It’s an old model (Acer One D257) Processor is Intel Atom. Memory is 1GB DDR3 with 320 GB of HDD. I currently Have MX 21 running on it, but I need to reinstall because I forgot the root password. Since I’m reinstalling the OS, I thought I’d ask here for recommendations for an OS that makes the most of this oldie.

      • @Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
        3•7 months ago

        Debian based distros can be very different from each other. Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!, etc are all based off debian. I think what the commenter you’re replying to is saying is to install the stock debian image, because that’s the lightest version of debian.

      • @HumanPerson@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1•7 months ago

        I used to like Debian based (and still do; I use it on my server with no intention of switching) but Opensuse is great on the desktop and supports 32 bit. Even tumbleweed is rock solid.

  • @Pantherina@feddit.de
    12•7 months ago

    The Distro is not important, just debloat it. Something like Alpine is actually smaller, but in the end the Desktop needs to be tiny.

      • @Pantherina@feddit.de
        3•7 months ago

        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

  • @sv1sjp@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9•7 months ago

    Personally I am using a netbook like this as a headless server with Ubuntu.

    You can try to run Lubuntu, or even TinyCore and Puppy Linux on this for simple tasks.

    Generally speaking, with 1GB of ram and Intel atom, as you stay away from video streaming platforms and use simple tools for writing text or run simple code in python, you would be fine. However with less than 100€ you can find laptops with core i5 4rd generation with 8gb ram. I am not sure if it worths it.

    • @EfreetSK@lemmy.world
      1•7 months ago

      I had similar netbook like OP and was running Lubuntu for a very long time but afaik they dropped support for 32 bit architectures some time ago. I think 18.04 was the last 32 bit LTS? Not sure, I’d need to check it

  • @olafurp@lemmy.world
    8•7 months ago

    I’d recommend Alpine and running it headless. Realistically you’d need 4GB+ of ram to run a modern desktop session so that’s not ideal. However running Alpine headless will leave you with 800M to run programs.

    You can still run a GUI desktop on it but I’d recommend having a nice sized swap partition/file to make up for it. It’ll be slow as soon as you hit the 1GB memory and starting swapping out.

    • lemmyvoreEnglish
      3•7 months ago

      It’s not the desktop that needs 4 GB, it’s large apps like modern browser or office. The desktop will run fine on 1 GB. May want to look into Midori and Abiword as alternatives.

  • joyofpeanuts
    8•7 months ago

    Debian with the choice of LXDE as window manager. Debian offers high configurability to remove any heavy component.

  • @ik5pvx@lemmy.world
    6•7 months ago

    You might be able to reset the root password by booting to single user, or using a rescue usb.

    That said, you could take the chance to try one of the BSDs.

  • Atemu
    5•7 months ago

    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.

  • @kugmo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5•7 months ago

    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.

      • @kugmo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1•7 months ago

        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.

        • @dan@upvote.au
          1•7 months ago

          The Linux kernel already has OOM killing… Do you mean something like Facebook’s oomd where you can more easily control it from userspace?

          • @kugmo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1•7 months ago

            yeah, from what i remember the kernel’s oom killer isn’t that fast and external ones work better

  • Papamousse
    4•7 months ago

    yeah MX21 32bits is what I would install, or AntiX.

    Can’t you boot on a USB key and reset the root password on your HD partition?

    • Doll_Tow_Jet-skiOP
      1•7 months ago

      AntiX! Of course. I thought Antix had merged with Mepis to create MX. Didn’t know they were still around. probably the best choice since it still seems to be based on Debian Stable

      • Papamousse
        1•7 months ago

        AntiX is awesome on old HW, everything works, just don’t load a big website in the browser or it crawls :)

  • @Tibert
    3•7 months ago

    I have no experience for this matter, nor a lot of Linux either, but there seem to be some interesting choices here (there isn’t best and worst, it’s just a list, and the most adapted to what you need).

    https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/

    Obviously the minimum system requirements should not be your max amount of ram. You need to account for apps or tools you’ll run.

    • Doll_Tow_Jet-skiOP
      1•7 months ago

      Thanks, that list was very helpful in confirming some of the ideas I already had.

  • Lunch
    3•7 months ago

    Alpine Linux could be worth giving a shot very lightweight!

    • Doll_Tow_Jet-skiOP
      3•7 months ago

      Interesting. I search for Alpine Linux and the first search result was a Lemmy community. Looks interesting. Thanks!

  • @RubyWitch@lemmy.sdf.org
    2•7 months ago

    One distro that I’ve recently found runs pretty well on older/slower systems like this is wattOS. It’s a distro focused on power efficiency, but because of that it does well on underpowered systems.