Solved Actually good linux distros?

[mseDgE]

UPDATE: I'm now going to use freebsd, and buy a macbook later. I'm no longer interested in using linux.

Editor's note for those who are new here or those who doesnt understand: I'm trying to look for distros that don't suck and actually work well for my old laptop.

Hi,

This may be a stupid question but I've been using linux for a while and yet have not found a distro that actually works well. I moved from windows 10 pro since it became corrupted (some system files were missing) and when I moved to linux, I started to ditch windows. But many of the distros I used weren't even good. They're not fast, sometimes freezes, and it just eats up my laptop's resources.

My laptop specs:

Dell Inspiron 1720
Intel core 2 duo T7250
Nvidia geforce 8600m GT
4 gb of ram

any linux distros that are actually good to use or should I ditch linux?

 

[Condobloke]

G'day mseDgE, Welcome to linux.org

There may well be a number of things at play here to cause the problems you are having.

Are you dual booting with windows? Any remnants left on the drive? Is the drive a HDD or a SSD?

Which distro are you using now? Did you allow the installer to put the partitions in place, or did you set the partitions yourself?

It may be possible that part of the problem you experienced in Windows was caused by a failing HDD.
Is the original HDD still in place ?

When you installed Linux, were the drivers etc for the nvidia card put in place by the Linux driver manager or did you download drivers yourself from the Nvidia site?

The HDD can be tested by you. But first tell us a bit more.

 

[Brickwizard]

You have a 2007 dell laptop with the T series CPU, which was about as good as it got back then, compared to modern machines with entry level i3 cpu's it is not fast.
Up till last year I had a similar spec Dell Inspiron [which sadly died after being knocked off a table] I had removed the Plate spinner HDD and replaced it with an SSD,[not much else you can do with them] and it ran fine for daily computing, it was never designed to be used for things like gaming, it had the BCM43 wi-fi [for which drivers normally have to be installed separately]
.
On this machine I ran a mix of distros, Mint-LMDE, MX-linux,Parrot [home edition] all medium weight distributions, without issue, Battery life was better than with Windows 7 and boot time a tad faster,

 

[mseDgE]

Are you dual booting with windows? Any remnants left on the drive? Is the drive a HDD or a SSD?

Not anymore. I used to, but I got tired and just stuck with one operating system. I have two internal HDDs installed on my laptop, one for Windows, the other is for Linux. But I gave up on dual booting since last time I used it i wiped the second internal hdd which has ubuntu unity installed and it booted to the grub rescue shell, which made me flash super grub2 disk on a usb using another device just to boot back into Windows.

Which distro are you using now? Did you allow the installer to put the partitions in place, or did you set the partitions yourself?

I currently use arch linux wirh kde plasma as of writing this, and i did set the partitions myself to install it manually since that's how it should be installed (unlike using an archinstall script). Performance wise, it is a bit laggy so I have to disable blur just for it to be less laggy. And well it sometimes freezes when I open a not so lightweight browser like chromium or google chrome.

It may be possible that part of the problem you experienced in Windows was caused by a failing HDD.
Is the original HDD still in place ?

No, I don't think that's the problem. When I reinstalled/factory reseted windows, everything seems to work fine, I think its because I used to use this laptop without its unhealthy removable battery (drains approximately 2 mins after use) which after the AC plug keeps falling, causes the laptop to shut off immediately, system files causes to "corrupt".

When you installed Linux, were the drivers etc for the nvidia card put in place by the Linux driver manager or did you download drivers yourself from the Nvidia site?

Through the terminal, though most linux distros no longer maintains legacy drivers since my nvidia gpu is old, and there are very few ways to get them working, mostly by compiling the drivers or downloading them from the nvidia website. I downloaded the drivers from nvidia, it did not work. The latest driver for my old nvidia gpu is 340xx. Also, they do not support modesetting unlike nouveau (the open source nvidia driver) so you can't run Wayland.

