this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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I had an Aspire One D270 laptop with a 32-bit Intel Atom CPU and 1 gigabyte of RAM, so I installed Debian with Xfce on it, but even then it's running way too slow.

Is there anything I can do to make the laptop faster and more responsive given its limited memory?

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Slitaz should need only ~60MB of RAM to run. Wireless networking probably won't work out of the box, tho.

You can also try either MenuetOS or Kolibri, both are super tiny.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Do not run Slitaz as is fully of security problems and vulnerabilities. What's worse is that there website has security holes on it. There is a page on the bug tracker that runs arbitrary JavaScript and prints out the time as an example. It also has been abandoned and is no longer maintained all that well.

1gb of ram is quiet a bit. I've ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware it it works with a few tabs. The problem is the modern internet is graphics heavy and the old GPU doesn't have a lot of power. If you don't block ads with Ublock origin it will grind to a halt as the video and image rendering will be done by the CPU as the GPU is to old.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’ve ran Debian Xfce4 on simular hardware

OP did say he tried Debian with xfce and it was slow, I don't see the point in insisting on using that

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Because it isn't going to be faster to use something else else. Unless they added a ton of stuff it shouldn't use more than a quarter of the ram. Firefox suspends tabs under ram pressure so that shouldn't be an issue either.

I've done work on a old Atom with 1gb of ram. It isn't fast but it gets the job done. You can't just make old hardware run fast by changing the desktop

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago

First install an SSD if you haven't already. Next install ublock origin in Firefox ESR and tighten down the security settings to max plus turn off all telemetry, studies and other "features." Don't use a Mozilla account as that adds overhead.

It still will be slow but it should be usable with a few tabs. Do not try to do video playback as the old GPU doesn't support modern video formats so the CPU ends up decoding it all.

[–] ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Try Bodhi Linux - you can burn it to CD/USB or copy it on a Ventoy USB stick to test before installing and it is available for 32 bit systems

[–] notthebees@reddthat.com 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Maybe try bunsenlabs? It's uses openbox instead of a de.

I run it on a pentium m laptop and it runs well enough

Pentium m 735, 1 gb of ddr ram

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Use an old distro?

I first installed Ubuntu 4 or 5 on a Thinkpad T42 with 512 MB of RAM. I used it until about version 10, when they forced everyone to use left-handed window controls. It all ran about as well as XP did on that machine. Might be unsafe to bring online, nowadays, but if it gets borked do you really care?

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