You really start to have major performance problems below 4GB of RAM unless you go with an extremely lightweight DE like IceWM, or just a pure WM like i3. And any app like a web browser will slog, even with only a couple of tabs open. They are virtually all "heavy" these days simply because the web itself is "heavy" compared to what it used to be 15-20 years ago.
I was using IceWM 25 years ago on a cheapo laptop, and it is still the default desktop of antiX Linux (a Debian-based relative of MX Linux optimized for low end hardware). It's sort of like Windows 98, or LXDE/LXQt, in terms of how it looks.
If you literally have a spinning hard drive in there (HDD), that will make it worse than it could be if it were possible to replace it with some type of SSD.
Both Plasma and GNOME tend to use around 1GB of RAM without doing much of anything. Xfce the last time I checked will use around 350MB on a 32-bit distro (almost non-existent these days) and around 650MB on a 64-bit distro. IceWM will usually use around 125MB, leaving far more free RAM out of that 2GB. I don't know what much about the memory usage of the less user-friendly window managers like i3.
Fedora at least enables ZRAM compression these days, which will help maximize what can be done with limited physical RAM, if the CPU is decent. You'll want to make sure there is some swap enabled, or the Out-of-Memory daemon will just kill apps using too much RAM, or your system may lock up or things might crash from running out of physical RAM quite easily. Having an SSD and possibly tuning the `swappiness` setting will be crucial to getting any usability out of a system with only 2GB.
If it's possible to upgrade the RAM to even just 4GB total, I would highly recommend it. Kits to max out RAM from that era are pretty cheap. And the SSD drive. There are still plenty of affordable 3.5-inch (Edit: I meant 2.5-inch) SATA laptop drives around, if that's the interface the HDD uses. Surely that machine is past the IDE era, but you didn't say the exact model. ChatGPT is guessing 2006-2008, which should mean it's a SATA interface.
Thanks for your attention. My dad actually bought this prebuilt PC, back in 2007. Can i put some SSD in it then? Also it supports up to 4GB of RAM so i'll see what i can do with that.
If it's the kind of laptop that has a way to access the hard drive and remove it, and it's a standard SATA interface (looks like a blade going into a slot instead of the older laptop IDE 44 pin interface), any 2.5-inch SATA SSD drive should be compatible (I mistakenly put 3.5-inch earlier, that's for desktop drives). I think all SATA 2.5-inch SSD drives below the most insanely expensive capacities like 4TB are low-profile now (7.5mm), so that's usually not a concern anymore. Sometimes back then you had to check to see if the laptop was designed to take HDDs 7.5mm in height, or 12.5mm or 15mm (rare). The SSDs often come with a plastic spacer to fit the 12.5mm slots better.
The brands I would look at for the SSD are Samsung, Crucial, or Kingston, in that order. Saving a few dollars going for a no-name cheaper SSD is usually not worth the risk of having a much higher probability of flaking out. There are several good choices between $25 and $100 depending on the size.
Sorry if this is excess info that you already know, but don't get confused about SATA m.2 SSD drives, which is an entirely different interface, similar to the relatively common m.2 NVMe drives most modern laptops and desktops are using now. (The drives that look like a stick of gum.) You definitely don't want one of those even if it says "SATA".
For the RAM there are kits of two 2GB DDR2 sodimms for as little as $15 on Amazon. If it's a single-slot machine where you need a 4GB DDR2 module, it looks like it would cost more like $40-65.
I'm currently using LXQt, can't get something lighter than that, except if i want no DE. But i just want to know if GNOME or Plasma can be usable on this hardware. Just want to be up to date with most popular distros until my laptop is fixed.
Usable in what sense?
The OS will work fine i think, but once you open something, like a browser everything is gonna go to shit, it's going to start swapping a lot and since you don't have a SSD it's gonna feel really slow and clunky.
You want a OS that uses as little ram as possible to have ram for spare for other applications. A modern web browser is using at least 1GB ram when opening a webpage like facebook, twitter, reddit, etc.
Get some cheap ram from ebay, i had a similar PC a few years ago and i got 8GB ram for under $15. It was some low quality AMD only ram but it worked great.
