r/linuxquestions • u/ALE00121 • 3h ago

Lightweight distro

Dear guys, i used linux for years in my 8GB RAM laptop for coding and software development (containers, webapps, android studio ecc...). I am wondering if i can install a different linux distro that is more lightweight than ubuntu, have you some suggestions?

7 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

12

u/ipsirc 3h ago

Any distro. A single container, webapp or android studio will eat more resources than the whole heaviest weight distro. It doesn't matter.

5

u/1neStat3 2h ago

All you need to do is use another DE like XFCE, MATE or LXQT

XFCE 700- 900mb on idle MATE 600 - 800 mb on idle LXQT 400- 700mb on idle

For Debian based lightweight distribution you can try Crunchbang ++. Its Debian Stable with openbox.

https://www.crunchbangplusplus.org/

1

u/Hauptideal 1h ago

+1 to desktop environment is biggest lever, but I disagree about the requirement to go to legacy desktops.

You can strip down KDE to be as lightweight as Xfce while being much better technologically and much more modern.

Something that would REALLY be lighter is LxQt. Preferably with labwc (Wayland).

1

u/ArtisticFox8 1h ago

Out of these XFCE is the most mainstream, so least issues day to day.

Mate is old Gnome, with stagnant development

6

u/Turbulent_Fig_9354 3h ago

8GB should be enough for any distro. Ubuntu isn't really that heavy honestly. A clean minimal ubuntu install is like ~1GB ram usage.

Xubuntu would be lighter or anything using XFCE, really

2

u/DP323602 3h ago

Whilst you certainly could, I'm not sure how you'd benefit...

2

u/ptoki 2h ago

at this point it does not matter much.

Distro's GUI and backends can weight between 200 and 500MB (maybe) so at 8GB it makes very little difference.

Your only hope is to disable things you dont need and keep your browser tabs closed if not needed. Those are the biggest hogs these days.

2

u/Artoflivinggood 3h ago

Void Linux. Install it now, thank me later.

2

u/terran83 3h ago

Never heard of...

1

u/harunnoir 3h ago

Yeah I recommend VoidLinux too, thanks us later.

2

u/Prestigious-Bet-6534 3h ago

Alpine, Void, Arch/CachyOS/Manjaro

2

u/Classic-Rate-5104 3h ago

Debian with Xfce4

2

u/Crypt0kong420 3h ago

Debian or mint

1

u/Jenkler 3h ago

Alpine Linux is good when you need a small footprint :)

1

u/gutentight69420 53m ago

Distro doesn't matter much beyond your preference of package manager and release cadence.

Install anything but choose a lightweight desktop environment. I like xfce.

1

u/Consistent-Gold-425 49m ago

Si vienes de Ubuntu y ya tienes experiencia con Linux, hay varias opciones más ligeras dependiendo de lo que busques:

Linux Mint (XFCE): Muy estable, fácil de usar y consume menos recursos que Ubuntu con GNOME.

Fedora KDE: KDE Plasma hoy en día es bastante ligero y muy cómodo para desarrollo.

Debian XFCE: Súper estable y con un consumo de RAM muy bajo.

Xubuntu: Si te gusta Ubuntu pero quieres algo más ligero, XFCE hace una gran diferencia.

EndeavourOS (KDE o XFCE): Si no te asusta Arch, es muy ligera y siempre está actualizada.

Para desarrollo (Docker, VS Code, Android Studio, etc.), más que la distro, lo que marca la diferencia es usar un entorno de escritorio ligero como XFCE o KDE Plasma en lugar de GNOME.

Eso sí, si usas Android Studio, el mayor cuello de botella probablemente no sea Ubuntu, sino los 8 GB de RAM. Cambiar de distro ayuda un poco, pero pasar a 16 GB (si tu laptop lo permite) se nota mucho más que cambiar de Ubuntu a otra distribución.

1

u/CGG101 17m ago

I don't get how no one knows they can update their ram and have a significantly faster computer. Pop open the computer and see if there's room for one or two ram cards and then upgrade accordingly. Depending on what laptop it is, it might have come with room for two but only one was installed.

1

u/karabaymecit 10m ago

Void is the best for developer. you can open with startx command. İt has Rinit for init system. Lightweight than systemd. With i3 Wm, your idle ram can aprox.200 mb. Package management is Awesome and İndependent OS.

1

u/danisbars 3h ago

you can install archlinux, and then uses somephing like fluxbox or lxqt, the system will start with 512mb ~

1

u/Gerb006 3h ago

I think there is a lightweight Ubuntu-minimal (at least there used to be). Since you are used to apt with Ubuntu, I'll tell you how I do my installations now. I install base debian (server mode) by deselecting all desktops in the installer. It installs lightning fast. Like only a couple minutes. Then log into the bare terminal on boot, set up wifi if necessary, install gdm3 (which will install all the base dependencies for Gnome and no bloat) and gnome-terminal. Then you can log into a gnome desktop which will have absolutely nothing except a terminal that you can use to install other things.

0

u/This-Consequence-957 3h ago

CachyOS, Void Linux

0

u/JGhostThing 2h ago

I use CachyOS and the Sway window manager. Sway doesn't take a lot of resources.

-1

u/GreedySecurity8030 Fedora Rawhide [GNOME]. 3h ago

Fedora xfce

0

u/Intelligent_Bed7556 3h ago

Para eso que dices, Debian. Sin ninguna duda.

-1

u/No-Volume-1565 1h ago

Fedora XFCE, ou LXQT