I bought an old HP chromebook cheap on ebay that came with Zorin OS installed. It isn’t much, but just about manages to do what I need. The trouble is, Zorin seems kind of bloated and the Chromebook hasn’t got much memory. I don’t even have enough space to install updates.
I’m comfortable with running a pared-down OS that might be a better fit for a tired old Chromebook. What might work better than Zorin?
puppy linux
LOAF: linux on a floppy
Well, hell - no DSL (Damn Small Linux)?
DSL is dead. Long live TinyCore.
When was the last time you checked on DSL?
2024, when it was briefly reborn and then re-forgotten.
K. Just making sure you knew of the newer one, since others I’ve talked to on occasion didn’t.
I’d forgotten about TinyCore. Looks like it might be more useable than when I last looked at it many, many moons ago, so I’ll have to put it on my rainy day play around list.
Yeah it looks to me like TinyCore is either made by the same guy as DSL, or uses a substantial number of components from DSL. Either way, it feels very familiar to anyone who’s used DSL in the past, so I consider it a spiritual successor.
For 16 GB SSD with 4 GBs of RAM (which is what most Chromebooks used to be), you will need Debian with XFce, with 2 GB of swap partition. Nothing else will either fit, or work properly. I have given away 3 such laptops to friends with that setup (Arch might fit ok too, but because I was giving it to friends, Debian was easier to work with). After installing the v12 Bookworm Debian OS, with libreoffice, a couple of simple games (e.g. solitaire), Gimp, and that 2 gb swap partition, I was left with 5 GB free space. I had to occasionally do
sudo apt autoremoveto make sure the space wasn’t eaten away, but overall, it stayed steady (dh -hwill give you that info). With Trixie, you might end up with 4 GBs of free space, as it’s bigger. Bookworm has updates until 2029.This sounds like the way to go. What would be the least painful process for going from zorin to debian?
You will have to reinstall the OS, and redo the partition table (256 MB boot partition (that’s enough for a single OS), 2 GB swap, and the rest / root partition). Then install Debian with XFce on the / partition. You use it normally as with any other Debian-based OS, that Zorin is also one of them, but you use the terminal to update the system. It’s very usable.
When you say memory, do you mean RAM or do you mean disk space?
Could be both, but that’s a good question. They say memory but mention the space for updates.
Primarily disk space.
Maybe you can have a look at PostmarketOS, depending on the specific model your Chromebook is. They support some Chromebooks.
If it can run on old phones, it can run even better on Chromebooks I think, yes it is very lightweight but because musl app compatibility is bit more limited than glibc
OP, got some specs? It will make it easier for us to give good suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Celeron processor 16/4 gb ram.
Fedora + sway worked well on my C730 with4gb ram 15gb disk.
I have 3 old Chromebooks (2gb/4gb ram and 16gb/32gb storage) and I run MX with XFCE which runs like a dream. Previously I used Arch with KDE which also ran smoothly enough which surprised me. One thing worth doing with whichever distro/DE you choose, remove all the software you won’t use and it makes a huge difference!
GalliumOS is a Linux distro made especially for Chromebooks.
Gallium has not been active in 5 years though.
I should have checked. That was the last time I had a Chromebook.
I would say try puppy Linux or a openbox based distro. My go to is MABOX Linux. Lightweight and VERY customizable.
Try chimera Linux, it is very lightweight (but also depends on the desktop environment)
I’ve also had a chromebook with only 30 GB of slow eMMC once. Adjusting I/O caching helped noticeably:
# /etc/sysctl.d/20-flash-speed-settings.conf # https://lonesysadmin.net/2013/12/22/better-linux-disk-caching-performance-vm-dirty_ratio/ # (vm.dirty_background_ratio = 10) percent of memory to use for caching vm.dirty_background_ratio = 15 # (vm.dirty_ratio = 20) the max percent of memory to use for caching vm.dirty_ratio = 30 # (vm.dirty_writeback_centicecs = 5) how often the buffer is checked for work to do vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs = 1000 # (vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 500) sets how long something can be in the buffer vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 6000And you might also want to set mount options in /etc/fstab to
noatimeorrelatimeand addcommit=60or so (default is 6).To note that
dirty_expire_centisecsandcommittrade speed for data safety. But a laptop has a battery anyway.About lack of space:
keep the system on the eMMC and mount a thumbdrive as /home? (in /etc/fstab)
Just don’t do much compiling on it (or move the compiling path to RAM); i’ve broke a SDcard-as-home with compiling Firefox on the Chromebook.Edit: ZorinOS is immutable, relying on flatpaks (high I/O and btrfs deduplication), no? Kinda the worst choice for such a device.Edit: ZorinOS is immutable, relying on flatpaks (high I/O and btrfs deduplication), no?
I’ve not seen anything about ZorinOS being immutable, it’s basically just Ubuntu with some stuff on top. By default it uses ext4 and the software store has access to flatpaks, but also snaps and typical native linux software.
I am going to try something else completely. I dont know if it will work.
The Plan: A thin client that connects to an always on RDP session either on a real computer or my servers virtual one.
Alpine Linux in Diskless mode, Xorg, Freedrp
No desktop environment, no window manager. Everything loads into ram.
A project for the weekend, curious how it will go.
Issues that need to be addressed:
suspend when lid closed will have to be added manually. RDP probably should drop or ask for a password at each wake up if the laptop leaves the house. When remote I guess tailscale or similar will have to be implemented.
I’ve been distro-hopping on a 2018 cheapo Chromebook for about a year. So far, I’ve tried Debian (Bookworm) with XFCE, AntiX, PeppermintOS, and now ARCH with Sway. None of the first three were particularly snappy, but they were all running full desktop environments. With Arch/Sway, I’m running about as light as I can get: no login manager, only 441 packages installed. Web browser is Helium. It’s early yet, but I think it does feel a little faster–most of the time. Helium still takes a few seconds to load, for example.
Running bare Arch is a bit extreme, but I think the real difference probably comes down to using a WM instead of a full DE. Sway is pretty light, and from what I could find, Wayland is supposed to be a little lighter/quicker than X11, but if toy want to go that way, you could use i3. Configuration from scratch can be a bit intimidating, but I looked online for shared dotfiles I liked and customized from there.
Good luck! Hope it goes all and is a fun experiment!
My specs: Astronaut (rev 3) Chromebook. Intel Celeron N3350 dual core @ 2.4 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 500 integrated graphics, 4 GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC storage.
i’d just use debian with something like wmaker/icewm/jwm/lxde
I would go with debian with a light weight desktop. If you have issues after that maybe puppy Linux?
