I used to do full blown openbox setups loaded with scripts, cornerbindings, tiling and what not booting waaay under 100 mb. Those were debian based. Lightest one ever and blazing fast I ever did was a modified Slitaz which booted at 28 mb.
@@pablorey9203 Man, that was a looong time ago. Dunno if that thing is even updated or usable for that matter. But it sure was an impressive little swiss knife. But like I mentioned in the original post, if you know how to build a core debian and pop up a wm, like jwm or openbox with a tint panel a lightweight fm and a browser, you could then build a custom iso which you can put on a stick. They should boot around 70mb ( far less than, say, antix). For emergencies of course, ;).
@@johnmaletic898 it was an incredible old machine, it was in 2014. It worked excepcionally well for the simple task I used to need. Nevew saw something faster. It was my first linux, the came lubunui 14 in the same machine, then mx15 and manjaro, apricity, peppermint. Now with a ryzen 9 I am tempted to dual boot (I need windows, sadly). Slitaz seems abandoned or almost. The same for Proteus...
Nice overview. I've always been a fan of the ED. I wouldn't however replace my MX Linux XFCE with this but for my Puppy box, it would embelish things a bit.
You could probably get a lighter footprint by just doing a vanilla install of Debian with the enlightenment window manager, especially if they are not using Debian repositories and not their own. Maybe you could choose another popular window manager like i3 or qtile, or a desktop environment like LXQt or XFCE depending on what you're more comfortable with, if ease of visual customisation is a preference. Alpine Linux which comes with syslinux instead of GRUB2, openrc instead of systemd, musl instead of glibc and busybox utils instead of GNU utils is lighter.
For the past decade I would start with the smallest Ubuntu server ISO and install a base command line environment. Now I install i3 and I have my desktop environment. However your life will become very complicated if you don't install a fallback LXDE desktop for configuring stuff that is hideously difficult without using a GUI. However. I recently installed LXQT as the base with i3 on top of that and I am very impressed.
I had the Enlightenment desktop running on top of Pop OS a couple of months ago, and loved it--but I couldn't stay with it because it didn't manage windows correctly in one of favorite programs. It is a great environment tho.
I had been using Pop OS for 2 years now. Pops OS manages windows really well. I didn't have to close it. Just change my workspace up and down. I can have 9 windows open with 3 windows open at full screen on 3 monitors and changes between. It is an awesome distro. Set up your own shortcut key to change your workspace easily. Awesome. I'm here because I want something more, yes I'm waiting for something better from the Linux distro. I mean, the gnome extension is old and didn't support a new kernel.
Many good suggestions here, another easy one is ALT Linux Starterkit, for example P10 Icewm SysV, or LXDE starterkit (systemd), they have others incl Windowmaker, Enlightenment also.
Have you ever heard about Loc-OS, as far as I know it's the most functional lightweight distribution. It uses lxde with openbox, based on debian 11, it uses sysvinit instead uses systemd. Its usage ram is around 100-200 MB also it has version to 64 and 32 bits. It's the distro I use currently
the lightest i tried recently was alpine. actually too light for desktop use, and it's understanable because it's designed as a container base image for developing purposes. but i wanted to try out the speed of its apk package manager. and, damn, it was fast. even faster than pacman and xbps. i've been using arch as my main distro for a long time, however, i think i'm either going to switch to bedrock linux or start to use distrobox, i'll probably go with option number one. bedrock intrigues me, i don't know how they're managing to mix match all those distros, i really want to learn how it works under the hood.
I use Enlightenment on top of a Lubuntu 22.04 install and it runs a whole lot better and smoother than most desktop, even when comparing glmark2 scores between them.
Thank you. It might be what I am looking for. Something to run on all manner of laptops, possibly dual booting alongside Windoz, ditto a big powerful desktop. I would liked to have seen the installer in action in a dual boot situation. And as silly as it may sound to some, most importantly does exLight accept a single character password. All (most?) of this will be revealed I guess, when I boot up the old ideapad test machine.
I'm liking that light green on the menus too.. (it WILL be on my VENTOY-- as welll as maybe on VM until I test it a bit. and I LIKE it- so if it's good enough- i may use it ALL the time.
I will take a look at ExLight, I like what Glen MacArthur (AV Linux) has done so far with his MXDE-EFL Enlightenment build. I also see that ArcoLinuxB (arch) will soon release an Enlightenment build.
