I need some help choosing a distro for an Lenovo ideaPad 100s 11.6-inch Red 1.33GHz 2GB RAM 32GB, processor though 64-bit technically, only supports 32-bit actually.
It currently has windows 10 on it and it is just too slow.
I mainly need it to handle more purple more better pdfs free here
plus the scripts and here
clean and efficiently without locking up and dying as this an sbc laptop no hardware changes can be made.
Also the distro must be installed from usb.
so help please in finding a fast effective windows replacement linux or not.
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Maybe a few more options I don’t mind looking into this one though.
Okay, here’s a couple more, in descending order of “lightweightness”:
I only have experience with LXLE, which is why I gave it as a recommendation. Lubuntu is supposed to be good as well though.
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Thx much appreciated
Happy to help.
EDIT: let us know which you wind up going with. Helps to feed back.
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I found a bit here about adding 32-bit EFI files to a Linux installer on a USB drive, thus enabling booting into a 64-bit Linux OS.
I recently toyed around with MX Linux and was pleasantly surprised. Its latest release is based on Debian 9.6, includes tons of drivers, boots to a quick Xfce desktop, and provides easy access to its own repos, Debian backports, and flatpaks. Very Linux-power-user friendly.
thx on the 32 bit efi that is new one to me.
I will let you know which one I choose.
Good one. A 64-bit OS isn’t essential, but you may be able to squeeze a bit of additional performance due to optimizations added to 64-bit processor modes. MX Linux, Ubuntu, and many others still offer 32-bit installer images, sometimes hidden way in obscure download directories online. These places may also be a good place to find working/compatible 32-bit EFI files within installer images for the matching 64-bit installer images. It’s a bit of extra downloads & extra work, but it will be satisfying when it works. 
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So I’m completely unfamiliar with this issue. Does the laptop not provide BIOS boot options?
it does but the bios is only using uefi and only the 32-bit form rendering incompatible with most other OSes than windows unless you take extraordinary measures to get around it.
That sounds incredibly frustrating. I think davidh’s first link might be your best bet, or just going x86.
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That was the intent though as this a lot of free time I have I might work through to x64
i agree mx linux is a good and easy distro to use and has good support
(Ive installed it on the wifes old laptop and she loves it. (far better than win10)
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I have just installed Fedora 34 gnome (standard 64bit) and it installed fine. The installer was a bit slow (especially the disk partitioning section) but it all worked.
Everything seem to work till now including: suspend, wifi, sound, hardware function key (volume, birghtnes itd). Automatic disk partitioner created:
/boot/efi , FAT32 , 630mb, , 3% full (611mb free), type: EFI system
/boot , ext4, 1.1gb, 19% full (870mb free), type: ext4
/ , btrfs, 30gb, 16% full (25gb free)
Gnome seems surprisingly responsive and video plays without any issue (including youtube) but I may consider XFCE Fedora spins.
Ps. I can confirm that you can’t boot 32bit Linux OS , windows 64bit or the latest ubuntu - when you insert a formatted USB stick during the boot sequence, they just don’t appear as the option (and you would think you got the wrong disk or it’s damaged scratching your head)
It’s also initially tricky to locate this special dedicated little button on the top left corner to activate boot menu (you have to press and hold it before you press the power button)
Looks like this little cheap (I got mine for ÂŁ35) laptop can even play Minecraft java edition (using TLauncher.jar and selecting optimised version like optifine , with Oracle java8)
Ok, so it’s 2024…and I inherited an Ideapad 100s.
Let’s be under no misapprehensions here… this machine is a POTATO.
From the Atom 64 bit Processor, running 32 bit windows, to the hopelessly small ram and ssd. Then there’s the satanically annoying BIOS…
And the killer is, I spent WEEKS trying to figure out how to install anything on it, other than the windows 32 bit it came with. It seemed like, at every turn, there was something that stopped me from achieving this.
The Turning point came when I realised that you have to press the red FN key, while pressing F12 to boot into a USB, otherwise, like me, you are just mashing the brightness key while it happily boots into windows, or the BIOS, with no USB install options.
YOU MUST PRESS FN + F12 to get to a useful boot option.
Once that happened, I discovered that most 64 bit distro’s will boot and install, although some refused to play nicely…and the ones that didn’t play nicely were mostly 32 bit versions, surprisingly.
Looking for all the lightest versions, I found that Fedora, Fedora Budgie (veeeeery slooooow), Peppermint Os and Gnome all worked, but I just didn’t like them…and Gnome is just horrible to work with.
So, to cut a very short story long, I am now running Linux Mint xfce, 21.3 (latest release) 64 bit successfully. Don’t worry about 32 bit efi boot loader tweaks…they are unneccessary.
Good Luck 
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Good choice of distro! Mint xfce works good on a lot of systems without being a memory hog.
Many of the older machines were better.
With the sith going to cloud and subscription os they are dooming themselves and dragging many pc manufacturers with them.
But hey for now they are raking money in with the hard core sheeple!
But how long that will last we’ll never know!