Basically, I have a 2014 computer with 4 GB of RAM, and I’m wondering whether to use Arch, EndeavourOS, or openSUSE. I really want to try Rice and use Hyprland, but that will be my second distro. The computer is a secondary one, so it’s no big deal if it breaks.
EndeavourOS if you’ve never used Linux before.
Arch if you’ve played around with Linux, but want to learn some more basic terminal stuff so that in case your Desktop Environment breaks down, you know what to do to get it back up again without a full reinstall.
EVERYONE TAKE COVER! HE ASKED IT!
depends a lot on your actual hardware. some 2014 computers can run kde just fine, some will struggle with it. what actual components do you have?
I have arch + kde plasma running on a i5 3320m among other things and it’s completely fine. Your 4gb ram is not an issue.
The biggest issue around this generation would be if you have a spinning hard drive, you’d want to replace that even with the cheapest used ssd you can find anywhere asap.
Arch is fun and you should try it at some point but it’s not “faster” than Debian or mint or whatever, it mostly just comes down to your desktop environment and web browser.
I can run KDE with Kubuntu well
I’d suggest EndeavourOS with XFce (removing the endeavouros addons after installation to save ram). I can make it boot at 460 MB of RAM. Hyprland uses about 900 MB. Might be of interest with just 4 GB of RAM. For example, on Omarchy, which uses arch/hyprland, it uses about 900 mb of ram, but it’s super slow with btrfs and some changes they’ve made. So on an old PC, XFce might be your friend. XFce can be themed really well, here are my attempts:
macos: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114009689446895521
macos classic: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114875117360852977
win11: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114874435763184758
beos: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114751365408638345
Actually plasma uses less resources than xfce. Not many people seem to know this, but its both better looking and more efficient.
You also get full Wayland support. So I would actually recommend plasma, but both can be installed and tried since we are blessed with choice in the Linux world.
Erm, no, it doesn’t. Plasma requires over 1.2 GB of RAM on a clean boot. It’s a much more complex DE.
It is NOT more efficient than Xfce. I live booted Fedora KDE, and it was painfully slow. Mint Xfce and Void Xfce, on the other hand, worked perfectly.
Ok :)
I would say Arch if you are that tight on resources and comfortable doing so (the setup isn’t as bad as people make it sound, just look up a guide online), but Endeavour would get you to more or less the same place with much less complexity.
That said, is there any chance of upgrading the RAM? an extra 4GB or 8GB stick of DDR3/DDR3L off ebay would not cost too much, and would make a world of difference for things like modern web browsers.
I can’t upgrade, I will try arch. If I can’t, endeavour.
Arch (or Gentoo) will teach you linux. :)
Void Linux Musl Xfce will run AMAZINGLY. Live boot it in root, otherwise it won’t have graphics acceleration (or it may be something else? Either way, I had 2 very different experiences).
I would go with Arch and i3. Dont use archinstall. Do it the hard way and you will learn alot about linux.
i found sway to be more performant than i3 on my core 2 duo machine, though tbf i prefer the default config of i3
True, but not things you will use day to day. With such a little machine, I would go with EndeavourOS with i3 or sway and build it up from there.