Thank you so much. Looks excellent, defo will install on my Proxmox and carry around live USB stick to plugin on other peoples desktop. Cheers ATB from UK
The written info on it says you don't even HAVE to install it to make an ISO of yoru custom version-- just use on USB live- and then make it. It tells how to do that-- so you only install your CUSTOM version... :) I LIKE that..
Enlightenment is so powerful desktop environment. And as light as a standalone window manager. It is hard for me to explain, why it is not used as often as Gnome, Plasma or XFCE.
Hello. When i put user as login and live as password. Or root as login an root as password. The live session dont work! Anyway what is the use of putting a password on a live session login.? So i stop trying exlight linux. That one thing i hâte on some linux Os. Making difficulty for nothing.
Have you looked at Bodhi Linux? It's based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (no 22.04 yet), using the Moksha desktop, which appears to be their fork of the Enlightenment DE. Very attractive default desktop, highly configurable, and fully featured.
Heyya Mr EBuzz , whenever I see a distro on your site that appears interesting , I will run out and try it on one of my test laptops, However with the ExLite , I cannot seem to get past the intial screen that requires a User name and PW. Why anyone would require a PW on a live version I dont get but, I tried every combination that they claim on their website .. none of them appear to work. Have you had that issue ?
Check out Puppy Linux - frugal or disk install options, you can load it and run it totally from RAM.. Many branches of Puppy also available, you can easily remaster your own distro or actually build one from the ground up with little effort using several different base distro's (debian, slackware, arch etc).. I think it is less than 350 meg is size..
Boot from a usb with a decent desktop and apps. UA-cam worked with my wifi on a crappy Dell 2100. Sound card detected ok too. Basic word processor or download an open office
I'm using antix and I don't have any ad-blocker extension and yet it says ad blocker being used How do I make it stop blocking ads ? Using the buildin Firefox browser Would really appreciate the guide I'm new to Linux currently using it on an old laptop
Alpine Linux. Runs bout as light as it's gonna get. Not based on debian, no systemd. Great for old stuff too. Void Linux is pretty in line with lightweight if you do it right but you'll likely work for it w/ the void-packages. Good stuff tho, I use Void for my main computer and on a Raspberry Pi 4.
Hey Troy, I have been trying to run this from a live usb for about four days but I cannot get passed the login screen. I have tried user & live & root & root as user name/ password but to no avail. I have checked the md5sum & all is ok, I have even downloaded it again but still have the same problem. Did you have any probs loging in or is it because I am using a live usb? Thanks for your videos.
Hey bud i seem to hav found a solution to our problem... Just select backbox at login screen instead of enlightenment...then left click once ur inside blackbox..then open xtern terminal emulator...then type "sudo calamares -d" without quotes n it will launch calameres
@@eBuzzCentral sorry bro but for some reason it's not working...it's not that the user name or password is wrong..i think it's something else cuz when i enter wrong pass it jus says it's wrong..while i enter user and love it just goes blank for a sec like it's gonna enter tty n then comes right back at login screen with empty login field
Exactly my issue can't get pass the login screen, tried the suggested user name user & suggested password password live and after dozens of times last night I gave up after midnight
Downloading this now-- will VENTOY it-- or may even install on VM... to see what happens-- AFTER I read all the stuff on here about installing on VM and the other things-- they have some GREAT INFO on here that some other sites should consider using. Looks good though, and I AM curious. I like the ISO writing ability of one this simple and fast.. sort of like MX without all the crap packed in. (not that I don't like MX- because it IS one of my favorites) but this would have exactly what I want and that's it.
Hola! Please forgive my quick self-insert; I cannot get a straight answer on the Motherweb. What is a good distro for a really old Mecer Classmate (sort of a kiddies starter laptop from years ago), with an Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz processor, 30Gb disk? It's a really shitty thing in Windows format, but I like the midsize keyboard for writing purposes, so I wanna pop in a workable 32 bit distro. I tried ExLight now, but is has a problem with my processor. Thanking you all for the loving prayers and thoughts.
you need to really cut down on your kernel (because it's the main thing which loads into the memory) I would suggest Void linux with custom kernel and musl libc, and vim for writing, it should work reasonably well, but as soon as you would need a graphical browser you are screwed, the cpu is simple too old for modern browsing, you can browse textually with lynx or something like that.
