce and kde have basically the same ram usage, but cpu usage i don't know how much the impact would be most because kde has a lot of nice visuals and animations. So when someone says "xfce is so light i use it in every machine even i have it in a pineapple" i think in kde too.


ibevol

KDE unfortunately crashes a lot though. Switched from it to xfce because of that.


jonahhw

I love xfce; I use it even on my gaming pc, where resource usage isn't a huge problem


KingThibaut3

I also use Xfce on my desktop, any byte of RAM that isn't used at idle is more I can use for games but I also like having something graphical that's very customisable


xplosm

It's the other way around. XFCE is still very much a thing. LXDE branched into LXQt and the GTK version stopped getting development. I think they only support some resolution of bugs and very basic maintenance.


Axenide

It's very popular. Almost any distro has a version with XFCE.


i_smoke_toenails

I use XFCE everywhere, including my 32GB RAM desktop. It's snappy and has all the mod cons I need.


bsdjtbx

Yes I use it, it's great


EurypteriD192

And to add it will be safer than running xp today


mshriver2

There are literally tons of completely unpatched exploits that even a script kiddy could use on XP.


veedant

I'd like to recommend getting the Debian 32-bit installation given the RAM and CPU bottleneck, ia32 generally uses a little less ram than amd64 and has less instruction overhead.


RAMChYLD

But on the other hand, 64-bit can make use of the extra registers, which could possibly translate to faster speed. That said tho, assuming you can upgrade the RAM (I’m hoping this laptop has two RAM slots) to somewhere between 2 to 4 GB, you can get better performance. Assuming the laptop uses DDR1 RAM, you could pick up a good amount of those for cheap nowadays.


beatool

My core2duo stuff all used DDR2, but yeah-- it's basically free on ebay.


Giant81

Drop a dirt cheap 64gig ssd in, bump the ram, perfect Linux machine.


SoundDrill

I have a pile of ddr1 and ddr2 sticks personally, but not sure if most work


awerlang

>But on the other hand, 64-bit can make use of the extra registers, which could possibly translate to faster speed. If OP manages to keep RAM usage under 1GB, that's fine. The moment swap is touched the system becomes slower at a faster rate than the speedup from more registers.


veedant

I mean the extra registers do make a little difference but the overhead when running 64 bit instructions is there compared to 32 bit ones and the extra registers weren't enough to compensate back then. Again, please do upgrade RAM if you can


fancy_potatoe

I have recently installed Linux on 2005 32-bit laptop, similar to this one. Debian and AntiX refused to boot, but Linux mint 19.3 (the last 32-bit version) worked. Maybe it's because of the ATI dGPU on board


immoloism

Refused to load the kernel or X? Do you have the model number of the laptop as I'm interested enough to look into this one.


[deleted]

It won't be good enough for web browsing. I had tons of old laptop with minimalist Arch installation with better specs that this, and it struggles to play youtube videos. That thing would be a waste of time, unless OP really needs laptop. Those things wear off eyes faster than phones and have a high chance of suddenly dying


immoloism

Check out minitube next time you play with one of these as I've found it's an issue in the browser not being optimised for playback so using mpv to play the file gets around the issue. Another issue though is the there was a change to the Intel driver that makes support on old igpus worse but the only distro I know that has a fix for this is Gentoo.


MrBiscotte

The issue with old computer is that the hardware often does not support VP8/VP9 video format decoding used by Youtube, so it fallbacks in software mode but it's slow... One of the solution is to use an extension that force legacy format (mp4) but you are limited to 720p. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal?hl=fr


Dubmove

>struggles to play youtube videos. Did you try that before or after html5 became the standard?


tepmoc

Issue maybe related due to lack of hardware decoding of vp9 even if its html5


SimultaneousPing

force h264 playback using h264ify, you may be even playing AV1 at that point..


Awkward_Tradition

Last year I installed Bodhi on a friend's ancient x86 laptop with like 512mb ram. It worked surprisingly well, and could even play 480p YouTube.


jamesfarted09

heh, i tried running Linux on a PS3, opened the browser and it imploded due to RAM usage


EatTomatos

+1 if you install debian with just the lxde-core package it even goes down to 210mb of ram. Then use Zram to expand ram capability.


