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I have a few years old, weak laptop, don't have specs right now, but it pretty slow.

I want to use it as a Linux laptop for stuff not heavier than internet browsing. What distro would be best to use that has lowest performance impact, but is secure?

Would Alpine be best for this?

I have a few years old, weak laptop, don't have specs right now, but it pretty slow. I want to use it as a Linux laptop for stuff not heavier than internet browsing. What distro would be best to use that has lowest performance impact, but is secure? Would Alpine be best for this?
[–] • 4 pts

I'm pretty sure the desktop environment has a bigger impact on performance than the distro itself. LXDE and LXQT come to mind.

[–] • 1 pt

Right here. About anything will work fairly well but the window manager will have the biggest impact. I like XFCE and LXDE for lightweight managers.

[–] • 1 pt

XFCE isn't so light, any more. Mate, XFCE, and even KDE (when adjusted) are all very close to each other in memory usage now. LXDE and LXQT are what you want.

[–] • 1 pt

I've not used xfce for a while now. It is sad to hear it has gotten bloated. It's low resource usage on older hardware was something I really liked about it. I guess something like LXDE would be my go-to now for something older. Maybe ill try that out on some old gear just to get a idea on the difference.

[–] • 2 pts

No matter what distro you put on it, you have to worry about browser weight. Modern websites are heavy with crap, and even a decent machine will start to bog down after some years, regardless of the distro.

[–] • 2 pts

Lubuntu maybe (an Ubuntu variant that uses LXQT instead of Gnome).

[–] • 1 pt

I've looked all recommendations up and Lubuntu is what I'm going to go with. Thanks.

[–] • 1 pt

Hope it works well. If it doesn't work well it might be faster to pick another distro than trying to fix the problems, rinse and repeat until you find something that works. Doesn't take too much time to put a distro on a usb drive and install it.

[–] • 2 pts

Are you an experience Linux user? Alpine is a bit of a curve for installation and setup. As with what everyone's saying, any distro that's easy to install that has LXQT, LXDE or XFCE is worth trying out. Personally I still think XFCE is decently light weight and would recommend trying it.

One you get comfortable with Linux, distros like Alpine, Void or even Gentoo are good for advanced mode. But unless you're a coder or infrastructure programmer that likes tinkering, sticking to a major distro (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, etc.) is probably the way to go. Try each one of them out on the laptop for a day and store anything you want to keep on a USB drive before deciding.

[–] • 1 pt

Depends heavily on your general computer aptitude. Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, are all excellent for lightweight but functional. But if you can't compile and install your own shit from a command line, you'll need something easier. As others said, a light weight browser and a skinny front end will go a long way to assisting a slow or underpowered computer