Will Linux work on an HP Netbook

[coppens1]

Will Linux work on the Netbook below? It was too slow with Windows 7, and is still too slow with Windows 10.
-----------------------------------
HP Netbook G60-23OUS Model HP Mini 110-3530NR
Intel Atom CPU N455 1.66 Ghz 2.0 GB Ram Upgrade
ReadyBoost Cache 3.9 GB
32 bits
Windows 7 Starter, Changed to Win 10 11/1/21
Primary Hard drive 214 GB used 85GB 40%, unused 129 GB 60%
------------------------------------------
Which Linux do you recommend?
Thanks, JC

 

[dos2unix]

There are still some 32-bit distro's around. 2GB RAM is cutting it close, but some distro's advertise
they will work with 2GB.

 

[Brickwizard]

First the good news, build around 2010, it looks like a 64 bit system [it was not uncommon for entry level kit to come with a 32 bit windows]
the bad news is the Intel Atom CPU N455 cpu has never been what one could call fast,
with only 2gb of ram you can run most builds but to be honest, you would do better sticking to one of the lighter builds,
I don't recommend, but I suggest you try.
Leightweight, Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, Anti-x, Puppy,
or try a mid-weight if you want a fuller oven ready desktop, Peppermint,Debian stable with driver pack, Mint LMDE5,
if you haven't already, please read https://www.linux.org/threads/what-is-the-best-linux-distribution-which-should-i-use.43789/

 

[guiverc]

I used a asus eepc 1000HE (intel atom n270, 1gb, intel mobile 945gse integrated) in Quality Assurance up to releases of Ubuntu 19.04 using the lighter flavors (largely Lubuntu and Xubuntu). The old n270 atom was x86 or 32bit only (classed as i386 in Debian/Ubuntu terms).

I used a lenovo thinkpad sl510 (c2d-t6570, 2gb, i915) which has a better CPU, but also 2GB of RAM in Quality Assurance for all current releases; however if I was using an OS on that box (and I have one installed), I'll decide what I used based on what I'll actually use in the session.

ie. you have a limited grunt CPU and limited RAM, thus you can't afford to waste either cycles or RAM.

As for what I'd choose to use, I'd first decide what you'll do with it, using what apps. From that detail you can determine which toolkit/libraries will be required, and thus what DESKTOP/WM will be most efficient.. then you can look at an OS that will meet those requirements.

My point is I'm working the opposite direction to you... deciding based on what I'll do with the box & how I'll use it.

The asus eepc I mentioned has Debian on it.. I have multiple DEsktops installed & as well as a number of WMs, but when I login I select which I'll use for that session only; to keep that old lean machine still performing fast. It has a 160GB drive, thus having the multiple DEs on disk doesn't worry me; it's the 1GB RAM I worry about.

My thinkpad sl510 has Ubuntu on it with at least two desktops (Lubuntu thus LXQt & Xubuntu thus Xfce), plus possibly some added WMs. I again boot the system and decide which I'll use for a session when I login... If I want to use Qt5 apps - Lubuntu will perform best; if I want to use GTK3 apps - Xubuntu will perform best... (to me they're both Ubuntu anyway).

I didn't mention releases; as in deciding which release I'll consider a lot more detail with regards your preferences for release-upgrades, length of time you expect to use the device (LTS or just a stable release) etc. Do you need the latest software, or are happy to use older software that may need fewer resources (ie. less disk, less RAM etc).

Me I'm partial to both Debian & Ubuntu, but I also have Fedora, OpenSuSE & others here - and opt for the best tool for the job being performed, and from what you provided I don't know what is best as machine specs are (in my view) only a tiny part of what you use to decide.

