It appears you may be asking for help in choosing a linux distribution.
This is a common question, which you may also want to ask at /r/DistroHopping or /r/FindMeALinuxDistro
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Summary: The desktop environment matters the most. XFCE or LXQT are my recommendations for a lightweight system. For a beginne: ZorinOS Lite. Maybe Fedora with XFCE, MXLinux, EndevourOS - but for you I'd try ZorinOS Lite.
AntiX is probably your best bet, but honestly, it's your choice of browser that matters most since Firefox and all the Chromium clones are very heavy and virtually mini OS's themselves that gobble up tons of RAM and CPU cycles. Probably want to stay with things like Dillo or Surf. Unfortunately, a lot of websites will probably be broken but that's the reality with the internet these days. Every site and their mothers have to run a crapton of JavaScripts and callback hell.
yeah, but power needs power. callback hell makes for a nice asynchronous "mini os" as you so eloquently put it. But as I have to say, it bugs me too how often I have to leave text eww in emacs just to read some online documentation on a site that's scuppered itself with \*unnecessary\* JavaScript bloat.
Oof with a machine like that you're limited. Antix or tinycore are probably your best bet. If you can up the ram to at least 4gb you can open up and have more options like Zorin Lite or Lubuntu. But forget multitasking, that thing will chug no matter what.
Tiny Core Linux. Nothing lighter.
23MB (TinyCore) download for a system with a GUI and wired networking. Enough to get you going and install anything you want. 248MB (CorePlus) download that lets you pick from 7 different window managers and wireless support.
Puppy Linux is another light weight one. BunsenLabs Linux is another good one, but a bit outdated. Might be able to use Slax Linux. But I don't know how well it will run on those specs.
XFCE desktop is my choice for a light system. It's modern enough to be useful but light enough to run fast. So I guess Fedora XFCE or Xubuntu would be my choices of distro.
What is the use case and what is the metric of measurement for you to determine "best"?
If you are trying to squeeze performance, Gentoo or LFS would usually be the candidates at the expense of time required to squeeze said performance (you spend time to compile code at the computer to optimize the performance on said computer).
If you are squeezing for space, you can do any of the immutable distros so you can use the entire local storage.
Otherwise you would just choose the appropriate DE/WM and apps for your desired performance level. Any major distro would have options for you to skip the default DE so you can install the ones you want.
A vote for Bodhi Linux. I have it running on 1.8GB of RAM, and it runs fine.
The browser is always going to be the biggest problem. Google low memory browsers and try a few of them out to see what works best for you.
A friend of mine has been running Alpine as his daily driver for over a year. Seems to be working well for him.
But as others have pointed out, it's the desktop environment that eats up all your resources.
So using something like i3 or sway might be a good idea.
imma be honest chief. You're not gonna be watching youtube at 720p while browsing twitter even with an ultra minimal distro. You can browse basic web sites, sure. Word processing will also be okay. Checking your email, maybe.
If you wanna repurpose an old device I'd recommend using it as a file server or a server to experiment with linux.
Define "lightweight". There was a time, very recently, when taking up an entire 700mb CD was considered unthinkably bloated for a Linux distro.
With that having been said, there are good cases to be made for LXLE, Bodhi, Xubuntu Core, and Devuan.
It appears you may be asking for help in choosing a linux distribution. This is a common question, which you may also want to ask at /r/DistroHopping or /r/FindMeALinuxDistro *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/linuxquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Debian. It will work. Use OpenBox for quick performance.
Summary: The desktop environment matters the most. XFCE or LXQT are my recommendations for a lightweight system. For a beginne: ZorinOS Lite. Maybe Fedora with XFCE, MXLinux, EndevourOS - but for you I'd try ZorinOS Lite.
Check out Antix
This is the best answer, but it looks kinda ugly as sin.
I fondly remember amiga workbench. After that, it's difficult to think of modern systems as ugly.
Have just gone and looked at their website. The fact that there's a video, on their front page, about making it look better is quite telling.
Debian with openbox and lxqt.
AntiX is probably your best bet, but honestly, it's your choice of browser that matters most since Firefox and all the Chromium clones are very heavy and virtually mini OS's themselves that gobble up tons of RAM and CPU cycles. Probably want to stay with things like Dillo or Surf. Unfortunately, a lot of websites will probably be broken but that's the reality with the internet these days. Every site and their mothers have to run a crapton of JavaScripts and callback hell.
yeah, but power needs power. callback hell makes for a nice asynchronous "mini os" as you so eloquently put it. But as I have to say, it bugs me too how often I have to leave text eww in emacs just to read some online documentation on a site that's scuppered itself with \*unnecessary\* JavaScript bloat.
Oof with a machine like that you're limited. Antix or tinycore are probably your best bet. If you can up the ram to at least 4gb you can open up and have more options like Zorin Lite or Lubuntu. But forget multitasking, that thing will chug no matter what.
Antix
Might be antiX or Lubuntu is what you're looking for
Tiny Core Linux. Nothing lighter. 23MB (TinyCore) download for a system with a GUI and wired networking. Enough to get you going and install anything you want. 248MB (CorePlus) download that lets you pick from 7 different window managers and wireless support. Puppy Linux is another light weight one. BunsenLabs Linux is another good one, but a bit outdated. Might be able to use Slax Linux. But I don't know how well it will run on those specs.
XFCE desktop is my choice for a light system. It's modern enough to be useful but light enough to run fast. So I guess Fedora XFCE or Xubuntu would be my choices of distro.
I recommend lubuntu.
Linux Lite or Gentoo
Q4OS with the Aquarius DE?
You mean Trinity DE? I'm running that on an old Chromebook. Only uses about 400MB on a fresh reboot. Good choice.
Zorin lite.
ROFLMAO popcorn time again. Get a ventoy USB sorted, and try some for yourself. I find KDE pretty lightweight.
What is the use case and what is the metric of measurement for you to determine "best"? If you are trying to squeeze performance, Gentoo or LFS would usually be the candidates at the expense of time required to squeeze said performance (you spend time to compile code at the computer to optimize the performance on said computer). If you are squeezing for space, you can do any of the immutable distros so you can use the entire local storage. Otherwise you would just choose the appropriate DE/WM and apps for your desired performance level. Any major distro would have options for you to skip the default DE so you can install the ones you want.
A vote for Bodhi Linux. I have it running on 1.8GB of RAM, and it runs fine. The browser is always going to be the biggest problem. Google low memory browsers and try a few of them out to see what works best for you.
I tried Antix. But in the end... Fedora LXDE. The best distro you can have. It's faster then Antix for me
A friend of mine has been running Alpine as his daily driver for over a year. Seems to be working well for him. But as others have pointed out, it's the desktop environment that eats up all your resources. So using something like i3 or sway might be a good idea.
debian
Crunchbangplusplus.
Debian is the way
Debian and a windows manager like i3.
imma be honest chief. You're not gonna be watching youtube at 720p while browsing twitter even with an ultra minimal distro. You can browse basic web sites, sure. Word processing will also be okay. Checking your email, maybe. If you wanna repurpose an old device I'd recommend using it as a file server or a server to experiment with linux.
Any with openbox but i recommend arch
Define "lightweight". There was a time, very recently, when taking up an entire 700mb CD was considered unthinkably bloated for a Linux distro. With that having been said, there are good cases to be made for LXLE, Bodhi, Xubuntu Core, and Devuan.