On an Atom netbook (Dell Mini 10v) Linux Mint 19 (Xfce) and Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 (Cinnamon) used too many resources, MXLinux (Fluxbox) works on the netbook at a tolerable speed. I don't want to experiment around and use the terminal as little as possible. (These days I'm a complete beginner again when it comes to Linux, I've forgotten most of it again. I tried Linux PPC on the Mac over 20 years ago, but then switched to MacOSX. For 10 years I have also owned a Dell Mini10v netbook with Atom N270 (as a Hackintosh in dual boot with Windows 8.1). However, I would like to continue using the netbook even after the end of Windows8.1. Despite the installation of an SSD, the hardware is too weak for Windows10. So the only option is a 32-bit Linux. )
You might try an arch Linux install, might be able to get by with a lightweight tiling window manager. Anecdotally I’m able to run arch with dwm on an arm based pink pro and it only uses 200mb ram on idle with a 1080p screen. Don’t get a compositor and don’t set a background and you can probably reduce it even more. If that fails or if you want to go even lighter, gentoo I’d an option. You can certainly strip a lot out of the kernel, though at that point you’re going to need to learn quite a bit. I wouldn’t consider customizing a kernel to be a very beginner friendly task.
You don't need a light version for a dual core. I'm running Zorin Core on three, one with only 4 GBs. SSD added, of course. If you want it zippier, turn off animation. I have an old single core laptop I need to try tho.
I just put Zorin Core on a Celeron N2830 a couple days ago and it's running pretty smooth and looks really nice. I only see lags at rare times, but no more so than any other distro I've tried on it. I've run the light version too, and even though I really really like XFCE, I like the look of Core better. I like that Zorin's software center lets me choose the type of package to install. I have nothing really against snaps or flatpacks, but they're so huge compare to "old style" packages. I have had episodes on various old laptops where snaps either didn't work to begin with or glitched out later.
I made a live-usb-pen drive, after start the live session ExLight requires to type a username and a password. Anybody knows the username and the password at the first start of the live session?
Got an old HP laptop with AMD E-300 dual core chip at 1.2 GHZ each. Been struggling to find something decent for it. Had Linux Mint with XFCE. Too slow for my taste. Then Tiny Core. Too cumbersome. Looking for something in between those extremes. It had Windows 8, so it's crazy that I had a difficult time matching a distribution to it. Guess I really need to learn these desktops. Excited about Wayland. Hoping it could alleviate the performance issues with X11, but it's development is slow it seems and with narrow support.
@@motoryzen It was my assumption that GPU acceleration was being utilized, since it's rather ubiquitous on most platforms by now. A question I didn't think I still needed to ask. Although, on the laptop in question, with Windows 8, it was okay. I increased the memory to 8GB and changed out the spinning rust for SSD. It gave nominal improvements to web browsing, which was what I was after. When I upgraded it to Windows 10, the hardware upgrades didn't seem matter. The APU was too weak to take advantage of the extra memory and faster drive. So, there is a minimum processor threshold that even SSD's can't fix. So when I stuck Linux Mint on it, it was no surprise the laptop would struggle. But it was better than Windows 10. And another key difference is I had the spinning rust back in it. The SSD was placed in a better laptop. I appreciate the heads up,. May give Linux another try. I did like it. I just needed a stronger system. Thanks!
@@poseidon3032 Linux Lite would probably be the sweet spot imo of keeping it modern enough and being less resource hungry than Linux Mint flavors. It's worth checking out I think. If you need any help, let me know and I'll try. Cheers.
@@motoryzen Thanks. I think I've tried ot before, but for some reason, it wouldn't install. Could have been the wrong flavor. I could try again. I really want to get away from Windows in my personal stuff. Doubtful I could in business.
I tried downloading this distro to check it out but it is unusable. Once you boot up it goes to a login screen and you are unable to login. Using used and live period and foot Wil blank the screen for a moment and it goes back to a login scdeen. Does anyone else have this issue and is there a fix?
Well, seem to be impossible to install : a password + login are needed ! the one given on the Exlight website are not active !! ( such as live nor root). pity !
Cool distro! I didn't even know Enlightment Desktop Environment existed #lol but damn it's a beautiful one. I might just add it on my old PC instead of Spiral Mate. Being on the unstable branch, does it have more updates than main Debian? Can I still update it not too often?
The only downside to enlightenment is the mouse scrolling is the old 1990s way. It's a pain to make natural scrolling work across the entire desktop environment. I use to use enlightenment 10 years ago and it was always a low resource user with nice functionality. But the natural scrolling thing is what made me leave and move to XFCE. I hope that since the Budgie desktop environment is moving its tools to the enlightenment EFL library and away from Gnome/GTK that we can finally get a return of the oldest Linux desktop to compete with the others.
OS may run fast but in the end all modern sites like youtube etc. will ask for alot of resources... Like agent Smith said to Neo "What good is an OS when you don't have software for it to run"
I am considering installing this on my sister's two Pentium 4 PCs that are currently struggling with Windows XP. My sister wants to use them to access the Internet, but not with something like Windows XP.