All OSes I mentioned are GNU/Linux, and I nearly always opt to use a GNU/Linux system, beyond that I don't think it matters (they vary mostly in stack timings, packages etc or minor differences)

 

[coppens1]

First the good news, build around 2010, it looks like a 64 bit system [it was not uncommon for entry level kit to come with a 32 bit windows]
the bad news is the Intel Atom CPU N455 cpu has never been what one could call fast,
with only 2gb of ram you can run most builds but to be honest, you would do better sticking to one of the lighter builds,
I don't recommend, but I suggest you try.
Leightweight, Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, Anti-x, Puppy,
or try a mid-weight if you want a fuller oven ready desktop, Peppermint,Debian stable with driver pack, Mint LMDE5,
if you haven't already, please read https://www.linux.org/threads/what-is-the-best-linux-distribution-which-should-i-use.43789/

Dear brickwizard, Thanks. I only intend to use the machine with Open Office, text messages, wordpad (if available) and with a media player.

Which of the ones you suggested (Lightweight, Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, Anti-x, Puppy) would you recommend for that?

I used a asus eepc 1000HE (intel atom n270, 1gb, intel mobile 945gse integrated) in Quality Assurance up to releases of Ubuntu 19.04 using the lighter flavors (largely Lubuntu and Xubuntu). The old n270 atom was x86 or 32bit only (classed as i386 in Debian/Ubuntu terms).

I used a lenovo thinkpad sl510 (c2d-t6570, 2gb, i915) which has a better CPU, but also 2GB of RAM in Quality Assurance for all current releases; however if I was using an OS on that box (and I have one installed), I'll decide what I used based on what I'll actually use in the session.

ie. you have a limited grunt CPU and limited RAM, thus you can't afford to waste either cycles or RAM.

As for what I'd choose to use, I'd first decide what you'll do with it, using what apps. From that detail you can determine which toolkit/libraries will be required, and thus what DESKTOP/WM will be most efficient.. then you can look at an OS that will meet those requirements.

My point is I'm working the opposite direction to you... deciding based on what I'll do with the box & how I'll use it.

The asus eepc I mentioned has Debian on it.. I have multiple DEsktops installed & as well as a number of WMs, but when I login I select which I'll use for that session only; to keep that old lean machine still performing fast. It has a 160GB drive, thus having the multiple DEs on disk doesn't worry me; it's the 1GB RAM I worry about.

My thinkpad sl510 has Ubuntu on it with at least two desktops (Lubuntu thus LXQt & Xubuntu thus Xfce), plus possibly some added WMs. I again boot the system and decide which I'll use for a session when I login... If I want to use Qt5 apps - Lubuntu will perform best; if I want to use GTK3 apps - Xubuntu will perform best... (to me they're both Ubuntu anyway).

I didn't mention releases; as in deciding which release I'll consider a lot more detail with regards your preferences for release-upgrades, length of time you expect to use the device (LTS or just a stable release) etc. Do you need the latest software, or are happy to use older software that may need fewer resources (ie. less disk, less RAM etc).

Me I'm partial to both Debian & Ubuntu, but I also have Fedora, OpenSuSE & others here - and opt for the best tool for the job being performed, and from what you provided I don't know what is best as machine specs are (in my view) only a tiny part of what you use to decide.

All OSes I mentioned are GNU/Linux, and I nearly always opt to use a GNU/Linux system, beyond that I don't think it matters (they vary mostly in stack timings, packages etc or minor differences)

Dear Guiverc, thank you. As I told Brickwizard, I only intend to use the machine with Open Office, text messages, wordpad (if available) and with a media player. I will also use a printer with it.

Now that you know that, Which Linux would you suggest? JC

 

[f33dm3bits]

Dear Guiverc, thank you. As I told Brickwizard, I only intend to use the machine with Open Office, text messages, wordpad (if available) and with a media player. I will also use a printer with it.

Now that you know that, Which Linux would you suggest? JC

Use LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice, since AFAIK OpenOffice doesn't get much development anymore these days and from what I can remember most of the developers working on OpenOffice are now working on LibreOffice.

 

[coppens1]

Dear

f33dm3bits,​

Thanks for the tip.

 

[Brickwizard]

Which of the ones you suggested (Lightweight, Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, Anti-x, Puppy) would you recommend for that?

