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Is debian recommended for old netbooks

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TonyVanDam
Posts: 67
Joined: 2013-05-17 19:22

Re: Is debian recommended for old netbooks

#21 Post by TonyVanDam »

For old netbooks, I also highly recommend a Debian-based distro called antix! :mrgreen: If you ever get a chance to check it out, be sure you get the antix-full edition because it's the most user-friendly.

As for using pure Debian, my final answer is yes, I can recommended it if you're already an immediate user that knows basic level command lines on a terminal. If that's you, then get Debian netinst burned on CD or USB, install the base, and then install whatever packages you want as part of your system.

Or if you rather take the "play it safe" approach, you can install Debian LXDE and have a user ready netbook in a LXDE desktop environment.
Last edited by TonyVanDam on 2016-05-11 22:41, edited 1 time in total.

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HuangLao
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Re: Is debian recommended for old netbooks

#22 Post by HuangLao »

I know this thread is older but I wanted to make a suggestion:

If you want to stay with Debian then try antiX, otherwise you might like SalixOS based on Slackware.

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pylkko
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Re: Is debian recommended for old netbooks

#23 Post by pylkko »

wizard10000 wrote:One more thing about that Mini 110 - they only do 1.5Gbps SATA so spending a lot of money on an SSD isn't a grand idea. I found a couple of decent 240GB SSD on newegg for about $65 that would probably work great. I had a 60GB SSD in mine until I swiped the SSD to put in my PS3 :mrgreen:
Since the SATA is a old one with a low throughput, if one were to install an ssd, then in it is possible that the SATA could act as a bottle neck. This is what I believe you are trying to say. However, there are other things to take into account, if I am not entirely mistaken. For example, accesss times will be much faster on a an ssd, and most normal OS operation related input and output is not going to be massive sequential writes, but rather randome read writes at small sizes (like 4k). Therefore, an ssd will nevertheless increase responsiveness and performance in everyday activities. Another thing is that the sequential read and write throughput of small ssd is much lower than of large capacity ones (once again, if I am not completely mistaken). Therefore you would need to install a large capacity ssd anyway in order for the low throughput SATA to become a bottleneck. Right?


Adding more RAM might help in the sense that you might be able to avoid swapping entirely with a lightweight DE and applications, for example. However, the processor is going to be slow and will not process large amounts of stuff fastly anyway. So RAM will help with some things but not with other things (like boot time, where an ssd would surely help).

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edbarx
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Re: Is debian recommended for old netbooks

#24 Post by edbarx »

I say a definite 'NO'.

Debian, especially if KDE or GNOME are installed requires powerful hardware just like MS Windows. If it was me, I would opt to use a distribution that is aimed at very low end hardware like Puppy Linux. I find Debian sluggish even on a Pentium 4, 3GHz, hyperthreading.
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kevit
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Joined: 2017-07-27 08:27

Re: Is debian recommended for old netbooks

#25 Post by kevit »

Actually, I got a HP Compaq 110c, did an upgrade for SSD
That is little strange, that Debian 9 livecd even from 2.0 USB stick working quite fast, but XFCE from the local SSD slow as hell. And the processor is 100% loaded, but it shows 3.5k bogomips. I remember my laptop at 2008 and it was much much faster. Is dbus so heavy?

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