What is the best Lightweight Linux Distro?

[Revolve]

1. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with 2 GB RAM. My windows 7 home basic in the laptop lags so much. Can't even open the file manager easily. If am not a Linux expert, what distro suits me?

2. Is elementary OS a good and lightweight distro? is it that lightweight it can multitask on my Core 2 Duo laptop easily?

[TyranT⨁]

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

I have been using Linux Mint XFCE to run Steam, mostly because it is sort of a full featured distro, as lightweight as LXDE, and its somewhat easier to deal with than say Arch. I just don't want to spend the time to build from scratch just to play games randomly. Save that for the servers.

XFCE is not as lightweight as LXDE. LXDE uses alot less resources then XFCE.

Of course Mint is "easier to deal with" then Arch. Mint is for noobs who don't know how to use the CLI and want pre-installed packages, because they are too lazy to install packages themselfs, and configure Linux like a man.

Also, servers don't play games, they host them. Saying servers play games makes no sense.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

The whole spyware in the source thing is going overboard a little. Yeah Ubuntu has plenty of applications running to track and gather data for advertising and selling to third parties. But saying its in the source and or in every fork of it is absurd. First of all someone would have already found it and reported on it if it was more than just stupid tracking and metadata, sorta the same type of stuff even Valve collects through Steam. Hurry get off of Steam lol.

I can't begin to explain the ignorance of this quote. You must be young. For Ubuntu to have the ability to track and spy on its users, it would HAVE to be in the source code, since source code is how these types of spying programs are made. Whether its just in the Unity source code, or both Ubuntu and Unity, you can't say unless you look at the source. I would never trust a company that sends my personal information to another company. You would be a fool to do so.

You must have not fully watched the video I linked, or are clueless to who Richard Stallman is. If you don't know who Richard Stallman is, you shouldn't be using Linux. Out of all the people in the world, what Richard Stallman says about Ubuntu is fact.

Ubuntu does more then track its users. You would know this if you watched the video. Ubuntu will send usage and search data back to Canonical and Amazon. Personally, I don't want corporations to know what I search for, and give me ads based on what I search. This is invasion of my privacy.

Second of all, Steam doesn't do anything similar to what Ubuntu and Canonical does. It doesn't even equate whatsoever. You cannot compare Ubuntu and Steam. The only thing I can think of that Steam collects, is your system specs and software for the survey, and they ASK if you want to participate. Unlike Ubuntu, that has spying enabled by default, and doesn't ask you if you want it enabled or not.

Knowing someones hardware specs and software, is a lot different then sending corporations your search inquiries, don't you think? Its not like Steam gives this information to anyone. They would never do such a thing. Steam respects privacy. Even if Valve knows your hardware specs and software used, they don't give this information to anyone, and you're anonymous to the outside world in regards to this information.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

If it is in Ubuntu at the source, kernel, or any level then it has spread upstream and its in everything by now. Half the source is actually Debian Testing Branch source to begin with and Debian takes upstream patches from Ubuntu.

No, just because its in Ubuntu, doesn't mean its in "everything" by now. That is the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. You do not understand Linux at all. Ubuntu is derived from Debain, but doesn't mean all of Ubuntu's "features" are in Debian source code, or part of Debian. Debian would NEVER implement the spyware Ubuntu has.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

Saying not to use Mint because of Ubuntu is retarded especially when then saying to try Fedora. Who backs Fedora? RedHat lol, yeah making a lot of sense there.

Did you just insult RedHat? Seriously, say no more. You have no idea the atrocities you speak. RedHat is one of the most respected names in the Linux community, and Fedora is a top notch distro. When it comes to bleeding edge like Arch, Fedora Rawhide is not far behind. Fedora is an outstanding distro. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, uses Fedora. You're oblivious.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

You are NOT going to find anything straight up sending random data or other wise out unless you go with something that is known and reported as shady.

If you were to netstat Ubuntu, you would see its constantly talking to Amazon servers, as well as Canonical servers.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

Besides, complaining about some advertising tracking data is stupid when almost everyone is getting everyone's data every where if you are connected to the internet in any way. Did you watch something on YouTube today? Did you go on eBay? Did you buy something from NewEgg? Did you use Twitter? Did you go to a forum of any kind today? Did you type anything into anywhere online? If you did... you're screwed.

