Got a netbook, need an OS for it

I picked up a netbook recently and it came with Ubuntu 12.04 preinstalled on it. Need to replace that abomination of an OS. Any suggestions? It needs to be pretty lightweight and installable from a USB flash drive. The netbook in question is an Asus Eee PC with a 1.6GHz Atom, 2GB of RAM, and an 8GB SSD. Due to what has happened to Ubuntu over the last couple of years, this once great distro has turned into something that I simply can't recommend for any system, especially something as low powered as this.

XUbuntu runs fine and out of the box on my netbook with very similar specs.

It depends what your priorities are. If you dislike proprietary software, you'll most probably end up with some linux distro for it. If you dislike Ubuntu for a political reason, you might want to check out Debian for stability or Arch Linux for cutting edge bugs - but actually I wouldn't know of a Linux distribution that does not allow to be configured so you chop off all the performance eating but not essentially useful stuff. It boils down to a matter of taste probably.

My personal preferences are obtaining the latest software versions quickly and getting insights into the operating system to a certain extent, so I would choose Arch Linux. You'll get to do everything yourself via command line, but the steps to reach a working graphical interface is very well documented so I actually learned a lot while not being bothered with overly complex tasks like compiling a custom kernel (and yes, that IS a complex task, for me).

If you choose a lightweight desktop environment (for example "lxde") with a streamlined window manager (for example "openbox") and weed out unneeded services, you'll probably end up with a pretty responsive system no matter what distribution.

Crunchbang linux is arch based and very light but also powerful. Check it out.

Although Ubuntu is really not recommendable for low-end hardware it is, at least as far as I am concerned, the most stable distribution out there and things just work on it. But since you are using a netbook... well we already got that.

ArchLinux is very nice to install and use. It´s very clean and tidy, the package management as well as the documentation is excellent. Everything really follows the Arch Philosophy. Speaking out of my own experiences though, ArchLinux never was really stable for me. I installed it happily and the next day, after an update my whole system was broken not managing to fix it.

Gentoo is the way to go if you want full control over your system. And I really mean full control. You can do everything there. Compile your own kernel for the most optimized performance, compile your packages as you need them. No unneeded clutter anywhere. But it´s tough and time-consuming so be warned!

Elementary OS (based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) is also worth looking at. You should try out whether the performance is better with that. The interface is kept, well let´s say "elementary". ... which is nice btw!

Debian... hmm well, I am not satisfied with the documentation which in my opinion is just bloated. Tons of sites to read and you are still not hacking anything into the terminal because you don´t really know what to do now. The automatic installer didn´t work well for me too, the network couldn´t be configured for some odd reason. People seem to like it though and I am not hating it either, just being disappointed that it didn´t work that well.

It's really easy to decide if you think correctly. How do you choose a car? You go and check specs and test drives them. Same with distributions.

So, what differs distributions? Basically...

• Package manager
  
• Repositories and their policies
  
• init system and configuration model
  

I personally recommend NixOS since I'm too lazy to fix my system each week when packages breaks (it solves that problem which almost all popular distros have, probably not Debian but then you are forced to make your own packages or install manually which is stupid).

Have you tried Linux Mint?

Linux Mint is also based on Ubuntu plus it includes extra packages which some people don´t want such as Flash and Java.

There's no political bullshit or anything like that behind me not wanting Ubuntu on this thing. My reasoning for not wanting Ubuntu is that it simply has gone straight to hell as far as operating systems are concerned as it's become incredibly bloated, lacks the usability it once had, and just outright became a pain in the ass to tolerate. An alternative that feels similar to how it used to be (think 7.10-10.04) would be ideal.

That sounds odd like you say it. Because first you say it´s not about "political bullshit or anything" but then exactly state it as such...

There's no political bullshit or anything like that behind me not wanting Ubuntu on this thing. My reasoning for not wanting Ubuntu is that it simply has gone straight to hell as far as operating systems are concerned as it's become incredibly bloated, lacks the usability it once had, and just outright became a pain in the ass to tolerate. An alternative that feels similar to how it used to be (think 7.10-10.04) would be ideal.

