I bought an old HP chromebook cheap on ebay that came with Zorin OS installed. It isn’t much, but just about manages to do what I need. The trouble is, Zorin seems kind of bloated and the Chromebook hasn’t got much memory. I don’t even have enough space to install updates.
I’m comfortable with running a pared-down OS that might be a better fit for a tired old Chromebook. What might work better than Zorin?
I’ve also had a chromebook with only 30 GB of slow eMMC once. Adjusting I/O caching helped noticeably:
# /etc/sysctl.d/20-flash-speed-settings.conf # https://lonesysadmin.net/2013/12/22/better-linux-disk-caching-performance-vm-dirty_ratio/ # (vm.dirty_background_ratio = 10) percent of memory to use for caching vm.dirty_background_ratio = 15 # (vm.dirty_ratio = 20) the max percent of memory to use for caching vm.dirty_ratio = 30 # (vm.dirty_writeback_centicecs = 5) how often the buffer is checked for work to do vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs = 1000 # (vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 500) sets how long something can be in the buffer vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 6000And you might also want to set mount options in /etc/fstab to
noatimeorrelatimeand addcommit=60or so (default is 6).To note that
dirty_expire_centisecsandcommittrade speed for data safety. But a laptop has a battery anyway.About lack of space:
keep the system on the eMMC and mount a thumbdrive as /home? (in /etc/fstab)
Just don’t do much compiling on it (or move the compiling path to RAM); i’ve broke a SDcard-as-home with compiling Firefox on the Chromebook.Edit: ZorinOS is immutable, relying on flatpaks (high I/O and btrfs deduplication), no? Kinda the worst choice for such a device.
Edit: ZorinOS is immutable, relying on flatpaks (high I/O and btrfs deduplication), no?
I’ve not seen anything about ZorinOS being immutable, it’s basically just Ubuntu with some stuff on top. By default it uses ext4 and the software store has access to flatpaks, but also snaps and typical native linux software.
Mine is painful for storage. The eMMC is the most painful part. I can deal with low memory, I can deal with the cpu, but read and writes are painfully slow.
I am using fedora cosmic atomic and it works better than most.
Look up how to tweak reads and writes for eMMC if you have it, you can help speed it up.
I wonder if reading from the ports is any faster?
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For 16 GB SSD with 4 GBs of RAM (which is what most Chromebooks used to be), you will need Debian with XFce, with 2 GB of swap partition. Nothing else will either fit, or work properly. I have given away 3 such laptops to friends with that setup (Arch might fit ok too, but because I was giving it to friends, Debian was easier to work with). After installing the v12 Bookworm Debian OS, with libreoffice, a couple of simple games (e.g. solitaire), Gimp, and that 2 gb swap partition, I was left with 5 GB free space. I had to occasionally do
sudo apt autoremoveto make sure the space wasn’t eaten away, but overall, it stayed steady (dh -hwill give you that info). With Trixie, you might end up with 4 GBs of free space, as it’s bigger. Bookworm has updates until 2029.This sounds like the way to go. What would be the least painful process for going from zorin to debian?
You will have to reinstall the OS, and redo the partition table (256 MB boot partition (that’s enough for a single OS), 2 GB swap, and the rest / root partition). Then install Debian with XFce on the / partition. You use it normally as with any other Debian-based OS, that Zorin is also one of them, but you use the terminal to update the system. It’s very usable.
puppy linux
LOAF: linux on a floppy
Well, hell - no DSL (Damn Small Linux)?
DSL is dead. Long live TinyCore.
When was the last time you checked on DSL?
2024, when it was briefly reborn and then re-forgotten.
K. Just making sure you knew of the newer one, since others I’ve talked to on occasion didn’t.
I’d forgotten about TinyCore. Looks like it might be more useable than when I last looked at it many, many moons ago, so I’ll have to put it on my rainy day play around list.
Yeah it looks to me like TinyCore is either made by the same guy as DSL, or uses a substantial number of components from DSL. Either way, it feels very familiar to anyone who’s used DSL in the past, so I consider it a spiritual successor.
When you say memory, do you mean RAM or do you mean disk space?
Primarily disk space.
Could be both, but that’s a good question. They say memory but mention the space for updates.
GalliumOS is a Linux distro made especially for Chromebooks.
Gallium has not been active in 5 years though.
Maybe you can have a look at PostmarketOS, depending on the specific model your Chromebook is. They support some Chromebooks.
If it can run on old phones, it can run even better on Chromebooks I think, yes it is very lightweight but because musl app compatibility is bit more limited than glibc
Something like bunsen?
I would say try puppy Linux or a openbox based distro. My go to is MABOX Linux. Lightweight and VERY customizable.
OP, got some specs? It will make it easier for us to give good suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Celeron processor 16/4 gb ram.
I have 3 old Chromebooks (2gb/4gb ram and 16gb/32gb storage) and I run MX with XFCE which runs like a dream. Previously I used Arch with KDE which also ran smoothly enough which surprised me. One thing worth doing with whichever distro/DE you choose, remove all the software you won’t use and it makes a huge difference!
Try chimera Linux, it is very lightweight (but also depends on the desktop environment)
Fedora + sway worked well on my C730 with4gb ram 15gb disk.
I used to use Arch + KDE on a device with only 32 gb of storage space. I used BTRFS and transparent compression, and I got the actual Arch Linux install compressed down into 6 gb (where it would have been 10 gb uncompressed).
i’d just use debian with something like wmaker/icewm/jwm/lxde
