Best OS for Atom + 2GB Ram Netbook

DataMine

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Hello, I have recently goring a few Levono S10-3 Netbooks they come with a Atom 450 CPU at 1.6Ghz (Single Core) and 2 GB of ram. They look almost new, but come with Windows XP licensees. So I have been looking into lightweight linux OS to run instead.

I have tried
Mint 18.1 Mate 32 Bit
-sluggish boot, takes 3-5 seconds to open programs. even with all affects turned to low

Mint 18.1 XFCE 32 Bit
-prettly usable, not snappish, but loads pretty fast, with minimal lag.

Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 32 Bit
-NOPE

Pupply linux
-Fast, like really fast, but crude. Also wifi does not want to work.

I have looked at a lot of the OLD COMPUTER distros at distrowatch.com, but does anyone else have a recommend. I would like some thing that looks good like Mint, but fast like puppy. I know I am asking for a lot. But will consider your recommends.
 
Considering the hardware specs, no matter what you do you're going to have to compromise this:

Mint 18.1 XFCE 32 Bit
-prettly usable, not snappish, but loads pretty fast, with minimal lag.

With this:

Pupply linux
-Fast, like really fast, but crude. Also wifi does not want to work.

You can't improve on what wasn't there in the first place.
 
I have 10 32 bit running on a 2GB single core Atom machine. It's OK. The major issue is web browsing/YouTube. The CPU is maxed out watching HD video. No OS is going to fix that.
 
mint xfce is your best bet

Use firefox (disable smooth scroll), try h264ify and see if youtube perf is improved.
 
mint xfce is your best bet

Use firefox (disable smooth scroll), try h264ify and see if youtube perf is improved.
Will try. Messing around with SLAX.

I have 10 32 bit running on a 2GB single core Atom machine. It's OK. The major issue is web browsing/YouTube. The CPU is maxed out watching HD video. No OS is going to fix that.
I was having issues with youtube with Mint XFCE. would not do 720p. Ran 240 fine though. I did some research and it looks like the 64bit version decodes video better than the 32 bit version. So I will try that as well as smooth scroll disable.

I have a total of 3 machines. 2 have 1 GB of ram and 120GB Hard drives, one has 2 GB Ram and 160 GB hard drive, so I can compare the systems to each other by moving the RAM from one system to another.
 
I was having issues with youtube with Mint XFCE. would not do 720p. Ran 240 fine though. I did some research and it looks like the 64bit version decodes video better than the 32 bit version. So I will try that as well as smooth scroll disable.

I have a total of 3 machines. 2 have 1 GB of ram and 120GB Hard drives, one has 2 GB Ram and 160 GB hard drive, so I can compare the systems to each other by moving the RAM from one system to another.
Not sure if that machine will even do 64 bit, but I will look at it. Thanks.
 
Yep, but I dont have a spare one, and I really dont want to put any money into them. They are 8 years old.
 
Check out manjaro.
https://manjaro.org/get-manjaro/

I would tryout the 32bit xfce version. XFCE is light... and manjaro is arch based which is also very light. However its still as easy to use as a mint.

If you are feeling adventurous you can check out the community spins as well... they have spins of LXQt if your prefer. (I would just go XFCE in that case though) They do have a i3 tiling window manager spin if you want to go really light... that would take some getting used to though if your more used to windows.
 
While such processors may offer 64-bit support, you're actually better off with a 32-bit OS since you're RAM limited anyway. Performance will be better by a small margin by using a 32-bit OS and with such a device every tiny little bit helps.
 
Yep. 64 bit uses 250-300 MB more ram and I did not see much improvement on the YouTube video decoding.
Check out manjaro.
https://manjaro.org/get-manjaro/

I would tryout the 32bit xfce version. XFCE is light... and manjaro is arch based which is also very light. However its still as easy to use as a mint.

If you are feeling adventurous you can check out the community spins as well... they have spins of LXQt if your prefer. (I would just go XFCE in that case though) They do have a i3 tiling window manager spin if you want to go really light... that would take some getting used to though if your more used to windows.
It is a bit more snappish then Mint XFCE. Thanks, I think I found my OS.
 
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I was going to suggest Xubuntu but since Mint Xfce did not get the job done, I would try Lubuntu. Another good one to try would be antiX.
 
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I was going to suggest Xubuntu but since Mint Xfce did not get the job done, I would try Lubuntu. Another good one to try would be antiX.
-Lubuntu -I basically did this when I installed Debian Server then I installed LXDE, I have been installing only the packages I need to sort of make a "skinny" version of Lubuntu. So far so good.
-antiX -I have no idea how I missed this one since it was on the distrowatch list. look rough like puppy, but that will leave the resources for other things like YouTube. Ram needed is only 256 MB so 2GB will leave alot for the other programs to use. I will give it a try. I hope my wifi will work since trying to manual add the driver to Puppy failed me.
 
-Lubuntu -I basically did this when I installed Debian Server then I installed LXDE, I have been installing only the packages I need to sort of make a "skinny" version of Lubuntu. So far so good.
-antiX -I have no idea how I missed this one since it was on the distrowatch list. look rough like puppy, but that will leave the resources for other things like YouTube. Ram needed is only 256 MB so 2GB will leave alot for the other programs to use. I will give it a try. I hope my wifi will work since trying to manual add the driver to Puppy failed me.
Good call on LXDEbian :D yeah anti is one of those utilitarian distros but the dudes behind it collaborated with another team to make the MX linux which might be worth checking out (they on MX17 yet?).
 
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