Breathing new life into an old netbook, need a better OS solution

Software & Operating Systems Linux
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So this is what I have

And this is how I use it

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A little backstory, I bought this cheap and used for school, and it was “efficient” However when Windows 10 rolled up I opted for the free upgrade from 7

It was actually not the worst thing, as it did initally perform better, but at it’s advanced age it’s sluggish to respond, like even the mouse cursor lags.

So spitballing here, as the use of the computer is now specialized as a twitch monitoring and twitter machine. I feel I don’t need Windows 10, and that a Lightweight Linux Distro is better suited to the particular use case scenario

Bonus points if I can use both monitor and keep my netbook open for a total of three active non-duplicate screens
Currently can only do the two monitors if I disable the main screen.

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  1. max out the ram
  2. get a ssd to install in the sata 150 interface if possible.
  3. put on some distro using openbox such as lubuntu or xubuntu
  4. profit

the amd 4250 chipset probably wont handle more than 2 displays , hardware limit on mobile units.
the cpu is sluggish making matters worse for the video output.
all in all you can get a refurb with a sandy bridge (dual core) i5 for < $150 which would smoke this in every way.

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I priced a ram upgrade, for about $40 which is feasible
SSD is an expenditure I don’t wanna make, I’d sooner save up and build a new game capture pc and use my current rig as the stream monitor, than spend anymore

As for a refurb for 150…you get what you pay for is all I have to say about refurbs.

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I personally started using LXLE on most of my machines after using it on a netbook. The default programs are a bit weird, but chosen to be lightweight for older and weaker machines. You can add things as needed. Peppermint is also pretty decent. The new Lubuntu Next with LXQt has a compositor installed that just needs to be enabled if you want to avoid screen tearing.

Really any of the lighter weight desktops on any base will work fine. I am going to be distro hopping soon just to check some stuff out, but I will probably be back to the latest LXLE 16.04.3 or an LXQt variant of Ubuntu just because I am familiar with it and it tends to give me less trouble overall vs everything else I have worked with for my meager needs.

I have no experience on the AMD side, but I tried using an SSD it did absolutely nothing to shorten the 50 second boot up time. My Atom netbook had 1GB RAM that I upgraded to 2GB. It looks like your’s is dual channel with 4GB max. Given how slow the RAM is, I wouldn’t even consider wasting time or money getting a matched pair (assuming the 2 slots mentioned in the link are correct). They have 2GB sticks for ~$10. $40 seems really steep and borderline too much for that machine. I guess it depends on how you use it and what you find acceptable. I never used Twitter, but it seems like 2GB may be overkill.

This stat listed was my favorite: Run Time (Up To) 7 sec

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i understand that sentiment , ive bought a few refurbs, found loose/missing screws, ram not clipped down, and assorted other minor problems. but they all worked after i fixed those issues.

you can buy a 32GB ssd for under $40.

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LXLE flew on my kids old emachines 1300
AMD Athlon 2650e / 1.6 GHz, 2 gig ddr2

Super easy to install and use, looks gorgeous too

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An option I have been playing with is Neverware CloudOS. It is a Chromium version of a chromebook.
https://www.neverware.com

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Puppy Linux

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This is helpful
If you could break it down, I’m not up to date on my lingo regarding linux. I tried some things about 4 years ago, decided I didn’t need the headache and just kept using windows like a scrub.

If you could elaborate on LXLE and why I might choose it over this Neverware solution, or “puppy linux”? that one doesn’t sound real.

The idea here is the main monitor is watching a live feed (from Twitch) so I have to able to that, while also having enough power to run my stream elements widget and twitter, and other random assorted web pages
Theoretically all I need is a browser to do what this station is supposed to do

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After following your link, this looks like a no-brainer

Afterall a chromebook is basically the final evolutionary step of the Netbook, which in hindsight barely made sense as a platform, less portable than a tablet, less useful than a laptop. but thats a different converstation

Anyone have experience with Neverware? Hows the user friendly-ness.

