So i have a bunch of pc’s/laptops/computers and such that my family members refuse to depart with even though there really bad. so far they mangae to keep 4 bulky computers in total, we do have some new-ish ones but theses ones im talking about need some loving.1 computer is 32 bit and has 2gb of ram, the other 3 have 64-bit and range from 1gb of ram- to 2 and one of which has only 75 space hardrive.
are there any linux distros that might work becasue im a noob who uses windows so im very lost. any tips or suggestions or something would be great.
also if im posting in the wrong plac eplease let me know in the comments.
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AntiX is quite good on older hardware but beware of the fact they don’t use systemd. Nice effort to try and use newer init services but a lot of things really depend on systemd being installed.
WattOS (which uses systemd) is also very performant on old rigs but it needs more tweaking OOTB I’d say.
I’ve used Debian on an old netbook with an Intel Atom and onyl 2GB RAM. The experience wasn’t so bad but web browsing was definitely a pain. Video calling and watching YouTube (Firefox) was very sluggish and annoying to deal with. It’s fine for working with documents and watching low resolution videos locally but that’s about it.
I’ve also tried antiX but a lot of the defaults were annoying. If you (or your family members) can deal with it, then it’s probably the best lightweight Linux distro out there.
are there any linux distros that might work becasue im a noob who uses windows so im very lost. any tips or suggestions or something would be great.
In this case, I recommend just leaving your family members to do their own thing. From my experience, it is very hard to manage other people’s Linux issues if you don’t have decent knowledge on it yourself. If they don’t want to upgrade, that’s their problem. Not yours.
Puppy Linux runs on a potato of any architecture and is super user friendly (grandpa certified)! Only 300 MB or so. https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
Would also recommend Debian or Puppy. Maybe also take a look at Distrochooser?
Alpine Linux is one to look at.
MX Linux works good on old hardware.
If you’re looking for a DE, XFCE might even feel sluggish on older hardware. You can go lighter with LXQt or use the Pixel Desktop that Raspberry Pi OS has (which is modified LXDE).
Browser choice is probably going to make just as much difference as distro choice. Modern browsers kinda need at least 1 GB to be usable, ideally more. Depends what you do with it of course.
Try Pale Moon, Falkon and Konqueror.
In my experience, palemoon struggles a lot with modern JavaScript-bloated sites and becomes much slower to use. My suggestion is to use 32bit firefox.
