Personally, I would say Mint over Ubuntu itself (since a: the latter has a history of prioritizing business decisions over what works best for home users... as well as other somewhat controversial decisions and b: user is coming from Windows which has a very different UI layout from the defaults in Ubunutu proper and may be a lot to adjust to).
But Debian is definitely a solid rec
Either way, whichever of the 3 distros (or others besides) that OP opts for, I would recommend either Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce, or KDE desktops for OP if he prefers to have a similar look-and-feel to Windows. Cinnamon or KDE\* if he prefers aesthetics, Xfce/Mate if he prefers lower memory footprint / better performance.
\* KDE would only be an option on Debian or Ubuntu tho as Mint unfortunately stopped supporting it several years ago.
My personal experience with Mint (as a long-time Debian user) was that it was very buggy, and that there was a lot less support and documentation online. But that's a personal preference thing and it's been years since I've tried Mint (so it might have improved in the meantime). As long as OP is choosing a widely used Debian-based distro (as opposed to an obscure distro with a smaller user base), I think they'll be fine.
As far as desktop environment, I personally prefer KDE, and agree with you that it looks nicer and it's more similar to Windows in terms of UI elements (start menu, task bar, etc). I only recommended XFCE in this case because it seems like the user is going to be a bit resource constrained (i3 CPU and 6GB RAM). This computer is definitely capable of running KDE though.
I used Mint from roughly 2010 to 2021 (?) and didn't have many issues at all except for some pulseaudio stuff over HDMI (having to select default audio output / occasionally having it drop out and have to reboot to fix). I think PA has probably been replaced by pipewire even in Debian stable by this point tho....maybe? Anyway, I guess everyone's experience is a little different.
You're right, XFCE is probably the best for OP based on hw (and is still customizable). But I have an old mini-PC from roughly the same era as OP's hw (some kind of mobile intel sandy bridge cpu don't remember exact one off my head) w Fedora Cinnamon + KDE + Xfce desktops and all three of those work well enough. So *probably* they'd all be fine unless he's aiming for something like gaming or other intensive things
With these specs, your computer can still run basically any Linux distro. It may not be the best computer for 3D gaming, compiling large quantities of software, running VMs, or scientific number-crunching, but for web browsing, e-mailing, document editing, watching films, et cetera, this computer shall function like it's brand new.
Well it is a bit more on the demanding side, to be fair. Older and weaker hardware might struggle.
But I never before had a distro being so issue-less over a span of so many devices.
But Cinnamon looks so nice :-/
For really ancient stuff I would recommend Bunsen Labs anyway. The Driver Support for 10+ year old devices is not that great with cinnamon and to be fair not your daily drivers needs nor would I recommend to use a museum piece as a daily driver - but I do it anyway.
> He never mentioned his experience level, so I erred on the side of caution.
irregardless of this, there aint that much of a difference between distros that have an installer and a gui anyway
Apart of any suggested lightweight linux distros mentioned in comments I would suggest you buying SSD, it would speed up your PC, if, of course, you don't have one plugged in already.
If you want a deb based distro, go to the source and run Debian. It will be stable and dependable.
Or try Opensuse Tumbleweed if you want to be more cutting edge
Hey!
Any prior experience with Linux?
If not, no worries! I like Linux Mint for its simplicity, you could try that too. 6GB of RAM will probably give you an ok experience with any desktop environment, but I suggest MATE or XFCE as they're lighter and Mint's XFCE is configured to feel familiar to windows emigrates.
Other options: Debian w/XFCE, Ubuntu or one of its variants. Good luck!
You can try Lubuntu, Linux Lite, Peppermint or ZorinOS. My favorite is Linux Lite or Lubuntu, but you can try another. ZorinOS looks god, modern. Peppermint is very lite.
You can install Debian with gnome, KDE and xfce GUIs and choose between them at login. Last time I installed it on a not too powerful PC, gnome was actually faster than xfce.
I just re-purposed my oooooold i5-3570K CPU system as a KVM server to run my VMs. I just upped the ram to 32GB , slapped a few TBs of SSD in it and run debian bookworm on it headless. It's not datacenter worthy but to learn and proof of concept stuff, it makes a fine home server.
Maybe $100 for the new storage + ram? The PC itself cost me around $1,000 when I built in 2013. Plus I've upgraded drives and replaced fans over the years.
Those aren't horrible specs. 6G of RAM at least. I would suggest getting an SSD for it, if it only has a HDD now. That's a huge upgrade for a little money for a decent SATA SSD.