I use a modified host file to block all sorts of advertising servers. I see no ads when I browse the web. I don't use Facebook (which is run by the FBI), or any of "social media." NewEgg doesn't send your search inquiries to third-party corporations. You're blowing everything out of proportion. You're trying to rationalize that using NewEgg is the same as a company sending your search inquies to another company, without your consent. You have no logic.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

Its not so much about someone getting this type of data.... its about them not getting important data. And if you are going to randomly spew uneducated tin foil hat nonsense... you are hurting more than helping bring people to it.

Your search inquiries are important data. It says a lot about you. You're ignorant if you say otherwise. You can learn a lot (maybe too much) about someone by just monitoring there search inquiries. If you don't mind corporations spying on you, that's fine. I'm just here to educate people on how corrupt Ubuntu is (and all its derivatives). Most people, including you, didn't know that Ubuntu talks to Amazon servers 24/7 and keeps a constant connection with an Amazon server.

Originalmente postado por ThePixelKid:

systemd the init service replacement is ok, but the rest of the crap they are pulling into it is becoming a mess, and goes completely against Linux principals. It has its pros and cons, the concept was good a first, but now it is sorta out of control. Only time will tell what happens with it.

Ubuntu (and all its derivatives) are adopting systemd soon anyway. It will be hard to find a Linux distro that doesn't use systemd in the near future. Please explain how Fedora is going against Linux principals, especially when Ubuntu and all its forks are everything Linux isn't supposed to be.

Originalmente postado por Drako Frost:

I just want to add that only Unity sends meta data to Canonical (and you can easily disable it), any other Ubuntu flavour or Ubuntu based distribution is free from this.

And I totally agree about Red Hat / Fedora, they always try to force things upon Linux users. Yeah Systemd, I'm looking at you.

The problem here, is that its enabled by default without the users consent. You can't say for certain that Ubuntu is free from usage tracking, especially when Unity was designed and made by Canonical, specifically for Ubuntu. If you want to use and trust a company's Linux distro that makes spyware, by all means, be my guest. I just don't like to use spyware, or defend companies and distros that are made or built from people who make spyware.

The systemd daemon has been adopted as the main init daemon for most distros nowadays. Hating on Fedora for making the move to systemd is ridculous, and absurd. You might as well hate over 75% of all linux distros too then. Not a justifiable reason to talk down on Fedora.

[R3450N]

It depends on what you're looking for. KDE, GNOME and Unity all require system resources and decent graphics capability, which your machine lacks. XFCE, MATE, LXDE might be your goals. Elementary OS is graphically appealing, but it's based off Ubuntu 12.04 which is years old; that distro is old now. Xubuntu might be your best choice since it has a sleek version of XFCE which doesn't eat up a lot of your RAM.

Ultimately, if you really want a lightweight distro then an Arch Linux installation minus a desktop environment could suit your needs. Or, if you're a masochist, go for Linux from Scratch. ;-)

[JamieLinux]

Open suse is pretty decent as far as not eating alot of ram and cpu useage...

Worse comes to worse you can always grab browser linux with open office and then stuff it with steam os lol.... :P

That configeration there shouldnt be more then about 300 mb lol...

[Dedale]

If the OP is still reading...

You don't absolutely need a lightwieght distro with a coreduo. I use Xubuntu but it has a tearing problem when i play 3D games and sometimes HD videos. Linux mint MATE is light and doesn't have that tearing problem.

These two distros are based on ubuntu which is easy to set up and use. Plus most game makers focus on ubuntu comatibility.

I would not advise debian for a beginner.

[Fibbs]

Originalmente postado por daedalus_prime:

If the OP is still reading...

You don't absolutely need a lightwieght distro with a coreduo. I use Xubuntu but it has a tearing problem when i play 3D games and sometimes HD videos. Linux mint MATE is light and doesn't have that tearing problem.

These two distros are based on ubuntu which is easy to set up and use. Plus most game makers focus on ubuntu comatibility.

I would not advise debian for a beginner.

The tearing you describe is a problem common with all distros that use XFCE. This is because XFCE uses software rather than hardware compositing (basically it uses your CPU rather than your GPU).

If you're not too new to Linux you should Google replacing the default XFCE compositior with Compton which you can run in OpenGL mode (which gives you a hardware composited desktop). This will stop tearing in videos as well as general desktop use.

Fullscreen games don't really need compositing so you should be able to get rid of the tearing by disabling the XFCE compositor whilst you're playing. I created an easy to use script some time ago that does this (as well as other performance tweaks): http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/558750717530784174/?insideModal=1

Alternatively you can use this console command to turn off XFCE compositing:

xfconf-query --channel=xfwm4 --property=/general/use_compositing --set=false

And this to turn it back on:

xfconf-query --channel=xfwm4 --property=/general/use_compositing --set=true