- This topic has 2 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated Oct 7-5:46 am by Minux1.
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Minux1
I tried Linux Mint XFCE 20 and MX Linux 19.2 on an old (2004 vintage) IBM ThinkPad G40 (3GHz P4 single core CPU, 2GB RAM, 40 GB PATA/IDE HDD) and the old laptop was bogging down. Webpage loading was like watching a spider with 6 broken legs weaving its web. The single core CPU usage was maxed out into the red zone.
I installed antiX 19.2 (32 bit of course) overwriting the previous MX installation and right away I could see that things had improved to performance levels above and beyond what they were in the XP days when the laptop was new.
On antiX 19.2 webpages loaded fast and crisp. DVDs played using VLC without a single stutter. I didn’t have any problem loading youtube videos. The CPU speedometer was about 1/2 way and I was running 300-400 MB RAM with webpages loaded. Even the LibreOffice suite installed from Terminal and the programs opened without issue.
That old IBM ThinkPad and antiX were made for each other … another old relic saved from the curb.
seaken64
Yep, antiX has been the best for my old single core machines. But I have MX running on a few P4’s. The trick for me is to use SeaMonkey with NoScript or Palemoon. Chromium is also pretty good on memory. But the CPU often maxes out on the single core. On my HyperThread P4 MX runs quite well. But antiX is the best for this equipment. And using SMTube or youtube-dl instead of using the browser.
Seaken64
The hardest slugging for the old single core computers is the modern browser-internet interface with all the scripts that are running on a typical 2020 webpage … the more resources tied up with cosmetic functionality the less that are available for this task.
For my purposes antiX offers the same basic functionality as MX Linux with fewer resource sapping frills. The difference may not be noticeable on a new machine but it’s the difference between smooth and satisfactory and stuttering and sluggish operation on my 16 year old ThinkPad with a full fledged browser like Firefox loaded. I don’t like the anemic, faded look of webpages rendered with the “watered down” browsers.
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