With all due respect, this is a little bit more than an e-waste savior. I'm not much for bloat, but I like a little bling like the next guy. That is just my opinion.
It's all about esthetics and sometimes ergonomics but then the programs, with or without flaws, are the same. Something very flashy met lots of effects requires more ram and power. My own wish would be something like a perfect ReactOS. However I can understand nobody likes to spend half his life on that (for free) since it's probably extremely hard to do.
Linux is obese. BSD and Windows are Mach kernel based and use small system memory more efficiently. Hurd of any working Linux microkernel implementation?
thank you that you are a human, and not an AI voice. It's so nice to hear someone who is flesh and blood.
I used to do full blown openbox setups loaded with scripts, cornerbindings, tiling and what not booting waaay under 100 mb. Those were debian based. Lightest one ever and blazing fast I ever did was a modified Slitaz which booted at 28 mb.
SliTaz is unbeatable.
I was searching slitaz but I didn't remember the name. Used with a K7 without HDD. Impressive for emergencies, like I was facing
@@pablorey9203 Man, that was a looong time ago. Dunno if that thing is even updated or usable for that matter. But it sure was an impressive little swiss knife. But like I mentioned in the original post, if you know how to build a core debian and pop up a wm, like jwm or openbox with a tint panel a lightweight fm and a browser, you could then build a custom iso which you can put on a stick. They should boot around 70mb ( far less than, say, antix). For emergencies of course, ;).
@@johnmaletic898 it was an incredible old machine, it was in 2014. It worked excepcionally well for the simple task I used to need. Nevew saw something faster. It was my first linux, the came lubunui 14 in the same machine, then mx15 and manjaro, apricity, peppermint. Now with a ryzen 9 I am tempted to dual boot (I need windows, sadly). Slitaz seems abandoned or almost. The same for Proteus...
Nice overview. I've always been a fan of the ED. I wouldn't however replace my MX Linux XFCE with this but for my Puppy box, it would embelish things a bit.
You could probably get a lighter footprint by just doing a vanilla install of Debian with the enlightenment window manager, especially if they are not using Debian repositories and not their own. Maybe you could choose another popular window manager like i3 or qtile, or a desktop environment like LXQt or XFCE depending on what you're more comfortable with, if ease of visual customisation is a preference.
Alpine Linux which comes with syslinux instead of GRUB2, openrc instead of systemd, musl instead of glibc and busybox utils instead of GNU utils is lighter.
For the past decade I would start with the smallest Ubuntu server ISO and install a base command line environment. Now I install i3 and I have my desktop environment. However your life will become very complicated if you don't install a fallback LXDE desktop for configuring stuff that is hideously difficult without using a GUI. However. I recently installed LXQT as the base with i3 on top of that and I am very impressed.
or Alpine with i3
I had the Enlightenment desktop running on top of Pop OS a couple of months ago, and loved it--but I couldn't stay with it because it didn't manage windows correctly in one of favorite programs. It is a great environment tho.
I had been using Pop OS for 2 years now. Pops OS manages windows really well. I didn't have to close it. Just change my workspace up and down. I can have 9 windows open with 3 windows open at full screen on 3 monitors and changes between. It is an awesome distro. Set up your own shortcut key to change your workspace easily. Awesome.
I'm here because I want something more, yes I'm waiting for something better from the Linux distro. I mean, the gnome extension is old and didn't support a new kernel.
@@frostsmaker8966 He is talking about the Enlightenment Desktop not the Gnome Desktop!
lightest distro i found so far is antix.
Many good suggestions here, another easy one is ALT Linux Starterkit, for example P10 Icewm SysV, or LXDE starterkit (systemd), they have others incl Windowmaker, Enlightenment also.
Have you ever heard about Loc-OS, as far as I know it's the most functional lightweight distribution. It uses lxde with openbox, based on debian 11, it uses sysvinit instead uses systemd. Its usage ram is around 100-200 MB also it has version to 64 and 32 bits.
It's the distro I use currently
Can one install latte dock in it ?
@@acharyaguy yes, but latte dock is a little bit weight, the usage ram increases to 400 MB
@@oscarpalma4066 okay
@@oscarpalma4066 i find latte dock convenient and aesthetically pleasing, i wonder if there is any alternative that consumes less resources.
