Making Linux Lightweight, Minimal and Fast

I'm often asked which Linux distros are lightweight, minimal and/or fast. Well, that deserves a discussion so let's talk about it.

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[penguin]

my guide:

– install a DIY distro, like Debian, Arch or Gentoo
– install a minimal window manager (optional)
– focus solely or mainly on using console tools
– don't install anything you don't need

voila, now you have a lightweight, minimal and fast Linux installation

[diotitus]

"Bloat" is certainly a subjective term.

[Cyco_Nix]

Now that I am an old Linux user (started in 1992) and have high-end systems, I just don't care about the lightweight or minimal installs. For a long time, even on higher end systems, I would minimalize them. Now, it doesn't make a noticeable difference on the systems I have and not worth the effort. Now if I am using one of my older laptops that has limited ram, etc. then I will optimize it and there are a lot of great options to do so.

[hclyrics]

Today I learned I've been daily-driving Linux longer than DT has been using it and I still have no f'n clue what I'm doing.

[fubaralakbar]

"...only had 16 GiB of RAM on that machine."
Oh, bite me 😋

[Br--kfast]

Got pulled into the Arch trend about two months ago with no Linux experience at all. Went with manual Arch and Hyprland as my first setup, and honestly, it’s been great. Didn’t realize how fast and efficient a desktop could feel until I made the switch. Even if I just followed the trend, I ended up learning a lot about how Linux works.

[Babbili]

actually Alpine Linux is one of the light weight and fast distro, with less packages and less security vulnerabilities

[quantumangel]

I believe, for most people, it's very practical to be able to click an office document and open it without considering "what do I need to install?".

Even if it only happens once, it's very comfortable.

[D.von.N]

For me personally, a normie and newbie to Linux, a simple fact that my LMDE set up is much much faster than Windows is a win. I don't do a heavy work on it, booting fast, shutting down fast, software loading fast, no BS. Perfect! What I hate is that Ubuntu tends to take over the bootloader after some updates. I had the bootloader assigned to LMDE, then Ubuntu started to show on top and boot into itself if I missed the short time window. I assigned it back to LMDE, and then Ubuntu put itself to the top again. Now it is LMDE again... for how long I don't know.
I will not install Ubuntu on any other of my systems anymore. It is picking Microsoft's habits. Not my cup of tea.

[neilpatrickhairless]

My favorite computer user is the average Arch BTW "developer" who somehow has only 290 packages and none of them are Python libraries (evidenced by the fact that there are only 290 packages)

[sunderkeenin]

All of my systems are fast until I use a web browser.

[ryanevius]

Oh man, Puppy Linux is a blast from the past. I used to carry a persistent version around on a thumb drive and used it during college as a backup system while away from my PC.

[FrethKindheart]

Back in the early 90's, when I was a DOS user, I was a minimalist, not because I had to be, but because it was fun to fine tune the OS. I've done the same with Linux just to say I did it, but to be honest, I can't be bothered to do it manually anymore. Give me Linux Mint that has most everything I need, and not much I don't, and be done with it. I am still a power user, but I prefer to save myself some extra unnecessary work. If I was only using my system for one task, like say software development, sure I would probably go that route, but my computer is my hobby and my entertainment, and I prefer to have the basics done and ready to go so I can focus on doing.

[donaldmickunas]

Void linux also gives you a minimal system when you install the base version. FYI...make sure that you know what you are getting in to before installing Void. For example, it doesn't run systemd. It runs runit.

[Justiceall]

Bodhi and Antix are lightweight fairly fast and work well

[dagda]

Busybox and emacs. What more does one need?

[LilaHikes]

Just to put things in perspective for the people trying to make a decision on a distro... Even the most bloated distro is going to be many times lighter than an install of Windows.

[Payton-Norian]

If one needs a lightweight desktop but doesn't want to tinker much, I would recommend Peppermint OS. There are minimal and "Fully Loaded" versions.

[themroc]

If you can afford to love with Musl instead of Glibc using Alpine on the desktop with a full desktop like xfce or lxqt will use WAY less ressources than any other distribution with only a tiling wm and terminal applications.

[WhatIsItReallyAbout]

If you want something amazing, try running Tiny Core linux - designed to run exclusively in RAM. For something with a great balance of performance with usability, COSMIC desktop on Arch will probably be the way to go once COSMIC is finalised.