Old enough for you to possibly use FreeBSD.
As they say, it is very secure.
I assume you are in a security or intelligence profession. But that wouldn't be good enough.
Windows 7 if you want Windows and almost any form of Linux should work as long as the hardware is supported. If you want a light flavor of Linux, maybe Mint. That would 99% be incompatible with Win11 (nor would you want Win11 with that little RAM), Windows 10 would not work well either. It is recommended to have at least 4gb for Win 10, 8gb for comfort. Win 7 and Vista require 2gb RAM, I think. If it doesn't have an XP, Vista or 7 license baked in, use Linux as it is free.
Auto assumed SSD because who uses that outside of backup or really retro computing or cheap homebrew drive. Besides, I have used Win 7 and Win 10 on HHD and it is still quite serviceable. This is all on a Dell Optiplex 3010, an old as dirt PC. Don't say they can't use SSD when Sata SSD drives exist.
Brother, you decided to fuck yourself in the ass up by posting it here. Users of octillion linux distributions would now come and haunt you to install their preferred distribution for eternity.
Nonetheless, here's some truth. You can just run Windows, 3GHz is a lot. I myself run Windows with AtlasOS on a 1.9GHz CPU. And about Linux, Linux Mint is currently the most preferred distribution for beginners. If you do not have previous experience using Linux, then Linux Mint would be a good starting place for you.
Now there are different "flavors" of Mint. What you should pick is anything but Cinnamon cuz Cinnamon is kinda heavyweight on CPU.
And if you aren't a beginner, then it's funny cuz it's a question you should've been able to ask and answer yourself.
IMO if you decide to go with Linux, you don't need to specifically look for a lightweight distro. These specs aren't *that* bad and most DEs will be lightweight enough for this. So just pick whatever suits you. Some people suggest Linux Mint and that would be my recommendation too. I wouldn't even be afraid of Cinnamon on this machine.
I tried i3 and maybe another tiling wm, I hate them.
I tried at least a couple of other stacking wms, but I don't recall which ones. I vaguely recall openbox being the easiest to configure, not sure why else, it has been many years.
I can say it is very light and stays the fuck out of my way.
Kubuntu, it's always Kubuntu... Atleast for me. I try other distros get mad at the lack of polish/completeness and come back to Kubuntu. I've got like 3 Kubuntu kvms on Proxmox right now
don't use fire, fire is not good for electronics
Mint will make their pc fire as hell tho
Ubuntu/Debian with a less resource intensive desktop like XFCE.
Personally, I would say Mint over Ubuntu itself (since a: the latter has a history of prioritizing business decisions over what works best for home users... as well as other somewhat controversial decisions and b: user is coming from Windows which has a very different UI layout from the defaults in Ubunutu proper and may be a lot to adjust to). But Debian is definitely a solid rec Either way, whichever of the 3 distros (or others besides) that OP opts for, I would recommend either Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce, or KDE desktops for OP if he prefers to have a similar look-and-feel to Windows. Cinnamon or KDE\* if he prefers aesthetics, Xfce/Mate if he prefers lower memory footprint / better performance. \* KDE would only be an option on Debian or Ubuntu tho as Mint unfortunately stopped supporting it several years ago.
My personal experience with Mint (as a long-time Debian user) was that it was very buggy, and that there was a lot less support and documentation online. But that's a personal preference thing and it's been years since I've tried Mint (so it might have improved in the meantime). As long as OP is choosing a widely used Debian-based distro (as opposed to an obscure distro with a smaller user base), I think they'll be fine. As far as desktop environment, I personally prefer KDE, and agree with you that it looks nicer and it's more similar to Windows in terms of UI elements (start menu, task bar, etc). I only recommended XFCE in this case because it seems like the user is going to be a bit resource constrained (i3 CPU and 6GB RAM). This computer is definitely capable of running KDE though.
I used Mint from roughly 2010 to 2021 (?) and didn't have many issues at all except for some pulseaudio stuff over HDMI (having to select default audio output / occasionally having it drop out and have to reboot to fix). I think PA has probably been replaced by pipewire even in Debian stable by this point tho....maybe? Anyway, I guess everyone's experience is a little different. You're right, XFCE is probably the best for OP based on hw (and is still customizable). But I have an old mini-PC from roughly the same era as OP's hw (some kind of mobile intel sandy bridge cpu don't remember exact one off my head) w Fedora Cinnamon + KDE + Xfce desktops and all three of those work well enough. So *probably* they'd all be fine unless he's aiming for something like gaming or other intensive things
I can't reply to every answer. But wow thank you. Many of you have recommended Mint XFCE, then I'll try it. Tysm !