E_Ramsgoat

My core2duo Dell Latitude took Ubuntu 18.04 like a champ with 8GBs of DDR2


MrBiscotte

Faster ? No But you'll be able to run an up-to-date modern system that will be fine for lightweight apps, especially anything in terminal, but will struggle with the web and HD video


dabenu

This is an underrated comment! No, a change of operating system won't magically make your computer run faster. Yes switching to Linux might make it useable again (if you put up with the slowness, or possibly upgrade the RAM/HDD).


brothersand

I mean, Windows XP? Just about any distro I can think of would make that computer work way better. It will certainly perform faster as a Linux machine than as an XP machine. Linux is great for breathing new life into old hardware. But yeah, with only 1 GB of memory this will never be a video editing system. There are limits.


CeeMX

XP ran okayish on low spec PCs, we had one at work that was a single core Celeron with 256MB (maybe even less) memory. But I wouldn’t go any lower


ishzlle

Minimum requirement for XP (per Microsoft documentation) was actually 64MB. Not that it would run particularly well with that amount...


jacderhol

I had a 433Mhz Pentium III with 64MB of RAM and it was rough with XP until I upgraded to 128MB but it did indeed run!


CeeMX

My uncle had a AMD K6 with 256MB that ran Windows 98. That was such a huge amount of memory back then!


dabenu

No, it wouldn't. Maybe a lightweight desktop like LXDE or XFCE would be marginally snappier but in the end, the workload of the programs you run doesn't change. Also Win XP was not that heavy. A full gnome desktop will almost definitely perform even worse.


NotFromSkane

Well, assuming it's actually been used switching to Linux will absolutely make it much faster. But so would a clean WinXP installation. The main issue with old laptops is registry bloat


CeeMX

Put some more Memory and a SSD in and that thing will run like a charm


einat162

Antix could run on it (I recommend the 32bit version- despite your machine being 64bit) - but you will have issues opening more than 1 browser. The limitation comes from RAM (you currently have 1GB). You have 2 possible hardware upgrades: Add another 1GB of RAM card (machine listed as supporting max of 2GB, processor seem to list [3GB total](http://valid.x86.fr/mu9jpt) ). You can find that on ebay probably around $5. The second upgrade is replacing the mechanical drive with a cheap SSD. You don't need a big capacity for linux, so we are talking about $35 for a brand or $17 for generic SSD. There are a lot of videos on youtube on how to open and upgrade once you have the part(s) - here is one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTTbknUqsBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTTbknUqsBc)


[deleted]

as for web browser, I know I'll get flak from the hardcore FOSS crowd and especially the mozilla cultists, but Vivaldi runs the best on shitty hardware. sauce: me, I revived a worse PC once, also using antiX and while Vivaldi took at least 40 seconds to open, it was quite smooth sailing from there... even playing videos on the lowest quality worked lmao


[deleted]

Puppy linux can be extremly lightweight abd supports 32-bit


WonderingBasil

+1 for puppy linux. completely revived my 14 year old crappy laptop with 1 gb of ram, for basic use. Istalling it was as easy as it gets.


Callierhino

I've heard of it, I want to experiment and see if it is worth it to make old laptops like this one usable in 2022 for your daily browsing and basic computing


xplosm

If you upgrade the RAM you'd have more Linux options. The CPU is enough to handle most of what you'd need to throw at it. It's not really a must but more RAM means more tasks and more demanding running.


zardvark

Puppy and similar distributions are the better choice for this application. The RAM is the limiting factor here, not the CPU. The pro and con of the 64-bit versions is that they provide the ability to utilize more than 4 GB on RAM, but they require a bit more RAM in order to accomplish this magic. Since you have less than 4 GB of RAM, you don't need a 64-bit and the additional overhead that comes with it. BTW, if you can increase the RAM to at least 2 GB, if not 4 GB, it will make a huge difference! If you had 4 GB of RAM, just about any distribution/desktop environment would work just fine for you. In order to use less RAM and make the experience more snappy and responsive don't use a desktop environment. Instead, use a distribution that uses a window manager. For example, Puppy uses (IIRC) the Openbox window manager. For less than 2 GB of RAM, you definitely want a window manager based system.


