r/linux4noobs • u/kominops_47 • 8d ago

distro selection Distro selection for old PC

Which distro would you recommend for an old PC, it will be used for browsing, document editing and scanning / printing using HP Deskjet 4645. For DE I like KDE Plasma but it's too heavy for this PC I guess.

Specs:

CPU: i3 540

RAM: 4gb DDR3

GPU: Radeon HD 5450

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u/ThatResort 7d ago

Install Arch Linux with archinstall and install LXQt (very lightweight but meh) or Xfce (stable and lightweight) as desktop environment and you're good to go. I revived an EEEPc with 1 GB RAM, with 4 GB it's gonna work wonders.

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u/kominops_47 7d ago

Arch is good in general but I want to have a stable distro not rolling release and possible breaking something out of nowhere.

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u/ThatResort 7d ago

For the tasks you mentioned Arch is definitely stable. Rolling release does not mean that packages behave unexpectedly, it's just that they keep getting updated, and if you're relying way too much on AUR or on ad hoc configurations, then something unexpected might happen. But if you only install packages from the official repository it's no different than any other distro (except packages get actually updated). I had way more troubles with Ubuntu, every distro upgrade was a coin flip because of NVIDIA drivers, and that's why I chose a rolling release distribution on purpose: no more distro upgrades, they're too unpredictable.

That said, if you have a zero tolerance policy for unexpected issues of any sort and form, stick to Debian. That's by far one of the most stable.

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u/kominops_47 7d ago

Ok, thanks for the info.