@@oscarpalma4066 system monitor in my arch linux says latte is consuming 285.1 mb of Ram
That looks interesting. I'm having a good time with Sparky--- and it WORKS-- great.. but I do like the look of this too.. I think I'll VENTOY it.. :)
the lightest i tried recently was alpine. actually too light for desktop use, and it's understanable because it's designed as a container base image for developing purposes. but i wanted to try out the speed of its apk package manager. and, damn, it was fast. even faster than pacman and xbps. i've been using arch as my main distro for a long time, however, i think i'm either going to switch to bedrock linux or start to use distrobox, i'll probably go with option number one. bedrock intrigues me, i don't know how they're managing to mix match all those distros, i really want to learn how it works under the hood.
Yeah, I heard alpine is made for servers.
I use Enlightenment on top of a Lubuntu 22.04 install and it runs a whole lot better and smoother than most desktop, even when comparing glmark2 scores between them.
Thank you. It might be what I am looking for. Something to run on all manner of laptops, possibly dual booting alongside Windoz, ditto a big powerful desktop. I would liked to have seen the installer in action in a dual boot situation. And as silly as it may sound to some, most importantly does exLight accept a single character password. All (most?) of this will be revealed I guess, when I boot up the old ideapad test machine.
I tried 2 laptops, on both it just returned to lightdm on login (did try new download, reformat thumbdrive)
I'm liking that light green on the menus too.. (it WILL be on my VENTOY-- as welll as maybe on VM until I test it a bit. and I LIKE it- so if it's good enough- i may use it ALL the time.
Gökhan Bey benim hem bir arkadaşımın kardeşi hem de asker arkadaşımdır.... Kendisine selamlar...
I will take a look at ExLight, I like what Glen MacArthur (AV Linux) has done so far with his MXDE-EFL Enlightenment build. I also see that ArcoLinuxB (arch) will soon release an Enlightenment build.
oh man... i hope you remember some months ago in discord when I said how cool and LIGHT is enlightenment...
Thank you so much. Looks excellent, defo will install on my Proxmox and carry around live USB stick to plugin on other peoples desktop. Cheers ATB from UK
Hi, could you tell me which distro are you running at the beginning of the video?
The written info on it says you don't even HAVE to install it to make an ISO of yoru custom version-- just use on USB live- and then make it. It tells how to do that-- so you only install your CUSTOM version... :) I LIKE that..
Enlightenment is so powerful desktop environment. And as light as a standalone window manager. It is hard for me to explain, why it is not used as often as Gnome, Plasma or XFCE.
The last version of MaBox use 300 Mb when idle and is beautidul
Hey Troy. Love the channel I really like makulu and antix. Where'd you get the sick wallpaper with the dock?
Never even got it into the live session on 2 laptops and reformatted usb drive, new image. Just returns to lightdm on login.
So is it even more lightweight than Antix Linux? Iso for Antix is much less than 2GBs
Yes, but can it run Crisis on a potato?
Hello. When i put user as login and live as password. Or root as login an root as password. The live session dont work! Anyway what is the use of putting a password on a live session login.? So i stop trying exlight linux. That one thing i hâte on some linux Os. Making difficulty for nothing.
Might try on old NetBook computer and let you know how it works out. How much lighter than Mint is this distro?
Have you looked at Bodhi Linux? It's based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (no 22.04 yet), using the Moksha desktop, which appears to be their fork of the Enlightenment DE. Very attractive default desktop, highly configurable, and fully featured.
that was one of those I could not get to work :)
bodhi is dead
@@elprincipito6400 bodhi is one of those I tried to use but would not work so..
@@steinbauge4591 bodhi is dead
we must wait to new BUDGIE, it will based on enlighment
Heyya Mr EBuzz , whenever I see a distro on your site that appears interesting , I will run out and try it on one of my test laptops, However with the ExLite , I cannot seem to get past the intial screen that requires a User name and PW. Why anyone would require a PW on a live version I dont get but, I tried every combination that they claim on their website .. none of them appear to work. Have you had that issue ?
I had two other people say the same thing, no it never asked me for a password or a username. Let me check on that and get back with you
all of those distros now have a cool wallpaper but what about the sysctl params and the dev tools and other awesome features ...
I have some Asus netbooks and they run AntiX Linux nice and butter smooth. I'll definitely give this distro a try on my 8gb netbooks.
I installed 2 years ago mx linux for my father on my old laptop, this looks like a good alternative..
I would recommend Manjaro KDE, runs exceptionally well.