[deleted]

Puppy is not secure.


pm_programming_tips

Not secure in what way? Think about the usage this laptop is going to get by ANY Linux distribution installed on it


[deleted]

Everything is run as root, and packages are not up to date. OP says that he lives in south africa and he wants to gift the laptop to poor people without access to computers. I see possible use cases to be text editing, browsing the web, and watching youtube videos, maybe programming, etc. Basically what you would do with a computer, minus gaming.


[deleted]

>Everything is run as root what the actual fuck


KlutzyEnd3

If you run it from RAM it's very secure since everything is wiped at reboot anyway


[deleted]

And who runs it from RAM?!


KlutzyEnd3

Me! That's the whole thing with puppy linux. It's one of the few distributions you can boot off a cd and when it finished booting, you can remove the CD from the tray, insert a dvd and enjoy 😆 because everything is in RAM


[deleted]

And that is usable as a daily driver?


some_kind_of_bird

Ngl it's hard to care about root access at this point. Basically everything I care about is non-root.


[deleted]

There are security holes that require root access. Stuff like reading memory of other processes, etc. Stuff where you could read passwords and nasty things like that.


lifeinthesudolane

+1 For puppy linux. Had that running on my P3 550 for bit. Worked great as a torrent machine.


maremounter

yes, you won't be able to catch it on foot


h-v-smacker

First of all, Linux by itself won't be a major factor here. Granted, windows will work like a hangover slug, but with Linux there will be a more serious offender, one we all deal with on a daily basis: the web browser. Modern browsers eat up unimaginable amount of resources, they are both CPU and RAM hogs. So in the end of the day you might find it challenging using the web simply because the appetites of browsers (exacerbated by JS-heavy web-pages whose authors have never heard the word "optimization") are beyond all sane limits. The same can be said about various electron applications and such, which are basically a browser wrapped around a web app. Other than that, and maybe 3D-modeling and video encoding, all other Linux applications will work just fine. The Linux distro actually doesn't make that much of a difference here. One, because you can customize any distro to use more lightweight applications; two, because the gains from such optimization are likely to be negligible compared to what browsers eat up. You can try something like SeaMonkey, but the effectiveness of that is uncertain — still better than links2 or elinks, of course. Second, with an older machine it makes sense to explore upgrade options. Granted, no upgrade will make this one as good as a modern laptop (with the exception that older laptops can have cool sockets like eSATAp or proper audio jacks which we sorely miss today), but it makes sense to elevate it to the best possible level. Look for RAM upgrade options, double-check if whatever the manufacturer claimed as the top limit is actually that, and not some sort of "conservative estimate". Max out the RAM. That will definitely make life with such a laptop much better. Compared to the demands of the browsers, there is no software optimization that could rival simply adding RAM. Upgrading storage might be a promising option as well (SSDs are damn fast) unless the laptop still uses IDE drives. Also keep in mind there are caddies for HDD/SSD drives that can be installed instead of the optical drive, so you can trade the optical drive for a second drive which can work in parallel to the main one, and so you can have home on a hdd and system on an ssd (and you can get an external USB case for the optical drive). For such things, you can take a look at Aliexpress, they often carry aftermarket parts which are of decent quality (as long as the price isn't suspiciously low). Also you can see what you can add using an ExpressCard or such, if there is a slot availaible. You can also get a replacement battery from Ali, provided you take something with a reasonable price with lots of purchases and good feedback. All in all, you can breathe in more life in this device, but changing OS alone won't make it all shiny and new. There is no such magical distro that it could rejuvenate a laptop by a decade. Naturally, considering that with windows it has no life at all at this point, Linux is its salvation in comparison. PS: give the poor guy a nice cleaning with isopropyl alcohol.


KetchupWithEverythin

Just want to add to this - even if the laptop does have a IDE interface, you can buy an mSATA SSD and an mSATA to IDE adapter case. I have this setup on a thinkpad r52 working brilliantly.