As I said, I don't recommend only suggest what may work on your kit, I concur with @f33dm3bits on using LibreOffice it is well-supported and so similar you probably won't recognise much difference..
When it comes to which distribution to use then that will be your choice based on which you like the look and feel of and which works best on your machine, what I will say [sorry @MikeWalsh ] puppy is not the easiest to set up for the newbie, download each of the other 3 then burn them as a bootable ISO to a good quality pen-drive using Ballina Etcher, one at a time and just try them out, you could also add Kubuntu [slightly different to Lubuntu but still lightweight] give yourself a little time to run each of them Live to make your choice before installing.
As I didn't say it before, Welcome to the forums,

 

[guiverc]

Dear Guiverc, thank you. As I told Brickwizard, I only intend to use the machine with Open Office, text messages, wordpad (if available) and with a media player. I will also use a printer with it.

The actual apps used makes a big difference, which is what I said.

I don't know Open Office & what it uses, as I've not had it installed for some time, and thus cannot explore what its requirements are. LibreOffice suggested by others would be my choice anyway; but it's a different app.

text messages - I know of no such app. Most GNU/Linux distribution come with text editors, eg. Lubuntu when it used the LXDE desktop came with leafpad, as both LXDE & leafpad use GTK2 libraries/toolkits thus share resources. When Lubuntu switched to using the newer LXQt desktop providing the leafpad text editor would have been very inefficient on users (and Lubuntu aims to be light) thus it was replaced with featherpad which is actually a more powerful editor, but because it shares resources with the LXQt desktop is lighter than leafpad would have been.

You mention wordpad, as I'm using Ubuntu currently I tried a search for it (apt-cache search wordpad) and it had no results, likewise if I searched for snaps of that name. I don't know it thus can't comment on it, or its requirements. If you used as as generic term for a text editor, sorry I missed that, but it sounds specific.

Media Player; most systems come with a media player; eg. Lubuntu comes with vlc. If you can use the media player the system comes with - it'll be chosen for a reason usually which for many includes efficiency & sharing resources with the rest of the system (alas not all do this, some are created for new equipment & choose according to their developer wanted tastes/features rather than efficiency of operation; look at the aims of the project for clues)

If you're just starting out your journey with a POSIX or GNU/Linux system, or not tech savvy and just an end-user, sorry my suggestion will likely make no sense.

Qt5 I mention is also used in windows apps, mac OS apps & Android phone apps. It's the norm for Android apps on the phone for example... ie. what I'm taking about applies to all systems - but most end-users don't want to know this detail; and thus Microsoft & windows app people just add a "6GB RAM required" (a number instead) to the box rather than mention this technical detail. If you explore the details you can make that number much smaller.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Brickwizard :-

No offence taken at all, mate. Despite using Puppy for nearly 10 years - and loving every minute of it! - I, too, will NOT recommend it for beginners. I came to this conclusion a couple of years ago; although incredibly flexible as to how & where she'll run, and what she'll run ON, she does too many things too differently to "mainstream" distros, and if a noob starts off with Puppy, gets bitten by the bug, then wants to try summat else a bit later, they'll be in for a rude awakening.....because they'll pretty much need to start all over again. Which doesn't really make much sense.

The far better course of action is to start with something easy-to-assimilate - like Ubuntu or Mint - get used to how most Linux distros function, and get some experience under their belt. If the user then wants to try other distros, and fancies trying Puppy, they'll have a fair idea of what's what, and the transition to the slightly 'odd' way Puppy does many things won't be such a stretch. It's the way I did it myself; ran Ubuntu for a few months, tried out several of the "flavours", took a look at Mint, messed about with a handful of others - mostly 'buntu-based, including Zorin, the only one I've ever really had time for.....and THEN Canonical decided, in their wisdom, that their custom-built kernels would henceforth drop support for the ancient ATI Radeon 200 XPress graphics chip in my old Compaq desktop rig. From that point on, no 'buntu-based distro would run without graphical freeze-ups, dozens of times a day.

Which I quickly got fed-up with, so cast around for something lighter - Unity's hardware acceleration requirements weren't helping, either! - found Puppy, and fell in love with its quirky philosophy, almost overnight. The fact that we always compile & run 'bog-standard' kernels (nowt removed) helps a LOT with elderly hardware, of course.