It's a very beautiful theme it uses
Today's look are very cold and has no soul
Check out Puppy Linux - frugal or disk install options, you can load it and run it totally from RAM.. Many branches of Puppy also available, you can easily remaster your own distro or actually build one from the ground up with little effort using several different base distro's (debian, slackware, arch etc).. I think it is less than 350 meg is size..
Boot from a usb with a decent desktop and apps. UA-cam worked with my wifi on a crappy Dell 2100. Sound card detected ok too. Basic word processor or download an open office
Looks nice why isn't it listed on Distrowatch database?
That's because I already have ExTiX listed there. My other (about 20 including ExLight) distros are not allowed. Against DistroWatch's policy I guess.
It doesn't boot. I downloaded it and it shows the opening menu and just continues to loop, And I really wanted to try it. Back to Big Linux,
I'm using antix and I don't have any ad-blocker extension and yet it says ad blocker being used
How do I make it stop blocking ads ?
Using the buildin Firefox browser
Would really appreciate the guide I'm new to Linux currently using it on an old laptop
Thank you. What distro did you have open initially?
Gecko Linux
what is the password login for exlight live usb? i cant find it and cant use exlight
Alpine Linux. Runs bout as light as it's gonna get. Not based on debian, no systemd. Great for old stuff too. Void Linux is pretty in line with lightweight if you do it right but you'll likely work for it w/ the void-packages. Good stuff tho, I use Void for my main computer and on a Raspberry Pi 4.
Can't get past the log in screen. No combination of passwords work. exlight 64bit-sid- efi
Very cool, is it good for video editing?
Hey Troy, I have been trying to run this from a live usb for about four days but I cannot get passed the login screen. I have tried user & live & root & root as user name/ password but to no avail. I have checked the md5sum & all is ok, I have even downloaded it again but still have the same problem. Did you have any probs loging in or is it because I am using a live usb? Thanks for your videos.
I was never asked for a username and password in a live mode. Let me do some checking and I'll get back with you
Hey bud i seem to hav found a solution to our problem...
Just select backbox at login screen instead of enlightenment...then left click once ur inside blackbox..then open xtern terminal emulator...then type "sudo calamares -d" without quotes n it will launch calameres
@@eBuzzCentral sorry bro but for some reason it's not working...it's not that the user name or password is wrong..i think it's something else cuz when i enter wrong pass it jus says it's wrong..while i enter user and love it just goes blank for a sec like it's gonna enter tty n then comes right back at login screen with empty login field
Exactly my issue can't get pass the login screen, tried the suggested user name user & suggested password password live and after dozens of times last night I gave up after midnight
@@i.desygner2750 It won't accept live as password now, says incorrect password.
Downloading this now-- will VENTOY it-- or may even install on VM... to see what happens-- AFTER I read all the stuff on here about installing on VM and the other things-- they have some GREAT INFO on here that some other sites should consider using. Looks good though, and I AM curious. I like the ISO writing ability of one this simple and fast.. sort of like MX without all the crap packed in. (not that I don't like MX- because it IS one of my favorites) but this would have exactly what I want and that's it.
THAT is exactly what Linux should be.
This is asking me for my inlog name and password before i even install it.can you help me please
Hola! Please forgive my quick self-insert; I cannot get a straight answer on the Motherweb. What is a good distro for a really old Mecer Classmate (sort of a kiddies starter laptop from years ago), with an Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz processor, 30Gb disk? It's a really shitty thing in Windows format, but I like the midsize keyboard for writing purposes, so I wanna pop in a workable 32 bit distro. I tried ExLight now, but is has a problem with my processor. Thanking you all for the loving prayers and thoughts.
you need to really cut down on your kernel (because it's the main thing which loads into the memory) I would suggest Void linux with custom kernel and musl libc, and vim for writing, it should work reasonably well, but as soon as you would need a graphical browser you are screwed, the cpu is simple too old for modern browsing, you can browse textually with lynx or something like that.
On an Atom netbook (Dell Mini 10v) Linux Mint 19 (Xfce) and Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 (Cinnamon) used too many resources, MXLinux (Fluxbox) works on the netbook at a tolerable speed. I don't want to experiment around and use the terminal as little as possible.
(These days I'm a complete beginner again when it comes to Linux, I've forgotten most of it again. I tried Linux PPC on the Mac over 20 years ago, but then switched to MacOSX. For 10 years I have also owned a Dell Mini10v netbook with Atom N270 (as a Hackintosh in dual boot with Windows 8.1). However, I would like to continue using the netbook even after the end of Windows8.1. Despite the installation of an SSD, the hardware is too weak for Windows10. So the only option is a 32-bit Linux. )
You might try an arch Linux install, might be able to get by with a lightweight tiling window manager. Anecdotally I’m able to run arch with dwm on an arm based pink pro and it only uses 200mb ram on idle with a 1080p screen. Don’t get a compositor and don’t set a background and you can probably reduce it even more.