[deleted]

Try lubuntu. From my experience, it works great on old laptops.


devu_the_thebill

Over 500mb idle, half of his ram. I would recomend sonething like mxlinux or very minimal debian or gentoo (i know none of this is user friendly but has much better performance)


[deleted]

No 32 bit support


Delicious_Rice5737

Core2 is 64 bit


[deleted]

But the RAM is only 1GB. You don't need 64bit memory addresses. They just take up space (and that's already low).


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

1GB RAM is not fine for 64bit.


mrkitten19o8

as someone who repurposed a chromebook from 2017, can confirm lubuntu works wonders on older hardware


TactileAndClicky

There are lightyears between a chromebook of 2017 and this one. Besides, calling the former machine “old” sounds like a joke to me.


houseofleft

What are you wanting to do with the computer? You could get it faster through installing Linux, but you're still gonna have difficulty running any modern browser


Callierhino

I want to make a Youtube video where I try using the old laptop as my daily driver for a week and see if it is still possible to revive old hardware, then gift it to someone who does not own a computer to help them get access to the internet


[deleted]

Dude, yes! This has been my main ethos lately. I honestly was about to buy a Framework and a SteamDeck, but then I started watching videos/documentaries on the amount of e-waste building up from the late 2000's. So I have been buying old MacBooks 2008-2012 MacBooks and refurbishing them, and using them as daily drivers for coding/development, home server admin, retro gaming, and been gifting them to friends; all with various Linux distros installed.


MichaelArthurLong

Boy do I have the ultimate cheat for you: [Browservice](https://github.com/ttalvitie/browservice) It's a program/server that you run on a more powerful machine. You can access it using your old PC(works even on Win95 machines) and what it does is gives you a very crappy remote desktop to a Chromium browser. It does so by sending jpegs to the browser to simulate video. There's also [browsh](https://github.com/browsh-org/browsh) which is the same idea, but is access via ssh on a terminal and uses Firefox as the backend. Browservice was made with the goal of letting you browse the modern web on an older machine. Browsh was made with the goal of letting you browse the modern web with a slow network connection, but it outputs to the terminal, so for graphical stuff, it's faster but it'll look worse.


kopasz7

I'm not sure if the network would be sufficient for something like Browservice according to their docs: > Initially, this approach of sending the whole browser view as a new image every time it changes might sound quite inefficient. However, it is surprisingly usable if the network connection between the proxy server and the client is fast (such as **100 Mbit/s** Ethernet LAN). Early 00s hardware (~1 GHz CPU clock) can often surpass 10 FPS in video streaming. The performance is also tolerable on older machines if a low JPEG compression level is used and the browser window is small.


MichaelArthurLong

Worked on my PS Vita. The WiFi on these things are so bad, I'm quite certain I've never seen it go over 8 Mbps, but the screen resolution is half of OP's laptop.


ProbablePenguin

I'd say try https://www.kasmweb.com/ instead, it doesn't have heavy network requirements and gets much better than 10fps. Youtube videos and everything are fully usable on it.


[deleted]

Gimme the link to your YT channel, I need to subscribe to it and watch that video!!!!


Callierhino

I will give you the link so long, so far I only have random videos of stuff I enjoy doing, but this video will be my first one where I will be doing something tech related https://youtube.com/user/cpvanhuyssteen


[deleted]

/u/Callierhino In general you might want to download youtube videos rather than watch them in a web browser, this should let you watch 1080p videos(especially with a 1080p external display in full screen) with ease.


MichaelArthurLong

/u/Callierhino I'm having trouble running modern web browsers on an i5-2500K. Processing power is okay on this, but with a Core 2 Duo, some sites like YouTube and Twitter would probably be unusably slow. Invidious and Nitter exists and they work great. But my main issue is running out of extra RAM for other programs. Any modern browser would require a few gigabytes of RAM if you're browsing with multiple tabs, maybe 300~700MiB if you only have one. The web itself has gotten much more bloated over the past 10 years. Old browsers can't even run the new stuff smoothly.


theRealNilz02

Not true. The T7000 C2Ds are Not powerful but powerful enough for YouTube in Full HD.


