A newbie trying to figure a few things out relating the lightweight Linux distros

[Solid Kuro]

Hey there everyone o/

I have a 10+yo laptop (Celeron M 1.6 GHz, 1.5Gb RAM) and over the past couple of days I've been trying out a few lightweight 32bit Linux distros:
Lubuntu 16.04
Lubuntu 18.10
Sparky Linux 4.9.2 LXDE
LXLE 16.04.4 (didn't install this one, only started it live from DVD)

Since first running LXDE on Lubuntu 16.04 a couple of years ago I really liked its primitive interface and speed, so I was quite a bit disappointed finding out that the latest editions of Lubuntu run exclusively on LXQt (which turned out to run significantly slower on my prehistoric laptop) and that developers are dropping the support of 32bit systems later this year. Another blow was the fact that LXDE hasn't been updated since late 2016 and it seems it's been abandoned by developers, so I started searching for alternative lightweight Linux environments. So far I've noted xfce and MATE, but I still prefer LXDE visually. Then I tried Sparky and LXLE, but still wasn't fully satisfied. Here's why and finally my questions:

1. On both of Lubuntu versions I installed the Telegram app without any problems, but somehow it's not available on Synaptic PM in Sparky or LXLE and when try to install it in APTus I get the message "This package is not available for your system version". Why could this be? Sure, I could use Telegram web, but I find it inconvenient.
2. When trying to configure keyboard layout in Sparky I get a very DOS-y looking configuration window and even after configuring it there's no language indicator on the panel. Can you please suggest a friendlier, easier to use and in general a more Windows-looking application for this?
3. All being said about my love towards LXDE, should I really give up on it just like developers did? I mean, I don't want to get used to it too much if switching to another environment is inevitable.

Thank you for reading this wall of text and please feel free to suggest whatever you think is right.

 

[arochester]

Have you tried PeppermintOS? https://peppermintos.com/

Telegram-desktop is available as a Snap and a Flatpack.
https://itsfoss.com/install-snap-linux/
https://uappexplorer.com/snaps?type=application&sort=relevance&q=telegram
https://flathub.org/apps/search/telegram

 

[Rob]

I don't have much experience in the lightweight ones.. but wanted to say good luck! Hoping the info @arochester can help you a bit.

 

[Condobloke]

READ this page,,,,Carefully....ALL of it.

 

[Deleted member 58530]

Plus one Peppermint 9 respin very light on system resources.

https://peppermintos.com/2018/12/peppermint-9-respin-released/

https://peppermintos.com/2019/01/peppermint-9-respin-2-released/

https://peppermintos.com/guide/

 

[wizardfromoz]

G'day @Solid Kuro and welcome to linux.org

Can you give us the brand name and model number for your laptop?

I have some additional ideas, but they hinge on what your computer can run easily.

Thanks

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[Solid Kuro]

First of all, thanks everyone from this topic for putting your time into reading my post and sharing your opinions.
As for the Peppermint OS the two of you mentioned above, I'm gonna try it later today as the things didn't work out too well for me with the Sparky distro in terms of usability.

arochester, thanks for pointing out Snap/Flatpak. I've just read about them and tested the Snap package of Telegram and it works fine. Seems like a cool and easy workaround solution in the situation like mine.
Condobloke, from what I've read in your link Mint 18.1 xfce is the way to go for me, but if i got it right developers have already moved on from its 'lightweightness' and it's not gonna be supported 2 years from now. So it just seems to me like a temporary solution, because as the developers are gonna move on, my laptop is not gonna be any faster than it is. However, if the things don't work out for me with Peppermint, I will sure check out Mint next.
poorguy, thanks, I'm checking it out later today.
wizardfromoz, thank you for the welcome. It's an LG laptop, model LGF1, config FS. After a short look I couldn't google its specs, but here's what I got from

Spoiler: lshw

H/W path         Device      Class       Description
====================================================
                             system      FS-2A37R (To Be Filled By O.E.M.)
/0                           bus         MS-1034
/0/0                         memory      64KiB BIOS
/0/4                         processor   Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU        420  @ 1.60GHz
/0/4/5                       memory      32KiB L1 cache
/0/4/6                       memory      1MiB L2 cache
/0/9                         memory      1536MiB System Memory
/0/9/0                       memory      1GiB DIMM SDRAM Synchronous
/0/9/1                       memory      512MiB DIMM SDRAM Synchronous
/0/100                       bridge      Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub
/0/100/2                     display     Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/2.1                   display     Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/1b                    multimedia  NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller
/0/100/1c                    bridge      NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1
/0/100/1c.1                  bridge      NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2
/0/100/1c.1/0    eth0        network     RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
/0/100/1c.2                  bridge      NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3
/0/100/1d                    bus         NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1
/0/100/1d/1      usb1        bus         UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.1                  bus         NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2
/0/100/1d.1/1    usb2        bus         UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.1/1/1              input       Microsoft Nano Transceiver 1.1
/0/100/1d.1/1/2              input       Human interface device
/0/100/1d.2                  bus         NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3
/0/100/1d.2/1    usb3        bus         UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.3                  bus         NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4
/0/100/1d.3/1    usb4        bus         UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d.7                  bus         NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller
/0/100/1d.7/1    usb5        bus         EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1e                    bridge      82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
/0/100/1e/4                  bridge      OZ711MP1/MS1 MemoryCardBus Controller
/0/100/1e/4.2                generic     Integrated MMC/SD Controller
/0/100/1e/4.3                bridge      Integrated MS/xD Controller
/0/100/1e/4.4                bus         Firewire (IEEE 1394)
/0/100/1f                    bridge      82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge
/0/100/1f.2                  storage     82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode]
/0/100/1f.3                  bus         NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller
/0/1             wlan0       network     RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g
/0/2             scsi0       storage     
/0/2/0.0.0       /dev/sda    disk        80GB Hitachi HTS54168
/0/2/0.0.0/1     /dev/sda1   volume      73GiB EXT4 volume
/0/2/0.0.0/2     /dev/sda2   volume      1526MiB Extended partition
/0/2/0.0.0/2/5   /dev/sda5   volume      1526MiB Linux swap volume
/0/3             scsi1       storage     
/0/3/0.1.0       /dev/cdrom  disk        DVDRAM GSA-T20N
/0/3/0.1.0/0     /dev/cdrom  disk

It's an old piece of hardware, which doesn't even have an onboard WiFi, but I still love it for its display and it works just fine for web-surfing, listening to music, watching movies and reading comic books. So i just want to give it a second life with some Linux distro. Also I'm thinking of expanding RAM to a maximum of 2Gb soon.