Good distro for old computer?

Discussion in 'Linux' started by vebuntu, Sep 1, 2026.

  1. vebuntu

    vebuntu MDL Novice

    Nov 1, 2013
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    I am sure this question has been asked many times but there might be something new I haven't heard of. I am still on windows 7 and as time goes on, many programs are not supporting it anymore. I am looking for a lightweight distro for my old computer with 4GB that is reliable and stable but with updateable programs if it's possible.
    I asked Duck.ai and I got a couple of ones, like Debian XFCE which I think the most reliable since it's a well-known distro with solid foundation and I'm familiar with it, MX-Linux - I don't know about that. I haven't used any Linux distro for a long time so I am really outdated. For example, XFCE isn't really a lightweight desktop environment so i heard like it used to

    Just a few days ago i installed Win10 LTSC and it was awfully slow and kept failing while applying updates, downloading over and over again, not to mention it looks like s**t with that setting app that kept crushing for no reason even though the whole OS was using only 2.5 gb of ram with firefox opened too. I wonder how people tolerated it. Now, i am back on 7.

    I also want a distro that reads and writes on NTFS without corrupting any data on it.

    I'm not a heavy user so I just do basic tasks and play some old games.

    I also bought refurbished rams a few days ago, but none of them worked except one which was faulty so i returned them. The motherboard I have is too old. I don't know how long this computer will continue to work but i don't think it has many days left.
     
  2. pammodnar

    pammodnar MDL Junior Member

    Dec 14, 2015
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    I believe Lubuntu should be just fine (it's just a bit more resource hungry than the rest of similar offers) and it's updated and so forth.
     
  3. Nimbus2000

    Nimbus2000 MDL Senior Member

    May 5, 2010
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    There are a number of distros that are designed to be used on older, low powered pc's. Distrowatch has a search tool that will show many of them. My experience is that most of them just do not appeal to me for one reason or another. Two that I have used and enjoyed are LXLE and Q4OS. You did not mention which CPU you are using, but 4 GB of RAM is plenty for most common uses. I suggest that you download some live versions and run them from USB for a preview and then install the one you like best.
     
  4. vebuntu

    vebuntu MDL Novice

    Nov 1, 2013
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    I have Intel Core2Duo E7500. Yeah, I am going to test later several distros and see which one works the best. Though yesterday I was doing a couple of research and found out many distros don't support legacy Nvidia drivers anymore out of the box, so this is going to be a problem unless the open source driver has become powerful enough to be like the one made by Nvidia.
     
  5. farophia

    farophia MDL Novice

    May 11, 2025
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  6. vebuntu

    vebuntu MDL Novice

    Nov 1, 2013
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    Thanks everyone. For now, I am going to stick with Windows 7 for a while and then I'm going to try 10 LTSC again, but this time I'll try to use it with Windows Update Minitool, which I remember using it some time ago when 7 updater was a bit buggy, used to hang and took a lot of cpu power, along with Open-Shell. Maybe I'll disable Windows Defender too since that takes a lot of ram and only use and scan with third-party antivirus once a week or month rather than real time scanning. If it doesn't work, I'll check both MX Linux or antiX and see whether they support Nvidia legacy drivers or not.
     
  7. RobertX

    RobertX MDL Senior Member

    Dec 6, 2014
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    Linux Mint for me.

    I love that distro to death!