I use MX Linux on Two Celeron powered laptops, and it absolutely flies along.
I used the stable branch with Xfce, and today I updated one of them to the very
latest kernal, 4.17 kernel, no issues at all, except I get dmesg errors, but they do not effect the working of the laptop, I have a feeling it has to do with eMMC, as the laptop with SSD has no dmesg errors.
The WiFi disconnected half way through the install, but that was an easy fix,
all I had to do was go into wifi settings, and change the security type from
WPA3 to WPA2, my phone supports WPA2 and that worked for me.
Definately give MX Linux a try, it will be quicker than trying to fix what you
have wrong with Linux Lite and Pop OS.
Pop OS is not the safest choice, as it has been tailored to work with the hardware used in System76, that would mean drivers not required for their system would have no need to be there, and this is not good when trying to set up on a non System76 device.
Linux Lite would not work for me either, wifi would not work at all.