EVERYONE TAKE COVER! HE ASKED IT!
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Linux
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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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What? 😐
It's a running gag of the GNU Linux community. Asking this question can turn any gathering between GNU/Linux users into a war zone.
EndeavourOS if you've never used Linux before.
Arch if you've played around with Linux, but want to learn some more basic terminal stuff so that in case your Desktop Environment breaks down, you know what to do to get it back up again without a full reinstall.
Should note EndeavourOS is just Arch with an easier installer and slightly pre-configured with common dependencies installed out the box.
EndeavourOS + KDE is what got me daily driving Linux and even after using vanilla Arch for 2 months at one point, I went back to EndeavourOS because it was just less hassle.
Yes and the manual install taught me how to deal with DEs refusing to start without having to do a full reinstall.
It's such a pleasure to be able to save your setup no matter what the issue, apart from the time I accidentally erased my hard drive with a sudo rm -rf * command that was supposed to wipe a USB drive.
OK, by that logic, it should be arch then 😃👍 (I think that to get the system working again if the DE crashes, I have to install a new DE through the terminal, control + shift + t I think, and then start the DE session through the terminal.)
If your truely going the endevour route, here some tips on recoving from a broken state:
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The archwiki is your friend, read the relevant pages before asking on forums
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Install arch manually (no archinstall) and thoroughly read the wiki to understand how your system is put together. Then install endevour, just from doing a manual arch install you should have the knowlage to fix like 90% of issues
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Learn the basics of systemD, will also help you on 99% of mainstream distros
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Keep your /home directory on a seperate partition, useful for doing a system rescue and for distrohopping
Whatever distro you want, it's Linux so you can do anything you want. Go wild with your imagination.
I'd suggest EndeavourOS with XFce (removing the endeavouros addons after installation to save ram). I can make it boot at 460 MB of RAM. Hyprland uses about 900 MB. Might be of interest with just 4 GB of RAM. For example, on Omarchy, which uses arch/hyprland, it uses about 900 mb of ram, but it's super slow with btrfs and some changes they've made. So on an old PC, XFce might be your friend. XFce can be themed really well, here are my attempts:
macos: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114009689446895521
macos classic: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114875117360852977
win11: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114874435763184758
beos: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114751365408638345
Actually plasma uses less resources than xfce. Not many people seem to know this, but its both better looking and more efficient.
You also get full Wayland support. So I would actually recommend plasma, but both can be installed and tried since we are blessed with choice in the Linux world.
Erm, no, it doesn't. Plasma requires over 1.2 GB of RAM on a clean boot. It's a much more complex DE.
It is NOT more efficient than Xfce. I live booted Fedora KDE, and it was painfully slow. Mint Xfce and Void Xfce, on the other hand, worked perfectly.
Ok :)
This mainly depends on the distribution and default configuration of the desktop environment. You can make KDE Plasma use less RAM comparable to XFCE, but that's not the case with the default setup which most people compare.
LMDE 7 for this configuration.
This. Rock solid.
depends a lot on your actual hardware. some 2014 computers can run kde just fine, some will struggle with it. what actual components do you have?
I have arch + kde plasma running on a i5 3320m among other things and it's completely fine. Your 4gb ram is not an issue.
The biggest issue around this generation would be if you have a spinning hard drive, you'd want to replace that even with the cheapest used ssd you can find anywhere asap.
Arch is fun and you should try it at some point but it's not "faster" than Debian or mint or whatever, it mostly just comes down to your desktop environment and web browser.
I can run KDE with Kubuntu well
I would say Arch if you are that tight on resources and comfortable doing so (the setup isn't as bad as people make it sound, just look up a guide online), but Endeavour would get you to more or less the same place with much less complexity.
That said, is there any chance of upgrading the RAM? an extra 4GB or 8GB stick of DDR3/DDR3L off ebay would not cost too much, and would make a world of difference for things like modern web browsers.
I can't upgrade, I will try arch. If I can't, endeavour.
Arch (or Gentoo) will teach you linux. :)
Void Linux Musl Xfce will run AMAZINGLY. Live boot it in root, otherwise it won't have graphics acceleration (or it may be something else? Either way, I had 2 very different experiences).
It all depends on how much time and energy you have to configure and maintain your system. If you want a rolling distribution and don't have much time available, I would recommend Tumbleweed because it strikes a good balance between constant updates and operational stability, as it comes configured with snapper, a great tool for restoring the system in case of an update failure. If you have more time available to manage your system, I would try Arch directly because I am not in favour of using distributions that do not have control over their own repositories.
I like Debian because it is maintained by a community of volunteers rather than a company. In addition it is a well known distro with an active community that serves as the base for many other distros.
Hyprland is transphobic
I would go with Arch and i3. Dont use archinstall. Do it the hard way and you will learn alot about linux.
True, but not things you will use day to day. With such a little machine, I would go with EndeavourOS with i3 or sway and build it up from there.
I also recommend EndeavourOS. But maybe instead i3 or sway, Qtile is also a good alternative for everyone who knows and wants to do it in Python.
i found sway to be more performant than i3 on my core 2 duo machine, though tbf i prefer the default config of i3