Linux on Older Devices

Introduction

Linux is a great choice for reviving older and slower devices due to it's often significantly lower system requirements than Windows^[1] and macOS, and complete lack of planned obsolescence.

Choosing a Desktop Environment

While a lot of focus is usually put on the choice of distribution, the desktop environment (or window manager) used is often far more important. If your system has a relatively large amount of RAM (8+GB), but a slow CPU, a 'heavier' desktop environment like KDE or Gnome may still be usable.


Desktop Environment	Pros	Cons	Other Notes
XFCE	Minimal background processes (lightweight) Easy to use with a low to medium learning curve	Panel system may be confusing to new users May look outdated without a theme installed	This is the most common recommendation for a light desktop environment
LXQT	Minimal background processes (lightweight) Easy to use with a small learning curve due to using the Windows desktop paradigm	May look outdated without a theme installed	LXQT is the modern version of the older LXDE, which was also known for being lightweight
Most tiling Window managers (TWMs or WMs)	Require very few system resources beyond those of the display server	More difficult to use due to having a keyboard-centric interface Require text-based configuration to fit the preferences of the user May require extra tools for some functionality (ie. keyrings, polkit, GTK, QT, etc)	Usually require command line knowledge to troubleshoot

Choosing a Distribution

When choosing a distribution, it is important to bear in mind what the device will be used for, and the hardware of the system. If a computer is less than 10 years old, it is likely that no special treatment will be needed, and almost any Linux distribution, such as Linux Mint, will be fast and responsive. There are several distributions that are widely recommended by the community:

Note: While this does mention some general pros and cons of certain distributions, such as ease of installation, that do not affect performance, it should not be used as a comprehensive guide on choosing a distribution for use cases outside of restoring older devices.

Also refer to Choosing A Linux Distribution for more information not related to installation on older systems.


Distribution	Pros	Cons	Recommended Use Case	Other Notes
Linux Mint^[2]	Easy to install Reasonably lightweight	May not include some packages desired by advanced users without PPAs or building from source Is not the lightest distribution available	2+GB of RAM Intel Core i-series 2nd Generation or newer	Linux Mint provides several versions with different desktop environments. The lightest of these is XFCE. This is the version, instead of the default Cinnamon version, being referred to on this page unless otherwise noted.
Debian^[3]	Automated installation Has a minimum amount of installed packages installed by default Has a minimum amount of running services by default	NetInstaller is hard to use (Use the live environment's Calamares installer instead when possible) Minimal package base means some desired packages will not be installed by default	CPU 512MB RAM (With minimal GUI) Any AMD64 (AKA x64 or x86_64) CPU	The Live environment should be used instead of the net-installer if a simple installation is desired
Arch Linux^[4]^[5]	Extremely lightweight due to only using specific user-selected packages Wide package availability from the AUR	Difficult and time consuming to install Minimal package base means some desired packages will not be installed by default	512MB RAM (With minimal GUI) Any AMD64 (AKA x64 or x86_64) CPU	Arch Linux will not be covered in this article
Fedora^[6]^[7]	Considered user-friendly	Fedora (with the default GNOME) is very resource-taking. The XFCE spin is a better option for older devices. Has little documentation	2GB RAM (For default GNOME desktop environment) Any AMD64 with dual core processor or faster
Gentoo	Extremely lightweight Large variety of hardware support (see 4th column) Packages are compiled from source by default, allowing good optimization Very well written wiki and great community	Difficult installation	Any of these CPU architectures: amd64, alpha, arm, arm64, hppa, ia64, loong, mips, m68k, ppc, riscv, s390, sparc, x86 CPU: 1 GHz RAM: 512 MB or higher. Disk Space: At least 10 GB

Troubleshooting

No troubleshooting information specific to installing Linux on older devices has been contributed

[1] ttps://palmertech.medium.com/revive-old-hardware-with-linux-4091821db8c3

[2] ttps://www.linuxmint.com/faq.php

[3] ttps://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/ch03s04.en.html

[4] ttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Frequently_asked_questions

[5] ttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_compared_to_other_distributions

[6] ttps://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ

[7] ttps://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/release-notes/hardware_overview/#hardware_overview-specs

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]