How to Run Linux on Old Slow Computers

How Linux can give your old laptop a second life? In this video I talk about how to choose the right distribution, desktop environment and applications for a slow computer.
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The film Tears of Steal, used in this video, is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license:

The film Cosmos Laundromat, used in this video, is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license:

The animation Grease Pencil and Bones, used in this video, is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution license:
(CC) Daniel M. Lara (Pepeland)

[karllenasson]

Very well presented overview! The people working on these open source programmes and operating systems cannot be praised enough for not only keeping old hardware alive, but also offering a secure, private, anonymous operating system that doesn't try to constantly sell you apps or show you ads. Much appreciated.
Got an old Toshiba Satellite M70 (Intel Pentium M740) running shockingly well using Xubuntu 32bit, (v18.04, Bionic Beaver). I upgraded the RAM from 500 MB to 2 GB, and honestly, after the upgrade (for as low as 6 dollars), that almost 15 year-old laptop still runs the latest 32bit version of Firefox okay. Web content - like Youtube - is not going to work, but everything else is fine. Even working with Libre Office is quite smooth.

[WhatzHappeningNow]

One of the most high quality Linux videos I have ever seen.

[dasgettopikachu]

Actually tried out the researched programs.. This is so much more quality than any news articles about the topic

[pamus]

I dont have any slow old computers because I am that guy who used 32MB EDO....so I made sure I never ever have to my cheap i3 laptop is decked out at 20GB.
Glad I found this channel.

[geoman]

I have a Samsung netbook from 2008 (1GB Ram), an IBM NetVista from 2007 (1GB Ram) and a Mac Book Pro from 2008 (4GB Ram). They all now run Linux Mint Mate & MX Linux and all work fine for everyday jobs.

[Mrpolar]

Saving this in favorites! I plan to set up a little home server for mail reception and data storing. This is super useful! Thank you so much

[emperor]

Needless to say that this is the best video on the subject- period :)

First I tough oh my... what is this guy thinking- using Linux without GUI... Arch Linux...ugly programs...but then I appreciated that unlike every other youtuber who is just putting the most popular or obvious $hit like Ubuntu or LibreOffice(which are the only thing they are familiar with...but you know they are sure that's the best and only thing that works) you are the only one who has added an enormous value and putted something researched rather than filming himself putting a random lightweight distro which works instead of Windows 7!

I am interested if you update the video or just your toughs on a comment like is Midori alive(just for half year it come to version 9.0)...LXDE now seems to be dropped in favor of LXQt... there are newer raspberry pies...Linux Mint Xfce, Linux Lite, Manjaro Xfce, MX Linux, Peppermint OS...Resource consumption of other environments like Budgie...other browsers like Falcon...

Also I would love to see similar video presenting lightweight programs for use with powerful PCs as making big programs with no features bigger like the 1GB Facebook app on Android is not something to be proud of(chh chh...GNOME). There are so many BETTER programs like Frost for Facebook- just a few MB making Facebook look like KDE xD. Interested in your views on choosing old hardware(like Intel Xeon machines and workstations) instead of new crap...talking of which begs the theme of planned and perceived obsolescence( very happy with the intro in that regard ;) ). Another interesting theme would be privacy.

Wish you the best and keep going :)

[llamathenerd]

I watched this video to find out if I should use Linux on my old desktop, and then at 0:21 I see the same desktop I'm trying to revamp. This must be the work of the almighty penguin.

[teaandchat]

Thank you for puttin g together this detailed and informed video. Bravo!

[kirschkern]

Thats what atleast 50% of the world population need
Or must do.
Important.

[LinuxPlayer]

This video is well made, I enjoyed watching it and I learned many useful things.

[TheMoppersmurf]

You sure did your homework before recording this usefull video!

[alexxx]

Very informative and structured video!

[fishmanloveslinux]

I just subbed to your channel. Thanks for the high quality video. I am still messing around with an old laptop and am thinking of Easy OS.

[limitless]

LIKE
This video is a gold mine, in how to make an slow pc, fast again.
Thank you for puting the time and effort to make this video :)
I will use some of your tips into making my old laptop run faster :)

[sirfer]

OpenBox is the greatest window manager ever made =P, but seriously the right-click menu is gold. Tint2 makes a good panel and you're set. I've been operating this way for about 15years and in that time the appearance options have ballooned. So now we have lightweight GUIs that look great even on old hardware.

[andrewkamoha]

4:07 Yeah! LXDE is great! +1
However, there is a movement to stop maintaining LXDE and replace it with LXQt (which consumes much more RAM).

[jaysonparena]

i want to try this to give life to my old toshiba nb100 :)

[storply]

at 2:46, what is this ? i'm new to the linux community and i want to know, is this a distro ?

[gnuPirate]

Fantastic reviews and overview of these systems and options. Thanks.