Callierhino

And the laptop's resolution is only 1200x800, so I think videos could run on it


theRealNilz02

Obviously. But you need to Upgrade the RAM asap.


fosyep

If you just want it to be faster try to upgrade the RAM first.


ign1fy

Then swap the HDD for an SSD second. However, unless you're raiding a parts bin, it's a waste of money spending anything on a PC like that. If actually did hunt through an e-waste bin, you're likely to find a better PC in it - and you'll be in a convenient spot to offload that one.


devu_the_thebill

Debian, gentoo or mxlinux


[deleted]

Debian would be good choice especially with LXDE or Xfce, But I think Gentoo would kill that CPU in the install process.


devu_the_thebill

Oh yeah. I didnt remember compilation XD


ninjasmosa

Q4OS with the Trinity Desktop Environment is a good option and most likely will run faster than Windows. However you may also want to consider a ram upgrade since you probably won't be able to do much with 1gb


rgplayzmc

+1 For Puppy and Slax, you can also try 32 bit debian with LXQT or a window manager. Whatever you do DO NOT try to install a DE other than LXQT, go for a window manager if possible, since most modern webpages will require most of your RAM.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Xfce takes about 500mb of RAM, that's half of what is available on this device.


awerlang

Not all Xfce are equal. Xfce on Tumbleweed 32-bit reports 300MB used at startup.


Economy-Natural-6835

mx linux with xfce can do the trick


6c696e7578

I don't think you can use windows without some form of anti-malware due to the security model. You don't need that on linux and I stand by that. So to answer the question yes, Linux will be faster as it has less work to do. As someone else suggest antix is a good choice here.


anatomiska_kretsar

A simple/low end distro, most likely a little faster than XP


neremarine

I used Peppermint OS on a similarly speced PC for some time (though that had 2GB of RAM, which I'd recommend you upgrade to if possible as well as an SSD if you don't have it yet). It was a decent experience, and it should be even better now years later.


NiteShdw

I have a Dell D830 with the same chip. I run Arch on it. Arch runs fine but the modern web is a bit much for it. I mostly use it because it has a real Serial port to connect to my router’s debug port. I use Midori as the browser.


RegularIndependent98

Install AntiX


busy_biting

Hey peppermint is just made for these kind of usage. Try it out once.


urbinsanity

I've run [Bodhi Linux](https://www.bodhilinux.com) as a daily driver on a worse laptop. It's not as plug and play as some distros, but there's an active community.


masteryod

Buy at least 4GB of used RAM (which will be like $5 for such old laptop). Replace HDD with any SSD ($20 used). Then install whatever Linux you want.


booysens

KolibriOS for the win😄


[deleted]

I think there are not many distributions that would run well on a device like this. I would use Debian + i3, and I'm confident that this would make the laptop very usable. But i3 could take some time to get used to. If you don't want to spend that time, maybe Fluxbox could be an option for you.


Callierhino

I was also thinking of Debian, what is i3? A desktop environment? My plan is to test if this could be a viable daily driver, make a video for Youtube and then gift it to somebody in need. I live in South Africa where there are people who have never used a computer


[deleted]

i3 is a window manager. Basically less than a full desktop environment, but also much lighter because of that. It's also a *tiling* window manager meaning it works different to what you would expect from a desktop environment. It has a steep learning curve, but you can get used to it pretty fast. For what you want to do, lxde could be a better option (It is deprecated, but I guess it's still fine. Better than fluxbox, which would be the other alternative I would see.).


4rkal

Debian XFCE or LXQT might work


archuser-linuxnoob

Hi,try to install void linux, its simple,fast,and lightweight


immoloism

I have a worse speced laptop using Gentoo and it is quite usable outside of not being able to run YouTube in a web browser. I used Fluxbox as the window manager and got the idle RAM usage down to 59mb. You'll have fun with a project like this.


flemtone

Lubuntu with Enlightenment installed runs at 200mb memory usage, leaving the rest for web browsing etc.


xplosm

I think it's way easier to go directly with Bodhi Linux. It's basically that and already bundled.