Out of curiosity, what is bloated about it? I mean, even Arch uses systemd so considering sysv a problem that needs to be solved is socially accepted now days. Or, are you reffering the adware pre-installed as bloatware?

Also, why do people recommend Mint here? It is Ubuntu, and the guy clearly don't want Ubuntu.

[quote='Lee_Stricklin' pid='64889' dateline='1389738061']
Out of curiosity, what is bloated about it? I mean, even Arch uses systemd so considering sysv a problem that needs to be solved is socially accepted now days. Or, are you reffering the adware pre-installed as bloatware?

Also, why do people recommend Mint here? It is Ubuntu, and the guy clearly don't want Ubuntu.

Try using it and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's gone from being something quite nimble and extremely user friendly that I could recommend for an older rig with a Coppermine Pentium III to something that completely drags down a 1.6GHz Atom and is a complete pain in the ass to use. They've also gone out of their way to completely hide things I need, such as options for changing sessions (so that I can ditch Unity for MATE), my terminal (had to use the search tool to find it), and they even removed the synaptic package manager (you have to install it through the software channel), and just loads of other questionable changes. Simply put, it's a mess.

btw There's actually two types of Mint out there. One that's based off of Ubuntu and the other that is based off of Debian. I'm seeing recommendations for Arch and I've had an amazing experience with Manjaro on my main rig so I'll probably roll with that, but a Debian-based version of Mint also sounds like it might be as kick ass as what Ubuntu used to be.

As for needing to fix your Arch installation every week, I can't really confirm that. Yes, there are some updates that require you to take action every now and then, but it's not that often that I actually need to fix something after an update. It's always a good idea to check the website before updating, since they're documenting bigger changes that require user intervention on the front page. As you can see, the last issue of that kind was from September 2013. Other than that I only need to remember to re-run kernel installation if there is a kernel update since building of the new kernel modules requires up-to-date kernel header files which unfortunately get installed AFTER the kernel update and the relevant hook to build the modules kicks in just before that... but probably there's even a fix for that and I'm only too lazy to implement it. I don't recall having any other problems with my installation actually since two or three years.

Try using it and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's gone from being something quite nimble and extremely user friendly that I could recommend for an older rig with a Coppermine Pentium III to something that completely drags down a 1.6GHz Atom and is a complete pain in the ass to use. They've also gone out of their way to completely hide things I need, such as options for changing sessions (so that I can ditch Unity for MATE), my terminal (had to use the search tool to find it), and they even removed the synaptic package manager (you have to install it through the software channel), and just loads of other questionable changes. Simply put, it's a mess.

Wait? You can see bloat by using it? I thought it was a term applied to codebases. (Unless you talk about feature bloat, which they clearly don't have in their Unity iso compared to similar distributions)

Not really sure what's the problem running it on a older computer? I mean you don't need to install Unity(it's quite slow in my experience), you can choose between XFCE, KDE and LXDE (there's also an unofficial iso with MATE iirc).

As for needing to fix your Arch installation every week, I can't really confirm that. Yes, there are some updates that require you to take action every now and then, but it's not that often that I actually need to fix something after an update. It's always a good idea to check the website before updating, since they're documenting bigger changes that require user intervention on the front page. As you can see, the last issue of that kind was from September 2013. Other than that I only need to remember to re-run kernel installation if there is a kernel update since building of the new kernel modules requires up-to-date kernel header files which unfortunately get installed AFTER the kernel update and the relevant hook to build the modules kicks in just before that... but probably there's even a fix for that and I'm only too lazy to implement it. I don't recall having any other problems with my installation actually since two or three years.

Was more of a joke to promote the Nix package manager really, although stuff did break in Arch (without me doing anything) back when I used it (before they switched to systemd). NixOS uses a packag manager called Nix that thanks to "purely functional" design fixes problem with traditional package managers (like apt, rpm, pacman etc.) such as dependency hell, several versions of one package, total installation (that is, *proven* total installation), atomic upgrades (stuff CANT break when it comes to installing packages), easy rollback to older version of a package and much more stuff. It also have some other neat features like a (IMO) really good configuration model. It basically makes it super easy to administrate your system.

