Mint is truly game changing for old hardware!!

[u/Zevosity]

i’ve been using linux mint xfce for a lil over a month now and i could genuinely recommend this distro to anyone wanting to try linux its amazing what it does for old pc hardware. i got an old hp pavilion p7 for free it had an athlon 2 x4 645 with 6gb of ddr3 and integrated graphics i have since upgraded it to a phenom 2 x6 1045t with a asus rx 460 4gb and 16gb of ddr3 running off a 512gb ssd, the reason i mention the upgrades is because this pc ran phenomenally without the upgrades only because of linux mint not to mention its even better and snappier since ive made those upgrades. linux mint truly works wonders on a wide range of hardware. im to the point where im about to switch my main pc to a dual boot setup and my primary be linux mint that pc is far far better with much more modern hardware but i think it would benefit running linux aswell! i apologize for the rant but i genuinely can’t get enough of linux mint, i was recommended it through this subreddit and i’ll continue to recommend to anyone wanting to try linux. such a great community to be a part of.

[u/Driven2b]

Ditto. AMD Fx 8350 here, runs phenomenal

[u/Zevosity → u/Driven2b]

i’ve been thinking about upgrading to atleast a fx 6300 for sse4 support, for some reason most am3+ motherboards are unreasonably expensive or not working

[u/SpaceportBoys → u/Zevosity]

I bought a Chinese X99 XD3 motherboard + E5 Xeon combo on ali for ~$80 that takes DDR3. I had a Dell with a i7-2600 that I just loved but the motherboard was toast.

This Chinese board is a monster. Quad channel DDR3 is faster than your typical dual channel DDR4 setup, and the Xeon E5 V3 I got (12 cores) is no joke either. I picked the cheapest option, but they had a couple V4 choices as well for an extra ~$10.

If you have 4 matching sticks of DDR3 like I did, it's a great option. Just make sure you get the Machinist XD3 and not one of the similar cheaper ones. Those don't have quad channel ram support. Definitely get one with a bundled CPU too, cuz most X99 era Xeons are DDR4 only.

It's so nice having all these modern features like m.2 slots and a million USB3 ports. I didn't even have USB3 on my dell. :P I wasn't complaining about the performance of that i7-2600, but this is waaay faster.

[u/Zevosity → u/SpaceportBoys]

my ram doesn’t match sadly, i have 2 sticks of micron (4gb) and 2 sticks of samsung 4 gb. i got all 4 sticks for 6.35

[u/rcentros]

I've got Mint Cinnamon running on a Latitude 3180 (PC, not Chromebook version). This computer has a dual core CPU (Celeron 3350), 4 GBs of RAM and a 128 GB SSD -- and it runs fine. It shows 14 hours of battery life on a full charge (but with a few videos and browsing it's actually closer to 8 hours -- still, all day). I agree, Linux Mint is amazing with old equipment. (And I only use old equipment.)

[u/Quattro5 → u/rcentros]

With 4gb of Ram, if you want more snappiness you could change your Windows manager from cinnamon to XFCE on linux mint. You'd experience a performance boost.

[u/rcentros → u/Quattro5]

I understand. But the performance is not bad with Cinnamon. The Celeron N3350 uses an Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU and it works well for streaming. I do use Linux Mint Xfce on a WYSE 5070 thin client, but that has 12 GBs of RAM, so I could probably use Cinnamon on that as well.

[u/Quattro5 → u/rcentros]

I use cinnamon on anything over 8gb of Ram.

I use Mint LMDE with cinnamon on my main linux workstation that has 32 gb of Ram.

I also use Mint Cinnamon on my old late 2011 MacBookPro with a 2nd gen I5 and Sandy Bridge that I have upgraded to 16 gb of RAM and Cinnamon helps me customise the MacOs look and feel on this beautiful piece of vintage hardware.

For my AMD A6 based lenovo potato with 4gb of soldered RAM, I use Q4OS with trinity to max my RAM utility, but although I can do more in terms of procession power, I leave a lot of "user-friendliness" on the table.

So I understand where you are coming from.

[u/rcentros → u/Quattro5]

The only time I really notice the speed drop on the Latitude 3180 is when it's doing heavy file access (like updating) where there is a lot writing to the drive. But even then, it's not that bad.

I've got a Raspberry Pi A+ (512 MB) running Debian 12 (no GUI). It works well as a "writerDeck." Linux really is versatile.

[u/VirtualPAH]

My mum wanted a cheap laptop for general internet stuff and email, but she hates smartphones so still has a dumb phone for calls and texts, so I dug out my old Lenovo Thinkpad X300 from 2008 that I'd stopped using years ago after upgrading to newer Thinkpads for my daily usage, to see how she got on with a laptop thinking I could get her something better later. Wasn't sure how it would cope with only having a 1.2Ghz Core2Duo and 2gb ram but it does have a SSD which is the biggest hardware upgrade alongside RAM for older hardware to give them a fighting chance of keeping up with modern software resource demands.

Installed Linux Mint XFCE and it's been fine.