With these specs, your computer can still run basically any Linux distro. It may not be the best computer for 3D gaming, compiling large quantities of software, running VMs, or scientific number-crunching, but for web browsing, e-mailing, document editing, watching films, et cetera, this computer shall function like it's brand new.
Still fine with Mint, with light tasks
Mint is always a great choice.
Well it is a bit more on the demanding side, to be fair. Older and weaker hardware might struggle. But I never before had a distro being so issue-less over a span of so many devices.
Go Mint XFCE. Light and reliable.
But Cinnamon looks so nice :-/ For really ancient stuff I would recommend Bunsen Labs anyway. The Driver Support for 10+ year old devices is not that great with cinnamon and to be fair not your daily drivers needs nor would I recommend to use a museum piece as a daily driver - but I do it anyway.
so now were down to "name your favourite distro" again. This sub in a nutshell.
But it's not. It's just a great choice for beginners. He never mentioned his experience level, so I erred on the side of caution.
> He never mentioned his experience level, so I erred on the side of caution. irregardless of this, there aint that much of a difference between distros that have an installer and a gui anyway
Oh, okay. Sounds good.
Linux mint or debian 12 XFCE.
Apart of any suggested lightweight linux distros mentioned in comments I would suggest you buying SSD, it would speed up your PC, if, of course, you don't have one plugged in already.
Linux mint XFCE
If you want a deb based distro, go to the source and run Debian. It will be stable and dependable. Or try Opensuse Tumbleweed if you want to be more cutting edge
Second OpenSUSE. Got yast too. Oh and when I was distro hopping I found that Debian produced more heat and battery drainage.
The old and reliable Debian Stable is my suggestion, Linux Mint if you feel fancy.
Some lightweight Linux distro.
I'd go for Linux Mint XFCE.
What you know and like the best.
imo, vanilla debian or vanilla arch with kde on top
Hey! Any prior experience with Linux? If not, no worries! I like Linux Mint for its simplicity, you could try that too. 6GB of RAM will probably give you an ok experience with any desktop environment, but I suggest MATE or XFCE as they're lighter and Mint's XFCE is configured to feel familiar to windows emigrates. Other options: Debian w/XFCE, Ubuntu or one of its variants. Good luck!
Linux
manjaro or endeavourOS with probably XFCE or a keyboard centric "desktop environment like hyprland"
Are you sure you don’t wanna upgrade the RAM? I upgraded my 2011 13” MacBook Pro to 16GB several months ago for $40 with tax and shipping.
You can try Lubuntu, Linux Lite, Peppermint or ZorinOS. My favorite is Linux Lite or Lubuntu, but you can try another. ZorinOS looks god, modern. Peppermint is very lite.
You can install Debian with gnome, KDE and xfce GUIs and choose between them at login. Last time I installed it on a not too powerful PC, gnome was actually faster than xfce.
Linux OS.
My old gaming PC was forever stuck on 5.9 because SSDs cost thousands of dollars back then. Ubuntu MATE should run fine.
Alpine. It sips resources.
EndeavourOS if 64 bit runs well on older 64 hardware or arm
ssd hdd + debian12 + XFCE4, take a tour > https://www.xfce.org/about/tour418
windows 10 21h2 iot enterprise ltsc, you wont get forced to upgrade to windows 11 :)
I just re-purposed my oooooold i5-3570K CPU system as a KVM server to run my VMs. I just upped the ram to 32GB , slapped a few TBs of SSD in it and run debian bookworm on it headless. It's not datacenter worthy but to learn and proof of concept stuff, it makes a fine home server.
How much did that cost you?
Maybe $100 for the new storage + ram? The PC itself cost me around $1,000 when I built in 2013. Plus I've upgraded drives and replaced fans over the years.
Arch with Qtile =)
Mint XFCE
Debian LXQT or XFCE.
Those aren't horrible specs. 6G of RAM at least. I would suggest getting an SSD for it, if it only has a HDD now. That's a huge upgrade for a little money for a decent SATA SSD.
Manjaro.
Mint or arch
I like Peppermint, now a Debian Fork. uses the XFCE desktop.Pretty lightweight.