If that fails or if you want to go even lighter, gentoo I’d an option. You can certainly strip a lot out of the kernel, though at that point you’re going to need to learn quite a bit. I wouldn’t consider customizing a kernel to be a very beginner friendly task.
Pinebook Pro* mobile isn’t letting me edit.
You don't need a light version for a dual core. I'm running Zorin Core on three, one with only 4 GBs. SSD added, of course. If you want it zippier, turn off animation. I have an old single core laptop I need to try tho.
I just put Zorin Core on a Celeron N2830 a couple days ago and it's running pretty smooth and looks really nice. I only see lags at rare times, but no more so than any other distro I've tried on it. I've run the light version too, and even though I really really like XFCE, I like the look of Core better. I like that Zorin's software center lets me choose the type of package to install. I have nothing really against snaps or flatpacks, but they're so huge compare to "old style" packages. I have had episodes on various old laptops where snaps either didn't work to begin with or glitched out later.
wich Distro are u using in 00:13 ?
Gecko Linux KDE.
What's the advantage over vanilla Debian with LXQT on it? Personally I'm using Debian Bookworm with LXQT.
Better than Linux lite utility wise?
I made a live-usb-pen drive, after start the live session ExLight requires to type a username and a password. Anybody knows the username and the password at the first start of the live session?
Got an old HP laptop with AMD E-300 dual core chip at 1.2 GHZ each. Been struggling to find something decent for it. Had Linux Mint with XFCE. Too slow for my taste. Then Tiny Core. Too cumbersome. Looking for something in between those extremes. It had Windows 8, so it's crazy that I had a difficult time matching a distribution to it. Guess I really need to learn these desktops. Excited about Wayland. Hoping it could alleviate the performance issues with X11, but it's development is slow it seems and with narrow support.
1. Better to use Linux Mint Cinnamon with Effects turned off..
XFCE doesn't use gou hardware acceleration.. Cinnamon can.
2. Pcmanfm file manager..
@@motoryzen Huh! That's a wrinkle I didn't know about. Gpu acceleration would certainly help.
@@motoryzen It was my assumption that GPU acceleration was being utilized, since it's rather ubiquitous on most platforms by now. A question I didn't think I still needed to ask. Although, on the laptop in question, with Windows 8, it was okay. I increased the memory to 8GB and changed out the spinning rust for SSD. It gave nominal improvements to web browsing, which was what I was after. When I upgraded it to Windows 10, the hardware upgrades didn't seem matter. The APU was too weak to take advantage of the extra memory and faster drive. So, there is a minimum processor threshold that even SSD's can't fix. So when I stuck Linux Mint on it, it was no surprise the laptop would struggle. But it was better than Windows 10. And another key difference is I had the spinning rust back in it. The SSD was placed in a better laptop. I appreciate the heads up,. May give Linux another try. I did like it. I just needed a stronger system. Thanks!
@@poseidon3032 Linux Lite would probably be the sweet spot imo of keeping it modern enough and being less resource hungry than Linux Mint flavors. It's worth checking out I think.
If you need any help, let me know and I'll try.
Cheers.
@@motoryzen Thanks. I think I've tried ot before, but for some reason, it wouldn't install. Could have been the wrong flavor. I could try again. I really want to get away from Windows in my personal stuff. Doubtful I could in business.
I prefer Lubuntu but might give it a try one day when a stable release comes. Thanks for the video !
I tried downloading this distro to check it out but it is unusable. Once you boot up it goes to a login screen and you are unable to login. Using used and live period and foot Wil blank the screen for a moment and it goes back to a login scdeen. Does anyone else have this issue and is there a fix?
I've had a couple others raise that concern, I've reached out and I'm trying to find a solution
Its happen to me. I dont understand what the use of password login in a live session. Pure silliness
give a try to loc os is kinda good for spanish speakers like me
is also very light start up with 200 mb with lxde destop envirioment
@@unLinuxeroMas I was about to comment the same. Loc-Os would probably blow his mind and it looks quite nicer to my liking
@@jotac6342 it has new themes kinda good in my opinion
Puppy Linux has many versions some were abt 100 MB.
Looks good- may try this too..
A light distro with Firefox? I think is better change to Midori.
PuppyOS is insanely light.
Nothing fancy though.
