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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The only distro I could get to boot on my old Acer One was MX Linux.
It had the rare combination of 32bit UEFI support (cause the Acer supports neither 64bit UEFI nor legacy BIOS) and the necessary firmware out of the box.
But after upgrading it to the current release, it broke again. And then I threw the netbook away cause I have better things to do with my time.
Oh shit, what newest release did you upgrade to? I think I have MX21 in my Acer one
23, the one that is based on Debian Bookworm.
21.3 worked fine.
If you don't want to reinstall just cause you forgot your password:
https://linuxconfig.org/recover-reset-forgotten-linux-root-password
Thanks, that's actually a very clear tutorial. Definitely saving it
Whatever distro you install, make sure you enable zram, it makes old computers with low ram much more usable, and an out of memory killer too.
Ooms are much less necessary with MGLRU if they keep to a new kernel
I'd still use an oom killer even on 6.1 which is the kernel Debian uses, mglru got improvements in following kernels like you said.
The Linux kernel already has OOM killing... Do you mean something like Facebook's oomd where you can more easily control it from userspace?
yeah, from what i remember the kernel's oom killer isn't that fast and external ones work better
Thanks! Great advice 👍
Puppy Linux is very active on the 32bit land.
The Distro is not important, just debloat it. Something like Alpine is actually smaller, but in the end the Desktop needs to be tiny.
The Distro is not important
Most distros have dropped 32bit UEFI support, so on old hardware, the distro is important.
Good point. Thanks
If you can run the Raspberry Pi Desktop that would be good. Wayland and I think very light.
I am thinking about installing that on Fedora, rebranding and all, to have an actually small Wayland Desktop, because the current options are either WMs or bigger Desktops
See if you can get the memory upgraded. DDR3 SO-DIMMs should be dirt cheap.
I'd also get a cheap SSD aswell, especially if this is for a child who might not be very careful with the machine.
Hmmm yeah I hadn't thought about upgrading the laptop, that's a big idea, and indeed it should be super cheap
I use super old hardware as well. An SSD will blow your mind.
I'd probably try a minimal Debian installation with the Openbox WM.
Link, in case you're having trouble locating the .iso: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-12.2.0-i386-netinst.iso
Arch Linux 32.
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.
Ah, good to know. I wonder how is it possible then for Debain-based distros (MX) to run well on this notebook
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.
Hannah Montana Linux?
Why would she hate Linux?
Because it's SLOOOOOOOOOW.
This laptop wouldn't even run on windows so I'm not sure what you're suggesting