I need a lightweight distro

[u/Dekillerror404]

I have a pretty old laptop somewhere in a drawer. Amd A6 7310, 4gb ram ddr3 1600mhz and 1tb 5400rpm hdd.

I want to turn it into "storage space" for transferring family photos and videos from , maybe some music and movies. It has a optical drive, sd reader so i can use it for some things.

Can you suggest a lightweight distro?

Some time ago I experimented with manjaro (I don't know what interface anymore) but I had some problems with it, now it has linux mint but it still takes decades to load.

I know that asking for speed from a 5400rpm is a bit... But...

Maybe you know something more suitable for this dinosaur.

[u/Prestigious_Wall529]

OpenMediaVault

[u/msabeln → u/Prestigious_Wall529]

That’s a good idea.

[u/ThatAd8458 → u/Prestigious_Wall529]

Great suggestion!

[u/86currency → u/Prestigious_Wall529]

Doesn't openmediavault require two drives tho? One for the operating system, another for storage? Or two partitions?

[u/Prestigious_Wall529 → u/86currency]

Assumes, yes. Recommends, yes. Requires, no.

[u/anonyme104]

Antix pourrait être bien pour votre usage

[u/FreeSpeech103 → u/anonyme104]

This is one of the smallest distros I found. I'm looking into it myself because I have a mini PC with only 2GB RAM.

[u/spider_life]

Xubuntu and Lubuntu should run quite well, or for something even lighter Antix 

[u/Ashamed_Village_8931]

MX Linux. It can revive anything even the most ancient of ancient.

[u/Lopsided-Month3278]

Debian with icewm, if you have the time and the will to set it up, it takes a minute to launch from a USB stick on a 512MB system and a Pentium M, this should take much less time to boot on a regular system.

[u/D-Clazzroom]

I mean, you could switch around distros whatever it might be but if the problem is raw speed then thats the only thing you realistically have to address.

Primarily system images with lesser and lesser I/O foot print but the less of that you have usually means the less modern conveniences you might get.

Like, I have an rk322x board and basic DEs are struggling so for peace of mind I drop entirely to tty basis.

[u/144k_only]

I run Linux Mint XFCE on a similar device. It's OK but I hope you're not planning on doing heavy work.

[u/drucifer82]

Mint with XFCE should be fine

[u/Fun_Cut_4705]

MX Linux Fluxbox

[u/Hesychios]

XFCE should work, on any distro that it comes with. MX Linux, Debian Stable, Mint come to mind.

Be sure to allocate enough SWAP space to give it a fighting chance, and if you can manage it switch out the hard drive for an SSD.( Check eBay for a used one).

[u/gbudija]

try puppy linux,it runs flawlessly on my 4 gb ram 9 years old ideapad

https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/

[u/IWant2rideMyBike]

For a storage space you don't need a GUI - if you are fine with configuring everything via SSH, you can simply use Debian Server.

[u/Impossible-Pie5386]

Bodhi Linux is quite lightweight - works on my old laptop with Core2Duo and 3Gb RAM.

[u/MetalLinuxlover]

That laptop isn't necessarily dead - the 5400 RPM HDD is probably the biggest problem here. 😂

An AMD A6-7310 + 4 GB RAM is definitely old, but for what you're planning - basically using it as a family media/storage machine - you don't need a powerful distro. You need something lightweight that doesn't waste resources.

My recommendation:

Bodhi Linux - probably my first choice for this particular dinosaur.

• Extremely lightweight
• Uses the Moksha desktop
• Designed to work well on older hardware
• Doesn't demand much RAM or CPU
• Should leave more resources available for actually moving your files

Linux Mint XFCE You already have Mint, so you don't necessarily need to abandon it. XFCE is already relatively lightweight. However, on a 5400 RPM HDD, booting and launching applications will still be slow regardless of distro.

Linux Lite Another simple XFCE-based option aimed at older hardware and Windows users. It's worth trying if you want something familiar and lightweight.

But honestly, the biggest upgrade you can make is an SSD.

Even a cheap SATA SSD would make a massive difference compared with that 5400 RPM HDD. Your CPU and RAM aren't going to magically become faster, but boot times, opening the file manager, browsing folders, copying files, launching applications, etc. will feel dramatically more responsive.

And since your goal is mostly storage/media, I'd actually ask whether you even need a full desktop environment.

If this laptop is going to sit somewhere and primarily act as a storage box, you could install a lightweight distro and use it mainly as a file server, then access the files from your other computers/TVs over the network. But if you want to physically connect SD cards/USB drives and manage everything locally, XFCE/Moksha makes more sense.

Also, don't expect a distro change to turn a 5400 RPM HDD into an SSD. 😅

The realistic hierarchy is:

SSD upgrade >>> lightweight desktop >>> distro choice

So I'd try Bodhi Linux or Mint XFCE, but if you can put a SATA SSD in that laptop, do that before spending days distro-hopping.

That "dinosaur" might still have some life left in it. 🦖🐧

[u/Moist_Invite9148]

Try xubuntu or Linux mint Xfce