It’s an old model (Acer One D257) Processor is Intel Atom. Memory is 1GB DDR3 with 320 GB of HDD. I currently Have MX 21 running on it, but I need to reinstall because I forgot the root password. Since I’m reinstalling the OS, I thought I’d ask here for recommendations for an OS that makes the most of this oldie.
Debian
I used to like Debian based (and still do; I use it on my server with no intention of switching) but Opensuse is great on the desktop and supports 32 bit. Even tumbleweed is rock solid.
The Distro is not important, just debloat it. Something like Alpine is actually smaller, but in the end the Desktop needs to be tiny.
Puppy Linux is very active on the 32bit land.
either that or damn small linux
There’s also TinyCore, made by the lead developer of Damn Small Linux after it stopped being developed.
Personally I am using a netbook like this as a headless server with Ubuntu.
You can try to run Lubuntu, or even TinyCore and Puppy Linux on this for simple tasks.
Generally speaking, with 1GB of ram and Intel atom, as you stay away from video streaming platforms and use simple tools for writing text or run simple code in python, you would be fine. However with less than 100€ you can find laptops with core i5 4rd generation with 8gb ram. I am not sure if it worths it.
Debian with the choice of LXDE as window manager. Debian offers high configurability to remove any heavy component.
That’s a good point, I could jus try debian and remove the unnecessary stuff. I want my daughter to use this laptop so it needs some video codecs and hopefully some educational games.
Some commenters said you need a minimum of 2GB memory to run Debian. What do you make of that?
See this: https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/ch03s04.en.html Minimum 1Gb, preferably 2 for a desktop.
Don’t want to hurt your daughter. And don’t want to hurt the Linux community by making a girl hate Linux when she’s a child.