I consider User-Friendly to be a major “selling” point. I don’t consider myself to be a power user, and absolute control isn’t high on my priority list. I keep tight schedules and just need things to work with less fiddling and less headache.

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I currently have Mint and several different light DE’s on my 32-bit netbook. Mate, LXDE, LXQT and Xfce all work well. I’ve also run a few alpha builds of Haiku on this machine and Haiku is absolutely, ridiculously, stupidly fast on this machine. Once Haiku hits beta, I think I’ll be switching full time.

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It seems like it is a Windows 95 to Windows XP pc. Nothing wrong with using those old operating systems on it.

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LXLE strikes a balance between having a fully complimented desktop with applications and being lightweight. There are lighter desktops using less RAM, but most come at a cost. Being Ubuntu based means you have repositories full of software + PPA’s + .deb files which makes it super easy to install your favorite software if you chose. There is also tons of help online so if you have a problem you can just search it or copy a terminal output into the browser and have an instant answer.

I was just reading today and apparently it has a lot of tweaking done to it to be very lightweight without sacrificing too much. It supposedly uses less RAM than Lubuntu that it is based from. I can attest to the fact that many bug fixes downstream in LXLE don’t seem to make their way back up to Lubuntu, which is a shame. Perhaps the next two Lubuntu releases will prove much better, as my limited experience with Lubuntu Next was much more positive than vanilla Lubuntu.

One thing you need to watch out for is doing a checksum on the download. Every torrent I had gotten today was messed up, and only my old copy and a fresh download from SourceForge matched the md5sum. I had issues using my 16.04.01 copy because it runs dpkg in the background and was hanging on downloading from sources that stupidly changed a few letters in their stuff which needlessly broke things, and with dpkg hung up with this nonsense you couldn’t run apt or synaptic. I haven’t gone back to try the 16.04.2 download, and the beta for 16.04.3 is available. I manually fixed some of the problems with letters being changed, and had to purge Libre Office (never use it) to fix the rest of the breakage. First time I ever had a major hangup with LXLE, although I probably shouldn’t have been impatient and just waited for 16.04.2 to download.

In any event, I got it running. I haven’t tried Puppy Linux, so I can’t really comment on it. I’d imagine the user base is much smaller than Ubuntu, which might make it harder to find answers. That and easier software installation/availability is why I mostly stick with Ubuntu based distro’s. Other than YouTube and the necessary associated Gmail account, I don’t use Google, not even for searches or their browser, so I have no clue about that ecosystem. If you use it and like it then maybe it is worth consideration.

I also don’t know anything about twitter, so I have no clue how that stuff works. If the machine was capable of using everything in a satisfactory way in the past, then it should be able to do so now, assuming the widgets, plugins, and whatnot haven’t become excessively bloated in the meantime.

I would advise against using an OS that no longer gets security updates. Even if you are like me and have nothing valuable to lose, the machine could become a vector for launching attacks. It may seem silly that a weak netbook could be harmful, but much weaker IoT devices have caused plenty of trouble by being left wide open.

I’m personally partial to netbooks. I strongly dislike the design of a lot of the larger laptops, and have no interest in a machine that is almost like a desktop, but gimped in several ways and way more expensive. I also have no desire to cradle a tablet in my arm like a baby. I gave away my first netbook and upgraded to a Dell Inspiron 11 with an 11.6" touchscreen, a SATA drive that was immediately upgraded to an SSD, and has the touchpad in the center where is belongs instead of those outrageous laptops with numberpads and the touchpad almost fully to the left. Maybe that makes other people happy (like orthopedists) but it’s not for me.

Ditching Win10 on a 5400rpm drive for an SSD with Ubuntu minimal LXQt was super fast. LXQt wasn’t mature enough at the time so eventually I replaced it with LXLE and have no reason to change it anytime soon. You can always try it out with a live USB drive and see if it does what you need. I mostly use Firefox and SNES9X-GTK on my laptop and it’s been rock solid.

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Peppermint OS is another decent option. LXLE is very viable. Have only heard good things about CloudOS.

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My shit answer:

Put an SSD in it and you can run whatever