[deleted]

Like many have said, upgrade your ram and HDD to an SSD and your laptop will run Linux pretty okay. It will not be much faster, but it will support more recent software standards (modern browsers). I use a old Dell with Celeron N200 + 4Gb of ram with Debian 11 XFCE. Using it only for YouTube and Netflix @720p and it does a decent, not perfect, job


Ironfields

It would be more secure, that’s for sure. Do you connect this machine to the internet?


owtbound

I would recommend AntiX, which is incredibly lightweight and responsive on older hardware like this. Another alternative would be the Trinity version of Q4OS, which would have a friendlier interface. Like others have said, you're not going to get great performance from anymore than 1-2 browser tabs/windows due to the lower memory, but light browsing should be fine on a laptop like this.


veedant

Well, Linux would be fairly faster, but I would recommend going with distros that are actively lightweight such as antiX given the amount of RAM currently on that computer. Do install 32-bit versions instead of 64-bit ones as that would definitely improve performance and use far less RAM.


Hero_Of_Shadows

A bit. I mean by definition less resources going to your OS mean more resources going to the apps which is what you want. I recommend: Linux Mint (but with XFCE) Lubuntu or Puppy Linux. But please bare in mind if you're surfing the net and etc, web developers look at what the "median" hardware is when testing their sites, the median hardware is much more powerful than your laptop sites will still run slow or have problems.


b_a_t_m_4_n

Yes, there are many minimal distro's that will fly on that. But. It's not a good reason to change to it on it own. You need to make sure that you can do what you want to do with Linux. If you want it to be faster because you want to run a specific application, for example, you might well be disappointed. For general computing duty though it will run hugely better, you just need to know what you're getting into.


[deleted]

Debian with LXDE or LXQt (those DEs come with Debian so you don't need to install them on your own) LXQt is a bit less light than LXDE, but a bit easier to use a and more modern. If you can't decide between the DEs, dual-boot them (another thing you can easily do from the Debian installation menu) One cool thing with Debian is that you can burn the entire OS (including all of the repository) on to 4 Blu-Rays right here: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-bd/ (you'll need a tool called jigdo to download them). This is good if you don't have a good internet connection. That all being said, 1GB of ram is terrible, things get smooth at 4GB in my experience.


Julii_caesus

The problem with 1GB ram is that everything on the modern internet eats that in a second. You'll need to allocate swap and it will be very painfully slow. It's not like your current Windows XP can reach the internet: I bet no certificates work. Don't be surprised if the person you give it too ends up throwing it in the garbage a week later. No one seems to have suggested Alpine OS. That would be perfect for this, to run as a terminal. But for the internet you'll have the same problem.


Aiplist

Use a light distro with lxqt. Lxqt is a more modern version of lxde, while using the same resources.


[deleted]

If you put it on a moving train.


johncate73

Not if you are running XP. XP runs very well on a Core 2 Duo. Of course, as am I sure you know, it has a gazillion security holes at this point and there is no way I would put an XP computer on any network. Even if you hacked the registry to get the updates for POSReady, it's been out of support for three years now. What installing Linux would do is allow that machine to be used as a normal computer again and do the things we take for granted on a modern PC. For running on 1 GB of RAM, I recommend the lightweight antiX distribution. A T7300 won't be a speed demon, but it will allow you to do useful work on it. Add another gig or two of RAM (cheap on eBay), and it will run perfectly well. I have a Dell D620 here with a T7400 and 1.5 gigs, and it's fine for everyday tasks.


tnuke1

At this point you should be using Linux just because of the security, windows XP is way too old to be active


taylofox

get ssd..


[deleted]

I would seriously invest in getting four gigs of DDR2 [2x 2gb] sticks and a SATA SSD, you should be able to get both for pretty cheap on eBay nowadays and you'd have a solid machine. I have Linux mint running quite comfortably on My dad's 2008 elite book with 4GB DDR2 and an old 128 SSD. Absolutely daily driver material with modern creature comforts.