Tried installing this os on an old laptop after watching the video, just to have a play, didn’t install, just got a grub screen on restart
My eyesight is worse than yours. How good is the magnifier? TIA
Well, seem to be impossible to install : a password + login are needed ! the one given on the Exlight website are not active !! ( such as live nor root). pity !
Same problem when I tried it out. Tried all combos given and none work at all. I even downloaded a new iso and still same issue.
I've reached out I'm waiting for a response back to see if it's a bug or if there's a workaround, I did not encounter this when I used it.
@@eBuzzCentral Thank you sir I appreciate your efforts and work with everything you do for us here! You go above and beyond!
No flatpaks I take it???
If you're like me you'll disable snaps and enable flatpaks.
@@k.b.tidwell THAT sir, is the ONLY way to go for me!!!!
Cool distro! I didn't even know Enlightment Desktop Environment existed #lol but damn it's a beautiful one. I might just add it on my old PC instead of Spiral Mate.
Being on the unstable branch, does it have more updates than main Debian? Can I still update it not too often?
Man all the lightest distros are based off of debian.
Even ANTIX only needs 256 MB of ram
That's not true.
Mabox is good on older hardware and is based on Manjaro/Arch.
The only downside to enlightenment is the mouse scrolling is the old 1990s way. It's a pain to make natural scrolling work across the entire desktop environment. I use to use enlightenment 10 years ago and it was always a low resource user with nice functionality. But the natural scrolling thing is what made me leave and move to XFCE. I hope that since the Budgie desktop environment is moving its tools to the enlightenment EFL library and away from Gnome/GTK that we can finally get a return of the oldest Linux desktop to compete with the others.
Natural mouse or touchpad scrolling is fine in E. You can find a setting dialog in settings panel.
@@bodhilinux9724 Thanks for the info I haven't tried E in a years so I'll check it out again!! Cheers.
Is it better than antix linux?
OS may run fast but in the end all modern sites like youtube etc. will ask for alot of resources... Like agent Smith said to Neo "What good is an OS when you don't have software for it to run"
Have you tried Loc-Os? You will be nicely surprised.
Lightest Linux distro ever is TinyCore btw
The latest antix boots up to 80mb in ram. I can use it on my pentium Ii with 288mb of ram total.
Does it run steam
How do you login?
I am considering installing this on my sister's two Pentium 4 PCs that are currently struggling with Windows XP. My sister wants to use them to access the Internet, but not with something like Windows XP.
With all due respect, this is a little bit more than an e-waste savior. I'm not much for bloat, but I like a little bling like the next guy. That is just my opinion.
Thank you my friend.
It's all about esthetics and sometimes ergonomics but then the programs, with or without flaws, are the same. Something very flashy met lots of effects requires more ram and power. My own wish would be something like a perfect ReactOS. However I can understand nobody likes to spend half his life on that (for free) since it's probably extremely hard to do.
in which universe is this os light? come on please present once a really light distros like ChaletOS or XentaOS
both are really great and fast
lightweight and easy to install : Artix linux
looks like a promising light weight distro but I can't get the suggested password to work, thanks for the video
Ditto -- i've tried every possible combo. No go. Hopefully @eBuzz will enlighten us
I honestly did not have any problem, I'm reaching out to try to get answers as we speak
@@eBuzzCentral Let us know how it goes Troy, I really wanted to try this one out but ran into the same issue with the login like everyone else did
Their "read me" file gave the login info, but it does not work, nor any variation on it that I've tried.
Try Loc OS!!!
My arch with i3 uses 275m ram
how many ram you have?
@@androidlife2796 8GB DDR3 on a thinkpad x200. If you build arch linux from ground up. You will have a very light system.
@@dptek2.0 i can run 3gen i5 and 2gb ram?
@@androidlife2796 for sure
Password for install ??? The username in the documentation do not work ...... user / live ?? root / root ???
Using systemd
OP: "lightest distro great for older machines"
needs 3 gigs of ram ...
🤣🤣🤣
There are more light Linux distros which are not that ugly.
"have you ever went..." No! FFS. It's "have you ever gone"!
DebianDog
I thought Slax is the lightest
Antix and Tinycore are much lighter
Task bar looks ugly
The customize it, that is just the way it comes. It is linux you can change it however you want.
Looks cool to me
Linux is obese. BSD and Windows are Mach kernel based and use small system memory more efficiently. Hurd of any working Linux microkernel implementation?
way too ugly for me
Thanks !
Porteus is about 600MB....
Very low resource usage.
antiX is a million times better. Maybe a trillion. Fire that sucker up and it'll blow your mind.