[TriLUG] flatpack-free laptop distro

[Wes Garrison via TriLUG]

I definitely agree with Roger that in my experience XFCE, LXDE/LXQT and
Mate all seem to work well with older hardware.

XFCE and Mate are both continuations of the old Gnome 2 codebase, and are
really fast.  I personally feel that the design of Mate is slightly nicer
and more modern, but XFCE is fine, and would be familiar to a pre Windows 8
Windows user.  The design is more Windows 2000 than Mate.

Debian installer supports all 3 out of the box without having to download a
special distro like Lubuntu or Xubuntu, and should probably give you the
flexibility you're looking for.

Debian's orthodoxy is frustrating to some folks, so it may be better to
install XFCE or Mate on a regular Ubuntu installation if that's the case.
If you go with Debian you basically have to enable contrib and non-free
repositories and apt install firmware-linux-nonfree to have a useful system.

Debian Testing (currently Bookworm) is pretty stable and more Ubuntu-like
than Debian Stable (currently Bullseye), which is usually a few years
behind.

Also +1 on SSD upgrade and max RAM for old hardware.  It's amazing what a
15 yr. old machine can do with enough RAM and an SSD.

-Wes


On Sat, Jun 4, 2022 at 11:50 AM John O via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> Another thing to consider with SSDs is if you may ever wish to repurpose
> it later to be used in enterprise gear for your home lab shenanigans. I
> haven't had luck with most budget SSDs like adata or sandisk, but the
> Crucial MX500 series for about $8 more than the Kingston linked earlier
> will play nice with the perc controller in PowerEdge servers even though
> its not a drive validated specifically for their raid controllers. That
> said if you just want a decent budget SSD the 240g adata su635 is going
> for $25 on amazon right now, and for knock around laptops they have
> served me well.
>
> On 5/27/22 16:10, Roger Broseus via TriLUG wrote:
> > I have installed Xubuntu on several older laptops. It all depends on
> > how old, RAM, etc. I go with Xubuntu because if is faster - doesn't
> > have an overhead of "fancy" stuff in the graphical interface.
> >
> >  I usually replace the HDD with an SDD. One can get a 120 GB SDD for
> > $30, e.g., from Kingston
> > <https://shop.kingston.com/products/a400-sata-ssd?variant=39392493863104>.
>
> > I'd stick with a known brand and avoid "knock offs" that are cheaper.
> >
> > 120 GB is far more than what is needed for Linux. A basic install is
> > << 20 GB. My desktop uses <20 GB and I have lottsa applications. Go
> > larger if a lot of data is expected, e.g., videos and such.
> >
> > Roger B. - Linux User
> >     Email:RogerB at bronord.com
> >     Web Site:www.bronord.com
> >
> > On 5/27/22 15:20, Mauricio Tavares via TriLUG wrote:
> >> Can anyone recommend a distro that works well in an older laptop and
> >> does not use flatpak?
> >>
> >> Calling Dwaine to aisle 3...
> --
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