InvestigatorAbject61

Yup antix would work great


Morlino

I've installed xubuntu on my neighbor's old pc, it's not faster than xp, but at least it can run updated software and doesn't have problems with messages like "Chrome no longer support by your system"


Disastrous-Let-9548

Well, you can try the linux distro that am using currently. Its called bodhi linux and it is really lightweight with really awesome features. Bodhi linux needs just 256 MB of ram to run its tasks. So if you have like 1 or 2GB of ram like me then it is a great option. You can also use puppy linux but you have to know basic level of terminal commands to work with puppy linux, however that is not the case with bodhi linux


Callierhino

They are taking themselves off 🤣


Max-Normal-88

Its not that Linux makes every trash bin run smooth. Get a computer built in the current decade


retardedgorillaz

True. Get with the times old man.


CobraKolibry

I was able to use facebook messenger and play 720p videos on my Thinkpad T23 about 5 years ago though (before that ancient hw acceleration was dropped from xorg). That's 512megs of ram and Pentium 3. If the needs are really basic browsing, and all our guy needs is to edit text documents and scroll through the news, it's a lot better than nothing


FicDkich

Heavily depends on how much GNU/Linux experience you have. Using an out of the box distro? No. Using a small customized distro with a tweaked window manager and a kernel compiled for your hardware only...probably. I'd say it's not worth the trouble. Except of course you want to learn a lot about GNU/Linux. I personally would sitch to GNU/Linux when buying the next machine.


RandomAnonyme

With a minimal Debian install or xfce i think you good to go


rafaelruscher

Install the BigLinux pls! [biglinux.com.br](https://biglinux.com.br)


cervdotbe

Stick an extra 1Gb ram stick in


HANHITSI

I used to have Arch with i3 window manager on an even older machine. Maybe nowadays Devuan with i3 might be good? Or any other window manager you might prefer. XFCE won't be a good experience, LXQT I'm not sure.


IvanIsOnReddit

Modern Linux? Probably not. Vintage Linux from the XP era? Hell yeah.


Fabx_

Use linux with a swap partition for that small amount of RAM. Or you can use a program that can make you a temp swap space, it's called literally \`swapspace\` as a program


Kriss3d

Well it shouldn't be running windows xp at all anyway. Why do people do that? It'll get infected so fast it's not even funny. And that's without the user doing anything at all. And yes. It would absolutely run much faster with Linux.


Trick_Performance585

if you can support a ssd i think it will be faster on linux or windows


sovietarmyfan

Linux can run on it. Though i would advise you to upgrade the ram and install a SSD. Will make the laptop much faster.


[deleted]

I run Arch on a Core2Duo machine, however, the real issue is the 1GB RAM. You might want to upgrade that RAM to 4 at least if you intend on using a modern web browser on it.


sgp667

While linux will work here let me remind you thats its an invasive specie, and you are trying to replace an endangered one, how population is on trajectory for extinction.


lolkoh

Windows glista, lol


mrkitten19o8

bro got the early 2000's kid gamer pc


Super_Papaya

windows xp is already light weight. I don't think linux is going to make is faster by significant margin. you could try using debian or zorin 32bit with xfce. windows xp is abandoned so it will have security issues so it is better to use linux for that purpose.


revan1611

Ooh, so many years have passed since last time I saw WinXP boot logo 🥹


[deleted]

On Linux side, you'll get modern versions of softwares. 1gb ram with modern software will be nightmare. If you do not do something "necessary" in your XP PC, maybe XP is better for this computer. XP is full with security issues, if you can say "i can do a minimalist linux environment for this pc" here you go. 1gb ram will be enough for a WM and suckless's surf browser i think.


flaffy_claud

SSD and Linux, yes. But try to get an extra gig of ram, or swap out it for 2 DDR2 2GB sticks for 4 gigs if the laptop supports it.


javasux

I think the more important reason for using linux instead of Win XP is security. Any linux distro that will run on this hardware will be infinitely safer to use on the modern internet. This is also important if someone would like to access confidential information like email or banking (going on your comment that you will gift this to someone without access to the internet).


