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einpoklum

Member

From: Haifa, Palestine

Registered: 2021-07-21

Posts: 66  

Website

Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

I need to install a Linux distribution on an old laptop with a 2640M CPU and not that much memory (4GB or 8GB). I would like to make it a distribution that is geared towards older hardware, its default desktop environment takes up little memory, but is still reasonably polished. And - I would like it to be non-systemd, so probably Devuan-based. If it weren't for the system requirement, I'd probably try something like Lubuntu (anti-X is even lighter, but its user experience is not friendly enough for my taste).

Does such a distribution exist?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,833  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

Google tells me that cpu is in the i7 family. You should be able to run devuan on that with no problems. If it only has 4G ram, choose lxde, mate or xfce or any window manager. Just don't open too many tabs on your web browser.

I have devuan on a machine with 4G and Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU  J1900  @ 1.99GHz. It's slow, but it works. I used that machine to install each devuan desktop environment in a qemu VM to compare their memory use. Here are the screenshots: https://git.devuan.org/fsmithred/screenshots

brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 208  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

Refracta is pretty good and lightweight, but not so much that it sacrifices usability. Comes with Xfce and no metapackages, so you can tinker with it further if it's not to your liking. Comes with ps_mem.py, which accurately measures the memory consumption of processes (must run as a super user).

Browsers usually take up a chunk of RAM. Use something like Pale Moon or NetSurf for a lighter footprint. Sylpheed or Claws Mail for a graphical e-mail client.

einpoklum

Member

From: Haifa, Palestine

Registered: 2021-07-21

Posts: 66  

Website

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

You should be able to run devuan on that with no problems.

I suppose I'll be able to run it, but how snappy do you expect it to be?

choose lxde, mate or xfce

I'm not a big fan of XFCE and Mate; I like LXDE, but - haven't they gone over to Qt? i.e. isn't it LXQt now?

brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 208  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

No, LXDE still exists in many distros (Debian included). It's just that they switched it over to GTK3, so it will consume a bit more of your system resources. Stick to the Daedalus release for now, which is also the last to support 32-bit CPUs.

brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 208  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

In fact, if you want something even lighter, give Exe GNU/Linux a shot. That one is like Q4OS with using TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment, based on KDE 3.5), but without any Systemd. Uses Refracta's installer.

Also, see this article comparing the different DEs (hasn't been updated in years, but much of the information is still true to this day).

dzz

Member

From: Exmouth, South West England

Registered: 2016-12-01

Posts: 95  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

ExeGNU and Refracta have similar resource usage. Trinity Desktop is not officially supported in Debian/Devuan, an issue for many although it has run well on Devuan for 10 years. Preference for style is a major factor.

Best option of course is a base debootstrap install and build what you want from there without "recommends" (that's how ExeGNU images are built).

Numerous lightweight options to choose from! But those live images give at least a preview of what is possible and are installable.

lxqt: Although qt-based it doesn't have the overheads of full-on kde plasma. One of many lxqt reviews:

https://itsfoss.gitlab.io/blog/lxqt-100 … ktop-ever/

i7 with 8GB ram? Definitely on my wishlist!

re browsers: The more marginal ones seem more prone to "fingerprinting". Using librewolf here currently (identifies as firefox but maybe a false sense of security)..  just mind how many open tabs on a low-end machine.

Last edited by dzz (Today 03:11:29)

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 532  

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

Not only do I run Devuan/XFCE on my 'main' computer, (i3/8GB ram), but also on Dual Core with 4GB, it even runs quite happily on 2GB Dual Core Thin Clients that I have, I'm just a normal user, internet, music, videos, spreadsheet, etc.