So, yup; I concur with your assessment here, absolutely. I will also recommend AntiX as being worthy of serious consideration. I ran that for a while myself from an 'external' SSD I built my own wee enclosure for (it came out of the even older Inspiron 1100 lappie when I upgraded to a larger drive), and actually quite liked it.


Mike.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@guiverc :-

I would assume, given some of your remarks, that you're not a fan of these portable applications - Snaps, FlatPaks, AppImages, and the like - due to their bundling-in, and hence 'duplicating', a lot of dependencies..? Sounds like you prefer the standard system, where all apps make use of a single set of shared' dependencies....yes?

Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick, there?


Mike.

 

[guiverc]

@guiverc :-

I would assume, given some of your remarks, that you're not a fan of these portable applications - Snaps, FlatPaks, AppImages, and the like - due to their bundling-in, and hence 'duplicating', a lot of dependencies..? Sounds like you prefer the standard system, where all apps make use of a single set of shared' dependencies....yes?

Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick, there?


Mike.

I still use some old pentium M laptops, some with only 1GB of RAM.

I suspected I'd be better of on those really limited resource boxes, where running Ubuntu 18.04 (thus included snapd for snaps) if I disabled snapd and thus restricted the box to the native deb packages only... I expected a performance bump (even if only slight). After some weeks, I couldn't pick a difference, thus reverted my changes and snapd was returned to normal operation (effect was somewhat minimal given no snap packages were used anyway given how I used the box). This helped remove some of my aversion to snap packages in Ubuntu.

I see different package choices as a benefit, as it gives us more alternatives which is of benefit.

On the box I'm replying here (i5-6500, 16gb RAM) I'll use whatever works for me. This box has enough RAM for how I use it, and plenty of spare SSD space available (currently) such that I'm not worried about package sizes either.

On other hardware though, what I decide to use may be very different, eg. I have a box with a 31GB SSD (less than a third of the partition size of my current / partition) thus on that box disk space used really matters. On my old 2004 & 2005 pentium M hardware though I'm not worried about disk space, but the limited RAM (boxes vary from 1 to 1.5GB).

 

[ML_113]

In that case I still recommend EasyOS.

 

[sphen]

[...]
You mention wordpad, as I'm using Ubuntu currently I tried a search for it (apt-cache search wordpad) and it had no results, likewise if I searched for snaps of that name. I don't know it thus can't comment on it, or its requirements. If you used as as generic term for a text editor, sorry I missed that, but it sounds specific.
[...]

WordPad is a simple word processor. Notepad is a simple text editor. WordPad and Notepad are included by default with Microsoft Windows. You will not find WordPad or Notepad on Linux; they are Windows apps.

The popular word processor for Linux is LibreOffice Writer. I recommend that you choose LibreOffice for word processing and other office capabilities like spreadsheets. LibreOffice started from the same source code as OpenOffice, but was split off (forked) over a decade ago. (The issues were around ownership, control, and politics, not the quality of the software.) LibreOffice is the recommended free office product to use. OpenOffice is still available, but it is not as well supported as LibreOffice.

The popular text editors for Linux are nano and vim. Both are included by default with most Linux distros. There are many other text editors and programmers' editors available for Linux that you can install for yourself.

 

[coppens1]

Dear Brickwizard, no problem about the LibreOffice. I can easily switch to that for the Netbook.
No problem about downloading Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, and Anti-x. But, being a neophyte with some of the terminology, what do you mean by "..burn them as a bootable ISO to a good quality pen-drive using Ballina Etcher, one at a time..."?
Do you mean creating a CD for each one? How do I make them bootable? By 'pen-drive' do you mean a flash drive? What is Ballina Etcher? I am used to having to install the operating system on the hard drive. JC

 

[coppens1]

Dear Brickwizard et al, sometime in the next few days, when my taxwork doesn't prevent it, I will download and install LibreOffice on the HP Netbook. I will let you know when completed, and then will start out by downloading Lubuntu. But see my questions above about terminology. JC

 

[sphen]

