Hello everyone i know this question might have been asked a lot but i wasnt able to find some answers suitable for my use. So pls can any one help me deciding what will be the best distro for my pc.
The specs are-
CPU: Intel Core 2 6420 (2) @ 2.128GHz
GPU: Intel 82Q963/Q965
Memory: 2514MiB / 3861MiB

I am currently running pop os by system76.

^ yep.

Assuming that core 2 is 64bit, any of the "Old Computers" category will do.
But not all of them are newbie friendly, and their "lightweightness" varies wildly.
At least 1., 2., 4. and 5. from that list would seem suitable.

AntiX - lightweight, Debian based, no systemd
MX Linux - medium weight, Debian based, doesn't use systemd as standard
Slackware - create the system you want, if you know how
SliTaz - very lightweight distro
Tiny Core Linux - an interesting distro that you can tailor to your needs

Just some of the possibles....but you should be able to run most distros.

1 members found this post helpful.

akshat.j,

Welcome to LQ forums.

Another vote for the medium-weight MX Linux 19.2 (Xfce) which I have running on a Samsung netbook with a puny Atom CPU and 2GB of RAM.

If MX can run on my hardware, it will definitely run on your machine.

1 members found this post helpful.

That's not what I'd call an old computer, and any version of Linux should work. Really, to give advice it would help to know what you use the computer for and why you want to replace PopOS.

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The CPU was launched 2007, the GPU 2006. Assuming the mobo and rest of the hardware is of that era - you don't call that an old computer? What do you call an old computer, as far as installing a Linux distro is concerned?
I'm not being ironic, it's an honest question.
The definition of "old" depends not only on context (installing a Linux distro that won't grind to a halt) but also the perceptions of the speaker.

1 members found this post helpful.

In computing terms I would say that anything 10 years or more is old equipment, however these days, since the Pentium, most 'old' computers are still very much usable for most peoples needs, just that they will be slow online owing to the size of web browsers nowadays.

P.S. I still use a 2008 Toshiba laptop at times, even online, it is a 1.2GHz Celeron with 2GB ram.

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I am using it for learning programming along with some basic functionality like browsing the web. Right now pop os seems to be fast and snappy but it takes more than 30% of my ram. I tried to reduce the usage by tweaking some gnome settings but nothing worked.

Gnome is not exactly light-weight. Try a lighter desktop like Xfce4 (I don't know if Pop OS allows you to choose the desktop environment).

To learn programming, I doubt you need Pop OS with its focus on media production, deep learning, engineering etc. As an example, Blender, one of the tools bundled in Pop OS, certainly needs a snappier PC than yours.

A normal distro without any particular focus, but tuned to older or low-end PCs, should be fine. Whatever programming tools are not included in the default installation can probably be downloaded easily.

On the other hand, if you are happy with Pop OS, why change?

By the way I wonder what you mean by "Memory: 2514MiB / 3861MiB". Is it 2514, or 3861?

That's a perfectly capable hardware setup---depending on what you're expecting to use the system for. I run a very similar system, formerly as a database/file/IMAP server, and now as the firewall and NTP server for our LAN. (It's almost too much hardware for those functions but the Pentium MMX board it replaced died of old age.)

I've run OpenSUSE on that hardware before. It's been running Slackware for the past couple of years. I cannot speak to how well it runs a GUI---I've only fired one up for certain functions for brief periods. It's not a gaming system (though it could run Adventure pretty handily. :^D )

The distribution doesn't matter as much as the desktop environment you choose to run. KDE is pretty heavy in its resource use. Try something lighter like Xfce.

HTH...

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...4/#post6160633



Another opinion: Debian's Sid, link below...

Core 2 Duo 64-bit is "good enough" for any modern linux. Choose whichever you want.

Yes, I think any distro will work, as long as the desktop environment isn't Gnome or KDE. I'm running Debian on a first-gen chromebox, and it works very well. More memory would be a great upgrade if it's possible, but otherwise just pick whatever you like, with a lightweight DE like Xfce or LXDE.

Any applicable distro should work. But you might want to strip some things OFF at boot time. And go with a lighter weight environment than gnome. The main limitation being the lack of RAM in a RAM hungry reality. I had to stop using a 2.8GHz P4 because 512MB of RAM just wouldn't cut it anymore (for watching youtube). The RAM needs of a modern browser, and the CPU needs of modern youtube ADs.

For me, I turn off things like cups, smb (samba), nfs, ntp, bluetooth, ModemManager, and such. And since I don't run gnome or kde, I turn off NetworkManager and setup my network manually. I also use an ethernet to wifi bridge and an external pulseaudio server. Whatever computing you can offload helps you have that much more RAM, CPU, and such for "other" things. Not the only reason for offloading things. In the case of wifi, when things burps and it's local, my game disconnects (in the middle of a boss fight), even though it recovers the connection fairly fast. Using a wifi bridge, makes that same scenario a lag / delay, not a disconnect. And for pulse, not only are you not doing that processing locally, but it's about 100MB less RAM usage going that route. And the configuration is a single line in a single file.