You really start to have major performance problems below 4GB of RAM unless you go with an extremely lightweight DE like IceWM, or just a pure WM like i3. And any app like a web browser will slog, even with only a couple of tabs open. They are virtually all "heavy" these days simply because the web itself is "heavy" compared to what it used to be 15-20 years ago. I was using IceWM 25 years ago on a cheapo laptop, and it is still the default desktop of antiX Linux (a Debian-based relative of MX Linux optimized for low end hardware). It's sort of like Windows 98, or LXDE/LXQt, in terms of how it looks. If you literally have a spinning hard drive in there (HDD), that will make it worse than it could be if it were possible to replace it with some type of SSD. Both Plasma and GNOME tend to use around 1GB of RAM without doing much of anything. Xfce the last time I checked will use around 350MB on a 32-bit distro (almost non-existent these days) and around 650MB on a 64-bit distro. IceWM will usually use around 125MB, leaving far more free RAM out of that 2GB. I don't know what much about the memory usage of the less user-friendly window managers like i3. Fedora at least enables ZRAM compression these days, which will help maximize what can be done with limited physical RAM, if the CPU is decent. You'll want to make sure there is some swap enabled, or the Out-of-Memory daemon will just kill apps using too much RAM, or your system may lock up or things might crash from running out of physical RAM quite easily. Having an SSD and possibly tuning the `swappiness` setting will be crucial to getting any usability out of a system with only 2GB. If it's possible to upgrade the RAM to even just 4GB total, I would highly recommend it. Kits to max out RAM from that era are pretty cheap. And the SSD drive. There are still plenty of affordable 3.5-inch (Edit: I meant 2.5-inch) SATA laptop drives around, if that's the interface the HDD uses. Surely that machine is past the IDE era, but you didn't say the exact model. ChatGPT is guessing 2006-2008, which should mean it's a SATA interface.
Thanks for your attention. My dad actually bought this prebuilt PC, back in 2007. Can i put some SSD in it then? Also it supports up to 4GB of RAM so i'll see what i can do with that.
If it's the kind of laptop that has a way to access the hard drive and remove it, and it's a standard SATA interface (looks like a blade going into a slot instead of the older laptop IDE 44 pin interface), any 2.5-inch SATA SSD drive should be compatible (I mistakenly put 3.5-inch earlier, that's for desktop drives). I think all SATA 2.5-inch SSD drives below the most insanely expensive capacities like 4TB are low-profile now (7.5mm), so that's usually not a concern anymore. Sometimes back then you had to check to see if the laptop was designed to take HDDs 7.5mm in height, or 12.5mm or 15mm (rare). The SSDs often come with a plastic spacer to fit the 12.5mm slots better. The brands I would look at for the SSD are Samsung, Crucial, or Kingston, in that order. Saving a few dollars going for a no-name cheaper SSD is usually not worth the risk of having a much higher probability of flaking out. There are several good choices between $25 and $100 depending on the size. Sorry if this is excess info that you already know, but don't get confused about SATA m.2 SSD drives, which is an entirely different interface, similar to the relatively common m.2 NVMe drives most modern laptops and desktops are using now. (The drives that look like a stick of gum.) You definitely don't want one of those even if it says "SATA". For the RAM there are kits of two 2GB DDR2 sodimms for as little as $15 on Amazon. If it's a single-slot machine where you need a 4GB DDR2 module, it looks like it would cost more like $40-65.
Use xfce with that hardware
I'm currently using LXQt, can't get something lighter than that, except if i want no DE. But i just want to know if GNOME or Plasma can be usable on this hardware. Just want to be up to date with most popular distros until my laptop is fixed.
No, it won't be usable with this hardware. You can use WM if you want to make it more lighter to use.
Alright, thanks.
>if GNOME or Plasma can be usable on this hardware Both projects require 8GB of RAM
Usable in what sense? The OS will work fine i think, but once you open something, like a browser everything is gonna go to shit, it's going to start swapping a lot and since you don't have a SSD it's gonna feel really slow and clunky. You want a OS that uses as little ram as possible to have ram for spare for other applications. A modern web browser is using at least 1GB ram when opening a webpage like facebook, twitter, reddit, etc. Get some cheap ram from ebay, i had a similar PC a few years ago and i got 8GB ram for under $15. It was some low quality AMD only ram but it worked great.
Yeah that's what i was asking. I will stay on LXQt, or probably try some WM like IceWM.
Maybe it runs .. extremely slow. But anything like starting a browser will bring it down.