This lightweight Linux distro is the best (and easiest) way to revive your old computer. Here's how

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Linux Lite 7.0 is obtainable to obtain and set up free of charge from the official website.
• This light-weight Linux distribution comes with all the pieces you want and performs like an absolute champ.
• The default desktop is a bit bland, but it surely’s pretty straightforward to customise.

My good friend not too long ago wished to deliver an previous laptop computer again to life. Her getting older Intel MacBook was now not supported by Apple, and as a substitute of letting the machine wind up in a landfill someplace, she determined to put in Linux, an OS she’d by no means used earlier than.

She began her quest with Linux Mint, which is all the time an excellent place to start out. Sadly, the set up failed for her (largely due to the doggedly sluggish nature of the machine), so she reached out.

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Given her {hardware}, there was just one logical suggestion to make — Linux Lite. This set up went nicely for her, besides the keyboard structure was robotically chosen incorrectly. Fortuitously, that was a straightforward repair.

After this expertise, I spotted I hadn’t reviewed Linux Lite shortly, and it was time to rectify that. So, I downloaded the ISO, spun up a digital machine, and in lower than 5 minutes logged into the desktop.

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Any time I evaluation a light-weight Linux distribution, I do know what I am entering into. They are usually pretty generic, with an absence of eye sweet and panache. They get the job performed and never far more.  

That is why Linux Lite struck me as distinctive among the many “style.” No, it would not provide a plethora of results or beautifications. It is a very easy (albeit personalized) model of the Xfce desktop, which implies you possibly can all the time additional customise it to fulfill your wants. It took me all of two minutes to configure the desktop to how I desire the interface (with a dock-like panel, no desktop icons, and a lighter theme).

I may even configure the Whisker Menu (desktop menu) to higher go well with my preferences.

As per traditional with a light-weight Linux distribution, Linux Lite carried out about in addition to any desktop OS I’ve ever tried. It was quick. I gave the digital machine I used 3GB of RAM and two CPU cores, and this distribution carried out as if it had 4 occasions that energy. Anybody with a machine that does not have the assets to energy the most recent model of Home windows would do very nicely with this distribution, particularly if pace is your factor.

Out of the field, Linux Lite ships with Chrome, LibreOffice (together with Base, to create databases), GIMP, Picture Supervisor, Deja Dup Backups, VLC media participant, a USB picture author, an onscreen keyboard, Timeshift (for restore factors), and extra. In different phrases, Linux Lite is not mild on purposes. You may set up this distribution and go about your work with out the necessity to set up far more. Ought to you have to set up the rest, there’s the Synaptic Bundle Supervisor.

The one factor I did discover lacking from Linux Lite was a common bundle supervisor, akin to Snap or Flatpak. No downside. From inside Synaptic, I used to be in a position to shortly seek for, and set up, each.

In fact, the centerpiece of a light-weight Linux distribution is the efficiency, and Linux Lite exceeded my expectations. Functions opened instantly; in truth, I’ve by no means seen Chrome open so quick.

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If my good friend, who’d by no means touched Linux in her life, was in a position to simply get Linux Lite put in and dealing, you in all probability can too. Like I inform everybody… when you can set up a Home windows app, you possibly can set up fashionable Linux. It truly is that straightforward, and Linux Lite proves that speculation.

This light-weight Linux distribution is good for anybody new to the open-source working system or who must deliver an previous machine again to life.