Dear Brickwizard, no problem about the LibreOffice. I can easily switch to that for the Netbook.
No problem about downloading Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, and Anti-x. But, being a neophyte with some of the terminology, what do you mean by "..burn them as a bootable ISO to a good quality pen-drive using Ballina Etcher, one at a time..."?
Do you mean creating a CD for each one? How do I make them bootable? By 'pen-drive' do you mean a flash drive? What is Ballina Etcher? I am used to having to install the operating system on the hard drive. JC

Many (most??) Linux distros come in a .iso image file. A .iso file is a large downloadable file containing an "image" of a CD or DVD that can be booted from the appropriate DVD type drive. You can "burn" the CD/DVD from the .iso file and boot it.

These days, few people bother to burn a DVD and boot from it. It is easier and more convenient to copy the .iso information and boot from a USB flash drive. Flash drives are also known as thumb drives, pen drives, USB drives, etc.

You cannot copy a .iso file to a USB flash drive and boot it. You need a special application to make the USB drive bootable and copy the .iso file contents. The application you need to create the bootable USB flash drive is called "balena Etcher". The balena Etcher app is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

-> To make a bootable USB flash drive, you will need the balena Etcher app for your computer, a USB flash drive, and the .iso file that you downloaded. Run balena Etcher and follow the prompts.

(Note: Another program for making bootable USB flash drives from .iso files is called Rufus. According to what I read here on Linux.org, some people have been experiencing reliability problems with Rufus lately, and they are recommending balena Etcher instead.)

 

[Brickwizard]

Dear Brickwizard, no problem about the LibreOffice. I can easily switch to that for the Netbook.
No problem about downloading Lubuntu, Linux- Lite, and Anti-x. But, being a neophyte with some of the terminology, what do you mean by "..burn them as a bootable ISO to a good quality pen-drive using Ballina Etcher, one at a time..."?
Do you mean creating a CD for each one? How do I make them bootable? By 'pen-drive' do you mean a flash drive? What is Ballina Etcher? I am used to having to install the operating system on the hard drive. JC

what do you mean by "..burn them as a bootable ISO. we use the term burn [taken from the old days of using optical v{DVD} drives], it just means make/burn as ISO and not just copying them across,
a good quality pen-drive, pen-drive/usb storage.thumb-drive,flash-drive + many other names for USB removable storage, good quality Just that, some cheap ones can cause lots of problems, if your using DVD on a machine that old you will normally get the best results using DVD-r at a slow burn rate of x2 or x3
What is Ballina Etcher? is one of several applications available online to download to make/burn USB pen-drives and is the one I recommend

 

[Brickwizard]

I will download and install LibreOffice on the HP Netbook.

You should find it in the software manager of the distribution you have installed, It is always best to use the build supplied with your distribution as , it will have been tested for that particular build

 

[osprey]

sphen wrote:

These days, few people bother to burn a DVD and boot from it. It is easier and more convenient to copy the .iso information and boot from a USB flash drive. Flash drives are also known as thumb drives, pen drives, USB drives, etc.

You cannot copy a .iso file to a USB flash drive and boot it. You need a special application to make the USB drive bootable and copy the .iso file contents. The application you need to create the bootable USB flash drive is called "balena Etcher". The balena Etcher app is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

This is a little confusing.

How does one reconcile the sentence, "It is easier and more convenient to copy the .iso information and boot from a USB flash drive", with the sentence, "You cannot copy a .iso file to a USB flash drive and boot it."?

What is the "iso information"? Presumably it is the content of the iso file. It's not usually possible to extract the content of the iso file, copy that content of files to a usb and have that usb boot.

In any case, it is entirely possible to copy the iso file itself to a usb and have it bootable without any other manipulations.

Here is an example of instructions from debian:

The CD or DVD image you choose should be written directly to the USB stick, overwriting its current contents. For example, when using an existing GNU/Linux system, the CD or DVD image file can be written to a USB stick as follows, after having made sure that the stick is unmounted:
# cp debian.iso /dev/sdX

at: https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/amd64/ch04s03.html.en

In linux a simple cp command works. The iso's capacity to boot is inside the iso file.

As for MS, I leave it to others to recommend.