Low requirement linux version

[Reiten]

The desktop I have is starting to get up there in years(not to mention some of the other stuff that has happened) and Ubuntu has started to become somewhat slow, so I'm looking for something a bit more lightweight to replace Ubuntu with. I mostly only need the basic functionality: internet, file browsing and some other basic stuff.

The basic specs for the PC are:
CPU: Intel Core 2 6400: 2,2 Ghz
RAM: 2,4 GB
GPU: ATI Radeon X1650

Most of the slowdown problems seemed to have come about since I had to replace my old newer video card with the current one.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[DinohScene]

Puppy Linux.
Most lightest Linux there is.

 

[mid-kid]

If you like customization I'd suggest arch, gentoo (takes ages to build, but you can optimize it like crazy), or void linux (runit boots my atom netbook in about 20s).
These can be customized to be as light/heavy as you want them

If you don't have experience setting those up and don't want to learn because it takes too much time (understandable), lubuntu with some startup services disabled (bluetooth, printer, for example) could do the trick, or bodhi, or crunchbang, or salix, or anything with XFCE/LXDE/LXQt/MATE as desktop environment (if you even want a desktop environment, as simple as just a window manager (like openbox) and a panel (like tint2) could also do the trick), really. If that doesn't work (it should, lubuntu works fine on even lower specs than yours), the real light-as-can-be distros are puppy, tiny core linux, antix and DSL.

 

[FAST6191]

Higher of the low end core 2 (the E6600 had more cache which is nice) and 4 gigs of RAM is quite enough to run basically anything that does not rely on 3d graphics. I can see ubuntu slowing down but otherwise it should fly along, especially if you feel like sticking a SSD in there.

2 gigs of RAM might see it slow down/start using swap if you are like me and want to have several hundred tabs open in a browser, and email, and video editing and office and image editing all at once but for moderate use then anything should do really. If you want that little bit more pep then maybe consider going with a XFCE version of whatever distro you are used to.

 

[Reiten]

Thanks for the suggestions.

lubuntu seems to be along the lines of what I had imagined when I asked. Messing around with arch again might be fun too, but just don't feel like investing the time for a PC that I don't use that much.
Now I only have to back-up the data and see how lubuntu does.

 

[The Catboy]

I would also suggest Bodhi Linux as well. It's one of my personal favorites.
It's low in resources, easy to use, and amazing looking!

 

[Sakitoshi]

with those specs you can run elementary os with no problems.

 

[Reiten]

Thanks again everybody.
I've migrated everything to lubuntu and it's working great - no more slowdowns or any other problems. Now if I could get the virtual keyboard to work on the logon screen I'd be totally happy, but that seems to be bugged.

 

[Monado_III]

Puppy Linux.
Most lightest Linux there is.

Well, it you wanted something really fast there's http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/. Sure it's a lot of work but hey, it can do all the basic stuff and be speedy.

 

[The Catboy]

Well, it you wanted something really fast there's http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/. Sure it's a lot of work but hey, it can do all the basic stuff and be speedy.

I've tried working with LFS, I just ended up using Arch Linux instead.