With 2GB of ram you don't necessarily need a light desktop. Even KDE should run quite nicely on it, despite the low performance cpu.

About the OS - have you thought about OpenSUSE? It's growing in popularity for being both stable and having reasonably new packages. The installer supports 4 different desktops, you can choose the one you like out of KDE, GNOME, Xfce and Lxde. Each of them is equally supported and integrated with the rest of the system.

what about freeDOS?

Tried to find a equivalent obscure one and thought I would link to ReactOS, but then I remembered I an even more obscure one: Plan 9 from The People's Front of Cat-v.org.

(ok, not really funny even if you get the reference (and if you want to figure out the reference, hint: it's not what you think))

Out of curiosity and because i wanted to try out git. I installed the newest Ubuntu on an old Laptop. 2GB Ram and a Centrino.
I installed Guake, Dropbox und GnomeDo and put them on shortcuts.
With GnomeDo i can just type in the things i want and it usually shows up, so i rarely need commands.
The only other change I've made was this https://fixubuntu.com/ thing.

What should i say. I just works.
I didnt notice any bloat but I also don't know how bloat shows itself.

I recommend Justin Bieber Linux.

Or you could try Xubuntu, it's not as bloated as Ubuntu.
Arch is fun too, but not user-friendly, as other people already explained.

You can try this too http://sourceforge.net/projects/archbang...ecommended

Finally gave it the axe. The distro that caught my eye was Mint Debian Edition and I found an Ebay seller that had custom live boots of it on USB sticks and figured what the hell. It GREATLY outperforms Ubuntu just running off of the USB drive and I'm currently installing it as I type this on the very machine that it's being installed onto. Can't wait to see how much faster it runs off of the internal SSD.

Can't wait to see how much faster it runs off of the internal SSD.

As usual, the performance can be predicted by your expectations

Can't wait to see how much faster it runs off of the internal SSD.

As usual, the performance can be predicted by your expectations

It runs like a cheetah. Except that the cheetah had been given coffee. And instead of using water when brewing said coffee, they used Red Bull.

My two cents: your complaints about Ubuntu are largely about their default installation packages, not the core OS or init/packaging system. Ubuntu continues to be a solid platform with lots of integrated apps not easily available elsewhere (Spotify, Steam). I usually go with Ubuntu-server and build up my applications from there. Having a dotfiles git repository can help greatly in this regard.

In short, nothing is preventing you from approaching your "ideal OS" design from the other direction - start with a bare-bones distro and build up with only the things that you like, politics included or not.

Thought I could tell a little bit about the distributions I've used (the most, lol).

• Ubuntu Pros: EASY, tons of up-to-date packages, you can choose between installing a minimum base or full-blown desktop (even provide different desktops option directly when installing), good comparability with non-free software (e.g. Steam, Spotify etc.) Cons: Not rolling-release (upgrades, bleh), Canonical and their silly ads stuff in default install, is most used and yet don't try to be compatible with most common distributions (Mir, upstart, APT instead of RPM etc.)
  
• Arch Linux Pros: Large repository of up-to-date binary packages, tons of (good) documentation on anything from Arch specific to general Linux usage, don't care (too much) about stability Cons: Don't care (too much) about stability, no installer (still not difficult per se, just more time-consuming especially since you gonna have to install your own packages anyway)
  
• Crux Pros: Very (very) simple, straight-forward documentation with no bs Cons: Source-based (time consuming updates), not a big repository (and sometimes not up-to-date)
  

I've also got tiny bit of experience with NixOS (and virtually any other distributions, had too much free time in elementary school ^^), it really revolutionize package management and configuration (along other things). But it's not very popular so it lacks packages etc., if you got free time and are a nerd (or just into good solutions to problems) then take a look at it.