I have an Acer Chromebook R11 which has reached End of Life and won’t receive updates (which is insane, I bought it new four years ago). I have checked, and my model is now fully supported by most Linux distros.

I need suggestions for a lightweight distro to use. I will use the machine for surfing, playing Pixel Dungeon, streaming some indie games over Moonlight/Steam Headless and manage my home server over ssh. So nothing major. I want something lightweight and really low maintenance.

Specs:

  • Processor: 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron N3150 (quad-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.08GHz with Turbo Boost)

  • Graphics: Integrated Intel HD Graphics

  • Memory: 4GB DDR3L

  • Storage: 32GB (with SD card reader for more storage)

I have a lot of experience with Arch-based (EndeavourOS, Manjaro), Ubuntu-based (Mint, PopOS) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian) distros, but I am open for other suggestions

  • Roopappy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    21·
    5 months ago

    I replaced my Chromebook with Elementary OS. On it’s face, it’s a lightweight, web browsing OS with a limited “App Center” of approved apps (similar to ChromeOS), but underneath, it is a Debian-based distro that you can do anything you want with.

    • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      Elementary really isn’t very lightweight. It’s usually sluggish on slower systems (in my experience).

      • Roopappy@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        Interesting. I’m running it on a Celeron N4020 with 4GB RAM right now. This system was allegedly shitty in 2019.

        • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
          1·
          5 months ago

          I’ve no doubt it will run on such a system, but not nearly as smoothly as with a more powerful machine. Also depends what you run and how many things at a time, etc. not telling you anything you don’t already know, I’m sure :-)

          I tried Elementary on some older machines and yes it runs ok but on a really fast system, holy shit is it gorgeous.

          Have you replaced Plank with the generic one that you can zoom animate? I wanted to try that one of these days. I’ve used plank elsewhere and I would like for Elementary to have that version.