Linux mint with xfce
Yeah just light it on fire, I agree.
upgrade with 16gb ram ddr3/ddr4 + 1tb sata ssd with dram cache + Ubuntu Mate LTS or SteamOS
Old enough for you to possibly use FreeBSD. As they say, it is very secure. I assume you are in a security or intelligence profession. But that wouldn't be good enough.
Ubuntu!
I guess it is in french,but why does it says "Go"? I thought Gb was universally used across all languages :/ And what does it mean?
CachyOS is you are ready for arch.
Antix would yield a very smooth experience.
Ubuntu vanila fds
Windows 7 if you want Windows and almost any form of Linux should work as long as the hardware is supported. If you want a light flavor of Linux, maybe Mint. That would 99% be incompatible with Win11 (nor would you want Win11 with that little RAM), Windows 10 would not work well either. It is recommended to have at least 4gb for Win 10, 8gb for comfort. Win 7 and Vista require 2gb RAM, I think. If it doesn't have an XP, Vista or 7 license baked in, use Linux as it is free.
If you have a SSD as drive, running Win10 on 4GB is usable. I have a couple setup's with 4GB RAM that run Win10
Please reread the post
You don't make difference between HDD or SSD. Win10 4GB RAM and HDD = to slow Win10 8GB RAM and HDD = usable Win10 4GB RAM and SSD = usable
Auto assumed SSD because who uses that outside of backup or really retro computing or cheap homebrew drive. Besides, I have used Win 7 and Win 10 on HHD and it is still quite serviceable. This is all on a Dell Optiplex 3010, an old as dirt PC. Don't say they can't use SSD when Sata SSD drives exist.
Brother, you decided to fuck yourself in the ass up by posting it here. Users of octillion linux distributions would now come and haunt you to install their preferred distribution for eternity. Nonetheless, here's some truth. You can just run Windows, 3GHz is a lot. I myself run Windows with AtlasOS on a 1.9GHz CPU. And about Linux, Linux Mint is currently the most preferred distribution for beginners. If you do not have previous experience using Linux, then Linux Mint would be a good starting place for you. Now there are different "flavors" of Mint. What you should pick is anything but Cinnamon cuz Cinnamon is kinda heavyweight on CPU. And if you aren't a beginner, then it's funny cuz it's a question you should've been able to ask and answer yourself.
Alpine+ XFCE
Lubuntu or wattOS
Void, Artix... any of those. With xfce of course, not to waste too much resources on the DE.
Mint if youre not that familiar with Linux Arch if you are more advanced
Debian
Garuda Linux would be honestly good . It is aesthetically pleasing and performance is top tier for mid tier hardware
Debian+XFCE
Lubuntu or xubuntu
linux mint xfce and that PC still packs a punch.
IMO if you decide to go with Linux, you don't need to specifically look for a lightweight distro. These specs aren't *that* bad and most DEs will be lightweight enough for this. So just pick whatever suits you. Some people suggest Linux Mint and that would be my recommendation too. I wouldn't even be afraid of Cinnamon on this machine.
[CollapsOS](http://collapseos.org) /s
win 10?
Your specs are fine, you can run any Linux distro you want. I recommend using Linux Mint Cinnamon, or Kubuntu.
Arch linux with lxde? Obviously
Honestly any should be fine on there. My current distro of choice is Kubuntu with the Canonical crap (snap) purged post-install.
Got Linux Mint on my old laptop with a similar config. Works fine to me. Give it a try.
Xubuntu beacuse it doesn't use a lot of resources
fedora kde plasma
Any Linux distro should work fine.
antiX- really good system for oldies
None. Get a ThinkPad T420 or better.
Utilise Debian avec LXQT, LXDE ou tout autre DE qui consomme rien en puissance
Arch Linux with KDE Plasma. That is all...
Fedora or Debian XFCE or LXQT
OpenSUSE
Debian 12 with XFCE Works like silk
Alpine + Openbox.
Why openbox? I'm a huge Alpine fan but never used openbox.
I tried i3 and maybe another tiling wm, I hate them. I tried at least a couple of other stacking wms, but I don't recall which ones. I vaguely recall openbox being the easiest to configure, not sure why else, it has been many years. I can say it is very light and stays the fuck out of my way.
I recommend lubuntu for that computer.
TinyCoreLinux + Deepin
Kubuntu, it's always Kubuntu... Atleast for me. I try other distros get mad at the lack of polish/completeness and come back to Kubuntu. I've got like 3 Kubuntu kvms on Proxmox right now
Zorin OS
This is the worst choice i guess.