The HDD can be tested by you. But first tell us a bit more.

Well its not actually about the HDD, linux distros are mostly laggy, especially when those distros are considered "lightweight". The same applies to desktop environments or window managers.

Thank you for asking all of those questions though. I appreciate it.

 

[mseDgE]

You have a 2007 dell laptop with the T series CPU, which was about as good as it got back then, compared to modern machines with entry level i3 cpu's it is not fast.
Up till last year I had a similar spec Dell Inspiron [which sadly died after being knocked off a table] I had removed the Plate spinner HDD and replaced it with an SSD,[not much else you can do with them] and it ran fine for daily computing, it was never designed to be used for things like gaming, it had the BCM43 wi-fi [for which drivers normally have to be installed separately]
.
On this machine I ran a mix of distros, Mint-LMDE, MX-linux,Parrot [home edition] all medium weight distributions, without issue, Battery life was better than with Windows 7 and boot time a tad faster,

That's good for you.

 

[f33dm3bits]

The latest driver for my old nvidia gpu is 340xx. Also, they do not support modesetting unlike nouveau (the open source nvidia driver) so you can't run Wayland.

Did you try the Nvidia 390 PKGBUILDS from the AUR?

AUR (en) - Packages

aur.archlinux.org

I currently use arch linux wirh kde plasma as of writing this,

However since you are using KDE Plasma which by default uses Wayland now there will be less support with the older Nvidia drivers, so if you run into issues with that you may have to switch to Xorg.

 

[mseDgE]

Did you try the Nvidia 390 PKGBUILDS from the AUR?

My gpu does not support 390 and higher

However since you are using KDE Plasma which by default uses Wayland now there will be less support with the older Nvidia drivers, so if you run into issues with that you may have to switch to Xorg.

Right now I'm using nouveau since I just installed arch, and I'm currently on xorg since Wayland does not work

 

[f33dm3bits]

My gpu does not support 390 and higher

I missed that, looks like the last driver is support is the 304 then but that one probably won't compile with current kernels anymore.

Right now I'm using nouveau since I just installed arch, and I'm currently on xorg since Wayland does not work

If you aren't gaming with it than the nouveau driver should be more than fine but then again you can't expect an 18 year old gpu to have the same experience as the last couple of generations.

 

[mseDgE]

If you aren't gaming with it than the nouveau driver should be more than fine but then again you can't expect an 18 year old gpu to have the same experience as the last couple of generations.

Good advice

 

[mseDgE]

So, which linux distro should I use? The one that don't suck and actually performs well, or should I not use linux anyway?

 

[f33dm3bits]

So, which linux distro should I use? The one that don't suck and actually performs well, or should I not use linux anyway?

Go for a lightweight Linux distribution, maybe try one of these?

16 Best Lightweight Linux Distributions for Older Computers

Don’t throw your old computer just yet. Use a lightweight Linux distro and revive that decades-old system.

itsfoss.com

Or one of these?

antiX Linux – Proudly anti-fascist "antiX Magic" in an environment suitable for old and new computers.

antixlinux.com

Lubuntu – The official Lubuntu home

lubuntu.me

Peppermint OS – The Linux Desktop OS

peppermintos.com

https://www.linux.org/threads/best-lightweight-linux-distros-for-old-pcs.55709

 

[Condobloke]

MX Linux

MX Linux – Midweight Simple Stable Desktop OS

mxlinux.org

Put that on a usb stick and try it....I think you will pleasantly surprised.

 

[mseDgE]

MX Linux

MX Linux – Midweight Simple Stable Desktop OS

mxlinux.org

Put that on a usb stick and try it....I think you will pleasantly surprised.

It was good, but not much

 

[mseDgE]

Update: I'm now going to use freebsd and buy a macbook later.

 

[mseDgE]

Need a way to close this thread

 

[Condobloke]

Go to your first post....Click on Edit........then up the top , click on (no prefix)......then on Solved.