@nostupidquestions is it true that linux cannot run on a laptop without any SSD ?
I had gone inquiring at a couple of local stores regarding restoring my 2gb Ram laptop with 500gb HDD. At both of the places l was told that l need to put in at least 4gb of fresh ram + insert a bare minimum SSD, otherwise windows wouldn’t run on it.
When l said that l’d be working on linux, this technician guy told me that even linux has become heavy these days. Not sure what he meant by this, but extra ram burns a lot of holes, not mention about the price of SSD.
So, l just want to make sure. Is it true that modern machines won’t work without any SSD or machines with 2gb rams are simply fit for the museum ?
Explaining Computers did a video about running various Linuxes on various low performance machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJGf8zVt3MI
As someone who is running a ancient compaq laptop, with 4gb of ram, Debian 13, I can say that it works just fine. Cant do gaming etc with it, but all I do with this is use the browser, IRC and watch a racing stream every weekend. Works perfectly fine with those.
@HuudaHarkiten thanks for this link. Today afternoon, l discovered that the display is not working. Any ideas on how l work with this laptop ?
If it has a video-out port, like a HDMI, plug that in and use a external monitor or TV. Other than that, open it up and check that the monitor connection is plugged in and not broken.
For future inquiries about problems with your machinery, please include the make and model in your question. It is impossible to give tech support if people have to guess which machine you are using.
I my Raspberry PI got Linux running on an SD card. Thats not SSD either, is it?
I mean, kinda
Is drive? Is solid state?
sd is ssd
Darn
He’s a big box store professional; in other words constantly confidently incorrect.
Also trying to sell you something … potentially on commission.
Linux can run off an HDD.
Hell, there are versions of Linux that are designed to be run off a USB stick.
Hell, there’s even Linux distributions that run off a floppy disk.
https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/boot_floppies.html
https://krzysztofjankowski.com/floppinux/floppinux-2025.html
Running live from usb at the moment.
If you want to run a modern current linux distro on a laptop with only 2gb of ram and 500gb then your options are very limited, but it is possible.
For example. Void Linux with Enlightenment will work. A browser will work ok for basic websites but heavy apps like Gmail will be unusably slow.
If you have no option to upgrade, you can still use a machine with those specs to run linux apps like Abiword, Gnumeric, GIMP, etc very well.
Also, putting in any SSD drive to replace the spinning one is the single best upgrade you can make in terms of performance and longevity on an old laptop.
No, this is wrong, Linux can run on an HDD.
Linux runs on a potato, you may need to be picky about the distro the more resource constrained you are, but that’s it.
Or may want a bigger potato for convenience.
Or a sweet potato for a better user experience.
Or a bag of potato chips for a more Windows-like experience.
I used up all my potatoes. Does plantain work as well?
Plantain, turnip, yeah it’s all good!
You can run Linux just fine from 2GB and a HDD, but expect it to be slower. Modern web browsers alone require that much RAM.
@jenesaisquoi l’d be working on lynx basically.
Firefox should be ok, if you don’t open many tabs nor very complex webapps
It’ll work, but modern apps might be slow as fuck with how they call for data to be loaded from storage if you’re using a hard drive. Though I kinda doubt this is a huge problem in programs other than video games.
But also: You ca run Linux from a thumb drive or CD and not even have a storage device at all in the PC.
Mx Linux or base arch with a lightweight desktop environment will work fine.
@zewm you work on MX Linux ? I’m thinking of fluxbox.
with 2gb ram, linux might work, actually. i’d go for ‘lightweight distros’. but firefox has become hungry …
@phr l’d be working on lynx.
you can actually run it on ram and not disk (see tinycore linux) and have the system faster than even an ssd
It’s a laptop so the battery will keep the RAM powered. Very clever and practical, especially for files so confidential you only have one copy − data burglars will be looking for disks. /s
Even windows 10 will run on 2 gig of ram and hdd.
That sounds profoundly unpleasant basically OS bdsm
I had a VM with that specs, win10 dialed down its ram usage to 1.4g. It took 3 mins to boot and another min to load chrome but was operable after that. Heck even 256m was enough to boot, but certainly not to install.
Considering that Linux existed long before SSDs did…
I first installed Linux in 1993…
No
No, but an SSD really does make the computer a lot faster, no matter the OS.
