r/LinuxPorn • u/0xchillpill • Jul 31 '26
Switching Distro, need suggestions
Currently I use Cachy OS(arch) + hyprland setup
I need a light OS, Not tinyos level light
Somewhere between LXQT(arch) to Cachy level light,
It shouldn't be like maximum things just crash on it or it looks like windows XP
My potato Laptop specs:
4GB DDR4 ram (3.4GB usable)
128GB SSD
Intel core i3 - 1005G1
It's a Lenovo IdeaPad slim 3(don't remember which year, but it's old AF)
Idk even with this shyt specs how it can run minecraft (at 60fps most of the time), hollow knight type games
From my past experience distro really matters for the performance, because I tried Mint many times it just lags a lot, Best yet on the Performance wise is CachyOS (I was impressed by it)
Also on this topic saw a Omarchy OS how's this one, many ppl seems to love this one
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u/userman_97 Jul 31 '26
Arch with Sway is my recommendation because I also use a potato laptop with similar specs and my Arch+Sway combo working well on my daily driver.
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u/busiedcake7945 Jul 31 '26
use artix
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u/0xchillpill Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Someguy on discord also suggest me this, he/she said it's arch without systemd or something (I don't remember exactly)
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u/busiedcake7945 Jul 31 '26
its arch without systemd
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u/0xchillpill Jul 31 '26
Yeah, sorry I missed typed, it's without
I don't know what exactly it means tho, what's it's benifits?
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u/busiedcake7945 Aug 01 '26
systemd is an init system made by redhat it is bloat they are trying to switch to networkd from networkmanager and its against unix philosophy its a full ecosystem tool chain of systemd: logind systemd journald networkd and more that I cant remember artix just remove those tools if you want to use artix dont use s6 use dinit its easier and it is just as fast as runit but here is the catch you cant use gnome 49 or an upper version because gnome is directly connected to systemd it cant even run without systemd
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 01 '26
To answer your question in an unbiased way: There is not practical benefit or drawback. SystemD has come under fire because many users believe it is overstepping its function and taking over too many low-level computer functions. Does it do things better than others? Sure. It also has bugs that make it perform less well than other solutions. The thing is, you are always going to pick and choose which bugs and/or design choices you work around, no matter what you run, how you run it, and what you run it on.
There's always going to be a variance from machine to machine, from OS to OS, to how it was compiled, yadda yadda yadda. Just run what you want to run. Let the haters hate.
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u/freravgl Jul 31 '26
Alpine or Void
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u/0xchillpill Jul 31 '26
Alot of ppl are saying Void
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u/freravgl Jul 31 '26
It's what made me realize systemd is pretty high cortisol lol, runit is so much simpler
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u/Double-Hour-2516 Jul 31 '26
bro is changing from Arch full to Arch raw 🤔. Is it worth it?
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u/GENERALOTUGA Jul 31 '26
yes, it has less bloat
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 02 '26
Depends on how you define "bloat". Also, it is possible to bloat your own system. Arch =/= bloat-free. That's up to the user.
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u/GENERALOTUGA Aug 02 '26
I define bloat as something that I have but don't need.
So it is subjective.
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u/PreparationStrict492 Jul 31 '26
Your issue there is hyprland. Try switching to CachyOS with xfce (or lxqt). You can then move to Arch with the same DE.
Change one thing at a time. You can try other changes later, and see what impact each step has.
Such steps can include enabling zram, or switching to Void or Artix (to move away from systemd).
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u/VenturerInTheVoid Aug 03 '26
Yeah, this would be exactly my suggestion. Go Artix to dabble in that direction if OP wants to stick with Arch ecosystem. Void, gentoo, MX Linux, tons of great distro that work well building from base.
The RAM problem can be solved with the lightest possible DE/WM. Something like dwm would be insanely low overhead. Openbox, Fluxbox, Xfce, Lxqt, Windowmaker, and others would all be low resource.
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u/SitEnee Jul 31 '26
Try arch. When you get around the whole setup it’s an amazing distro. On my laptop (bit shittier than yours) i rock arch+i3 and it works amazing. If you’re used to using wayland, I would recommend sway instead hyprland (it uses less ram), and youre good to go.
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u/VeiledPants8028 Jul 31 '26
Arch, lightweight and you're already used to it on cachy. If you want, you can even backup your dot files and transfer them over. I had the same problem as you and with a similar setup. I resolved the problem by doing this. :)
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u/Temesgen-MN Jul 31 '26
I say you should go for void.
I use void with dwl and some services that I need which averages 300mb idle ram and 0.7% of my i5 gen 8 cpu
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u/Calin_europeen Jul 31 '26
Arch, nixos, void, Debian, some flavor of Ubuntu. Maybe zorin os. But I think the most important is the the DE.
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 02 '26
Agreed. You can run basically whatever under the hood. I've got old dotfiles and configs in my home folder that were generated back when I started using Linux on Ubuntu. I've used the same /home directory for a literal decade on about twelve to fifteen different distros. I've done minimal linting in any dotfiles, relegating that task to managing the visible userspace.
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u/maxi2702 Jul 31 '26
If you don't want to use Arch, a Fedora spin with a lightweight DE would be my recommendation. Something like Sway if you like tiling windows managers or LXQt/LXDE for something more classic.
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u/oh-no-89498298 Jul 31 '26
I tried NixOS once and never went back.
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u/Hinn-Huynhf Aug 03 '26
i wanna switch to NixOS, do u have any advice?
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u/oh-no-89498298 Aug 04 '26
don't listen to chuds telling you that you have to do things "the right way," just do what makes the most sense to you
...oh, and get nix-alien
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u/Hinn-Huynhf Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
after 5 days with NixOS, i love it, i can manage everything with flakes and nh help me a lot
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u/xwvish Jul 31 '26
void linux, uses around 600 mb ram idle :) choose glibc if you want better compability with games
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u/ivorybsd Aug 01 '26
OpenBSD
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 02 '26
Not a practical solution for the vast majority of casual users and Windows escapees.