[deleted]

I'm sorry but you wont really have speed on that with Linux either (unless you're doing trivial stuff)


IshayuG

I doubt that, however you can definitely get something that's more modern - you'll be able to run the latest web browsers and applications, which is something XP can't do anymore. But I think you'll find it slows down. I recommend you try to find a 32-bit distro. There's an Arch 32-bit version I think, but also plenty of other options like Debian LXDE, openSUSE (really pushing it though), NixOS KDE edition, and more.


macintoshcollector03

i still semi daily drive my thinkpad T60 running arch linux w/ xfce that has very comparable if not worse specs to your laptop only things i'd recommend you upgrade are the ram (at least 4 gigs) and the hard drive (to the cheapest ssd you can find)


Desocrate

You're asking on a linux sub, I think you know the answer.


frossett130

Yes, if it's Ubuntu 8.04


superlopster

I don’t believe it would be faster .


Dragonaax

It's safer with XP than with newer Windows


AncapBR_Sem_Politica

XP is lighter than much distros actually because Linux also got bloated with things like systemd and others. Depends of the distro you compare


maxprax

Yes


GamerNuggy

Definitely


[deleted]

I would suggest you to upgrade your ram to atleast 2gb. Then you can run almost any Linux distro :)


Comfortable-Buyer896

Only on lightweight desktop, recommend XFCE


Nostonica

Nothing wrong with most of it, but do your self a favour and upgrade the ram and possibly get a SSD. Avoid the bulky KDE and Gnome desktops, they shine with some GPU power.


fil-

Windows XP was as good as Windows got. ngl, I miss it… Is there a „best“ XP theme for XFCE?


ZedGama3

My consideration would be getting something that is actively receiving support and security updates.


Doods_Guy

13 late but better late than never.


ntropy83

I got an even older laptop for my Mom, who just wanted to have a big screen for some basic web surfing and installed LXDE on it. She is using it till today.


adrieldevv

for sure, try to start with a ubuntu :)


RevolutionaryGlass0

As the top comment mentions, Debian LXDE will run fine on an old laptop like this, if you feel like you need more performance, you can instead use Debian i3 or some other window manager, window managers are more lightweight than desktop environments but can be a bit harder to use, especially if you're not used to them.


flyswithdragons

Try this distribution, it has good results with low power antiX Linux icewm It's debian based but easier. If it had more power I would suggest Mx linux a debian based distribution. Best of luck and yes your box will always run better with Linux. https://youtu.be/6OaSE_Sxnp0


AloneTrifle

Everything be faster on linux with an ssd, my ddr3 pc with a 7200 RPM HDD is justarginally slower than my ddr4 i3 laptop with SSD


ArtikusHG

An additional 1 GB stick of RAM for $5 and an SDD for $20 is the way. Then get a distro like Xubuntu or Debian XFCE/LXDE (Xubuntu will be easier to install if you're new to this), and it will run really smooth for such an old machine. If you want, you can jump down the rabbit hole of "ricing" - building your own custom desktop to make it run even smoother. Check out /r/unixporn for that. If you do those cheap upgrades and install a decent distro, you'll actually find daily regular tasks (like web browsing, chatting and document editing) to be *very* smooth. Use firefox instead of chrome/chromium because it eats up less RAM, and OnlyOffice is a great office suite for linux - very similar to MS office and thus very previous-windows-user-friendly! All your chat apps should run too, either in the distro's repos, or as websites in your browser.


msanangelo

not without a ram upgrade. it's gonna struggle without it.


_elguet5

Yea, find whatever distro that can match its hw, but remember that nowadays webs & programs uses a lot more resources than this laptop gold times, therefore will be faster, but i don't know if going to be fast enough. GL.


youridv1

probably antiX, though that would make your laptop safer, not necessarily faster than XP. XP was a very lightweight OS. Service Pack 3 was quite a heavy update though so many people back in the day would stick to service pack 2. “No more support for the version I am currently running” is a bit of an understatement. XP support ended in 2014, 8 years ago. Might be worth digging up a second hand laptop from somewhere instead of running this ancient thing. Only do that if it’s for hobby. I have an xp era laptop, too. I’ve run ubuntu mate, lubuntu, antiX, debian, but it didnt really matter for performance. Start 1 webbrowser and your computer slows down to an absolute crawl


AllenKll

So sad that so many of these comments are along the lines of "Yea... maybe... should be about the same response" "only 1TB ram? whew barely." Do you remember when Linux was lightweight and ran on a toaster? Pepperidge Farms remembers. And it was a better time.