Lightweight Linux...
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I'd definitely check out one of the Mate GUIs. That's my go-to of choice these days, even on a hefty system with good specs.
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@dafyre said in Lightweight Linux...:
I'd definitely check out one of the Mate GUIs. That's my go-to of choice these days, even on a hefty system with good specs.
Is Mate really that much lighter on resources than Cinnamon?
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@BBigford said in Lightweight Linux...:
@dafyre said in Lightweight Linux...:
I'd definitely check out one of the Mate GUIs. That's my go-to of choice these days, even on a hefty system with good specs.
Is Mate really that much lighter on resources than Cinnamon?
I think so. It works extremely well over remote connections via X2Go. Any of the Desktop Environments that provide a lot of eye candy don't seem to do well at all (especially remotely).
If you need seriously light weight, though... XFCE or LXDE are probably your winners here. But I'd suggest a Linux Mint 18 install with Mate, and if that doesn't work, just fiddle with the other desktop environments until you find one you like... (Mate, XFCE, LXDE, IceWM are current choices I like).
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@RamblingBiped said in Lightweight Linux...:
Try lubuntu; I have a core 2 duo with 2GB of memory that runs really well with it installed. It uses LXDE by default.
This. LXDE is pretty much the only option. You are testing heavy distros with nice desktops. That won't work. You need one with a light desktop. Only light desktop for non-UNIX users is really LXDE.
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@BBigford said in Lightweight Linux...:
@dafyre said in Lightweight Linux...:
I'd definitely check out one of the Mate GUIs. That's my go-to of choice these days, even on a hefty system with good specs.
Is Mate really that much lighter on resources than Cinnamon?
Yes, MATE doesn't require a GPU, Cinnamon does. Cinnamon is designed to be really powerful on modern, underutilized hardware with an idle GPU. Mate is a traditional desktop. IceWM, LXDE, XFCE and others are designed to be light, not just "not heavy."
Anything based on Gnome3 (Cinnamon, Unity) or KDE is going to be way too heavy for you.
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@scottalanmiller said in Lightweight Linux...:
@BBigford said in Lightweight Linux...:
@dafyre said in Lightweight Linux...:
I'd definitely check out one of the Mate GUIs. That's my go-to of choice these days, even on a hefty system with good specs.
Is Mate really that much lighter on resources than Cinnamon?
Yes, MATE doesn't require a GPU, Cinnamon does. Cinnamon is designed to be really powerful on modern, underutilized hardware with an idle GPU. Mate is a traditional desktop. IceWM, LXDE, XFCE and others are designed to be light, not just "not heavy."
Anything based on Gnome3 (Cinnamon, Unity) or KDE is going to be way too heavy for you.
Ah, well that explains the screen tearing.
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Personally, I still don't get the favoritism between desktops. If I can accomplish a task without touching my mouse I'm happy. Most of what I do when I'm working from a Linux OS is done and accomplished in a terminal.realistically, all I really feel like I need is a terminal, a functioning web browser, and Libre Office on occasion.
What the GUI wrapper looks like honestly doesn't concern me all that much. The less a GUI gets in the way, the happier I am with it. I think this is why I really don't have a problem with Ubuntu's default UI for their desktop distro. I hide the Unity dock/panel and it's clean and out of the way. It's also why I like LXDE. It doesn't get in the way and doesn't consume much in regards to resources.
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@RamblingBiped said in Lightweight Linux...:
Personally, I still don't get the favoritism between desktops. If I can accomplish a task without touching my mouse I'm happy. Most of what I do when I'm working from a Linux OS is done and accomplished in a terminal.realistically, all I really feel like I need is a terminal, a functioning web browser, and Libre Office on occasion.
What the GUI wrapper looks like honestly doesn't concern me all that much. The less a GUI gets in the way, the happier I am with it. I think this is why I really don't have a problem with Ubuntu's default UI for their desktop distro. I hide the Unity dock/panel and it's clean and out of the way. It's also why I like LXDE. It doesn't get in the way and doesn't consume much in regards to resources.
Sounds like you should try the i3 Window Manager, ha ha!
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@dafyre said in Lightweight Linux...:
@RamblingBiped said in Lightweight Linux...:
Personally, I still don't get the favoritism between desktops. If I can accomplish a task without touching my mouse I'm happy. Most of what I do when I'm working from a Linux OS is done and accomplished in a terminal.realistically, all I really feel like I need is a terminal, a functioning web browser, and Libre Office on occasion.
What the GUI wrapper looks like honestly doesn't concern me all that much. The less a GUI gets in the way, the happier I am with it. I think this is why I really don't have a problem with Ubuntu's default UI for their desktop distro. I hide the Unity dock/panel and it's clean and out of the way. It's also why I like LXDE. It doesn't get in the way and doesn't consume much in regards to resources.
Sounds like you should try the i3 Window Manager, ha ha!
Ya if you don't want frills and just want keyboard, that's the best. I love it.
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What about Chromium OS?
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You could build one yourself, Gentoo with optimized CFLAGS and CCFLAGS would be the fastest Linux you can get IMHO (apart from LFS). Setting up distcc to speed up the compiling wouldn't be much of an effort (CPU was x86/amd64?). If the CPU isn't x86/amd64, you would need a cross compiler which can be complicated to setup.
But looking at the time you need to spent to configure Gentoo, you could just earn some extra money and buy a faster machine
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@s.hackleman said in Lightweight Linux...:
What about Chromium OS?
I haven't saw that running on anything but a Chromebook. Should work well. Might give that a go.
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@thwr said in Lightweight Linux...:
But looking at the time you need to spent to configure Gentoo, you could just earn some extra money and buy a faster machine
Lol fair point. But I'm not buying anything. It's a donation to my 10 year old niece so she can do her school work, rather than her parents having to spend a couple hundred on a Chromebook that'll accomplish the same thing.
Going to try LXDE tonight, then maybe Chromium OS.
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Since LXDE is just the desktop environment, what is the most popular distro really being downloaded since it can be used on many?... Lubuntu?
Was also looking into VectorLinux Light with LXDE...
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@BBigford said in Lightweight Linux...:
Since LXDE is just the desktop environment, what is the most popular distro really being downloaded since it can be used on many?... Lubuntu?
Was also looking into VectorLinux Light with LXDE...
I general avoid light distros, light ones and heavy ones are REALLY close to each other until you get to really ridiculously unusably light. So Mint, Fedora, Suse or Lubuntu would be the way that I would go. We use LXDE here on Mint 18.