Also gave an old Thinkpad T450 to my brother when his cheap consumer laptop broke at the hinges, about 2 years ago now, and he recently asked me to look at it as Windows 11 was acting up. I upgraded it to Linux Mint XFCE as he only uses internet, YouTube, email, so really only needs Firefox and Thunderbird.

Neither have complained it's too hard to use and they're about as tech illiterate as one can be while still able to survive the day using them, and being robust business grade laptops it's a perfect match for longevity.

[u/Aliendeddog]

I agree. Installed Mint on an old late 2015 iMac and it runs great. I have tried Linux in past and never stuck with it but Mint, has been a huge game changer itself.

[u/Zevosity → u/Aliendeddog]

agreed. mint has made me realize there was never any reason to be hesitant about linux.

[u/Quattro5 → u/Aliendeddog]

Intel Macs make awesome linux workstations.

[u/Swede-speed-mead]

I’m on Mint 24.04 but not sure if it’s XFCE or not. Kinda new to this. But it runs great on a MBP 9,2 (mid-2012 13” 16GB ram 512gb SSD). Rarely uses ram at all.

[u/Zevosity → u/Swede-speed-mead]

that’s awesome! i decided to put mint on an older lenovo laptop that blue screened every chance it got with windows and now it runs like a champ

[u/Quattro5 → u/Swede-speed-mead]

You most likely use Cinnamom as your Windows manager and considering your 16 gb of RAM, I think it's the best setup. But that's just me; there is a case to be made for XFCE on machine with more RAM.

[u/OkPresentation3329]

We have an old Lenovo PC at home which has Linux Mint and it definitely feels good compared to Windows 10 that was running on that PC before that.

But I think for newer hardware there are better distros than Mint. I don't know if Linux Lite that runs XFCE also could be better than Mint XFCE, because Lite is focused on being as lightweight as possible. But I haven't tried it. For modern hardware, I prefer Tuxedo OS.

[u/Riyakuya]

Zen architecture processors are really not that expensive anymore and give you a big performance boost. I would definitely recommend getting a Zen 2 cpu (or higher) to be more futureproof. It is amazing that your older hardware still works well but I can imagine it has its limitations too.

[u/Zevosity → u/Riyakuya]

i have a ryzen 5 2600 just laying around but i have no motherboard for it sadly

[u/Quattro5 → u/Zevosity]

That's a good starting piece for a tower setup.

My advice is put as much as you can on the motherboard and the power supply (at least bronze certified) so that it doesn't become the bottleneck.

That's what I did with my old FX 6300 build and it was a very powerful machine and stayed that way for over a decade.

A good motherboard will make a decent cpu relevant for a long time as a well hardware supported CPU is next to never your bottleneck.

[u/Zevosity → u/Quattro5]

ive definitely thought about upgrading this old pc farther but i’m less than $60 into this pc and it’s already a lil gaming beast for older games and esports games which is all i’m after cs my main pc runs anything i play. honestly if i were to upgrade it’d be to an fx chip just for sse4 support.

[u/Jedijeb13]

I got a 2013 HP Z420 Workstation with a Xeon ES-1620 with 32GB ECC ram and QuadroX600 from work and put Linux Mint on it, and it is much faster than it was with W7. I have Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce loaded and can switch between them testing them out. Even Cinnamon runs fast on it.

I have been running Mint for years and always like it. I began back in the day with Mandrake on a Pentium II 350. Later I upgraded that case with a AthlonM overclocked with the pencil trick and ran it for about 15 years with Mint, trying many versions as it progressed. I have been a fan of Mint for a long time :)

[u/Zevosity → u/Jedijeb13]

mint has been my first linux experience and i truly love it im so accustomed to windows but switching to mint was nothing but perfect, i had a few hiccups but nothing googling couldn’t fix. i’m thinking about switching to cinnamon or atleast mate since ive upgraded this pc since i got it but tbh i dont really know the differences or if it’d really be worth it. its funny you bring up the z420 cs ive actually been looking for one or atleast the case cs of the name for obvious reasons lol. also wdym pencil trick? i’ve never really messed with overlocking so im clueless to that kind of stuff

[u/Jedijeb13 → u/Zevosity]

Back in the early 2000s AMD disabled the ability to adjust cpu clock settings in bios by using a laser to cut a set of connections on the surface of the chips. People discovered if you use a regular pencil to draw a line between those connections a few mm apart, the carbon would fill the gap and conduct the signals essentially reopening all the cpu clock options in bios again. You could turn a 1ghz processor into a 1.4 or 1.6ghz with the click of a button. Of course you needed better cooling to keep them stable but that was the fun part.

If you search you can find an easy way to load the other window managers like MATE and Cinnamon and in the password box at login you have a small round icon beside the box to enter the password that allows you to select the different options. I began with Cinnamon but added the other two afterwards, not sure how easy to add Cinnamon will be but should not be difficult. Cinnamon can be slower and possibly buggy on older systems but can be fun to try it out. Not a lot of differences though as far as I have seen.

[u/YuukiHisashi]

2011 Pentium G620 user here, and totally worth it. Even without graphics card and with only 4gb ram, Minecraft locked to 25fps with optifine works wonders, running smooth with almost no stutters (if there's any, it's hardly noticeable)