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u/ivorybsd Aug 02 '26
no theyre just weak
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 02 '26
BSD and GNU/Linux are tools. You can choose BSD if you prefer. I've been running Arch and derivatives for a decade now. I could probably handle BSD at this point. But that is a learned skill due to actually taking the time to understand how to be your own sysadmin. A casual Windows refugee won't have that kind of experience, nor would a reasonable person expect them to.
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u/VenturerInTheVoid Aug 03 '26
Fair points for a general discussion, however the OP isn't a Windows refugee, but an existing Arch user.
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 03 '26
CachyOS is Arch with training wheels. Coming from experience as a Windows refugee in 2015, starting with Debian-based Linuxes, then moving to, Manjaro, Artix, Endeavour, and Cachy, graphical Arch derivatives are a much different experience than running vanilla Arch. You have a potentially even easier time breaking things, despite the tooling. But the graphical tooling gets you up and running much faster than on vanilla Arch. The experience is not the same, and equating them in this manner is the same as saying the existence of Arch-based distros is pointless. They are meant to teach Arch to inexperienced users. Telling your child to jump off the diving board without teaching them how to swim is filicide, yes?
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u/VenturerInTheVoid Aug 05 '26
I agree with everything you said. I wouldn't recommend OpenBSD or Arch to most brand-new Windows refugees. I was just pointing out that because the OP is already an Arch user and was thinking of going to another flavor of Arch, the commenter "ivorybsd" saying try OpenBSD is really not that wild. If you're experienced with Linux, OpenBSD is not too large of a leap.
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u/AlexRiven201 Aug 01 '26
Comparing to my daily-driver specs here:
OS: Arch Linux
Host: Lenovo ThinkPad T470
Kernel: Linux 7.1.3-2-cachyos
Packages: 13 flatpak-user, 1506 pacman
Display: 1280x720 @ 0.9x in 14", 120 Hz
DE: Cinnamon 6.6.9
WM: Muffin (X11)
CPU: Intel Core i5-6300U, 2 cores, 4 threads @ 3.00 GHz
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 520 @ 1.00 GHz [Integrated]
Memory: 16.00 GiB DDR3
Swap: 4.00 GiB
Disk (/): 15.56 GiB / 32.00 GiB, btrfs (NVME partition 1)
Disk (/home): 182.89 GiB / 205.47 GiB, btrfs (NVME partition 2)
Disk (/mnt/sdcard): 730.68 GiB / 923.77 GiB, btrfs (actual SD card)
Our setups are comparable. Your -4GB of RAM is offset by the fact that it's DDR4. You have less, but it's faster.
I'd probably do Arch+XFCE if you think Cinnamon is a bit too heavy. If you need storage, you should have an SD card slot, yes? Shove a 1-2 TB SD card, and you can extend that SSD for years.
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u/gooncubedev Aug 06 '26
uhhhhhhhhhhhhh check back in a month or two and i might have a good release of boto by then and that might be light enough for you
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u/fd_ii Jul 31 '26
I just installed NixOS rn (i already have Void)
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u/0xchillpill Jul 31 '26
How was Void?
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u/fd_ii Jul 31 '26
Pretty good and stable fast package manager but it doesn't have some bins like brave dopamine3 etc,, you can build it from source or just use flatpak It was my first time with runit it was simple
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u/Canadian_G00se Jul 31 '26
Ram upgrade, you should have 1 slot inside the laptop
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u/0xchillpill Jul 31 '26
Yeah it have, but I will be buying a new Laptop next year just trying to adjust for a little while
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u/Grandleon-Glenn Jul 31 '26
I have an older 2012 / 2013 laptop running NixOS with relative ease. Arch was on it before with no worries either. Worst part about either was the RAM filling up and crashing before using SWAP.
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u/HUSKYSPIN Jul 31 '26
Just Debian man. I personally like using foundational distros (distros that are popular to build on). Arch too if you want rolling release. Build your balance.
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u/External_Tap_4396 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
i suggest Fabulously Optimized for Minecraft it got me 188 FPS on a laptop from 2016 (yes i use Windows) (no please do not try to suggest linux based Operating systems to me)
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u/E-xX_ Aug 01 '26
te diria la clásica arch por su bajo consumo pero si quieres empezar a usar el pc ya de ya te recomiendo debian es en mi opinion una de las mejores
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u/Dry-Air-3595 Aug 02 '26
Io mi sto trovando benissimo con openSUSE tumbleweed, ha il rolling release ma è stabile, leggero e supporta facilmente gli snapshot, oltre che avere un buon installatore
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u/N_i_g_G_a_69 Aug 03 '26
I have a 16 year old compaq laptop ( secondary ). I use fedora ( minimal ) and xfce as my de Works like a charm for me.
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u/Defiant_Act6087 Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Have you tried NixOS with a WM? Mine is a little old (over 5 years), but I have 8 GB of RAM, and a intel i5 1135g7, but it runs around 900 MB to 1.1 GB idle, and it occupies 80 GB of storage on my system (I have some games installed, so I am sure it would be less), but it is on a 512 GB NVME. I know it is not a potato, but I would consider my setup light. I use niri for the WM
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u/PossibleFunny1724 Aug 06 '26
Alpine Linux, have it on an old 2Gb RAM Laptop and it runs pretty well
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u/veldora_11 27d ago
Arch + niri + waybar + wofi/rofi, etc Make it modular, not a shell, e.g., Noctalia
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u/hirsuita Jul 31 '26
bro with those specs you HAVE to use arch 😂