 One of the great things about Linux is we have so many Linux distributions out there that cater to older hardware. Maybe you're running a really ancient laptop that's 10 years old, 12 years old, maybe even older than that. And it's still running Windows. And Windows, of course, on these ancient pieces of equipment, typically runs really, really slow. You'll try to open a web browser or whatever application it may be, and the application takes several minutes to open. I know a lot of you guys have those potato laptops. And if you do, you know what? Get rid of Windows. Wipe Windows out on that machine. Revive that machine by putting one of these lightweight Linux distributions on it. And today what I'm going to do, I'm going to cover my top five Linux distributions for ancient hardware. The first Linux distribution on my top five list is going to be Puppy Linux. Now, these are not in any particular order, but Puppy Linux is great because it will run on practically anything because of how extremely lightweight it is. And the fact that it has a number of different ISOs available for you to try out because Puppy Linux is really not a single Linux distribution. Puppy is actually a family of Linux distributions because Puppy has ISOs based off of Ubuntu, which is what we're taking a look at right here with FossaPup64. This is an Ubuntu LTS version of Puppy Linux at 64-bit only. But they have also versions of Puppy that are built off of Debian, off of Void, off of Slackware. Some of those versions have 64-bit or 32-bit ISOs. So if you have a really ancient laptop that only has a 32-bit processor, right? Then you go and grab one of those because honestly, there's not very many Linux distributions these days that still put out 32-bit ISOs. Puppy is one of the very, very few that still does this. One of the cool things about Puppy Linux is that it can run entirely in RAM, so you don't really even need to give it a hard disk space or anything like that. If you have about 300 megabytes of RAM for the 32-bit ISOs, you probably need to double it for the 64-bit ISOs, give it about 600, 700 megs of RAM to run in. You can actually run Puppy Linux entirely in memory. Many people run Puppy Linux entirely as a live USB stick, but if you want, you can install Puppy Linux to actual hardware. I've done that many times. One of the cool things with Puppy Linux, one of the things that makes it so lightweight, is the Window Manager that it uses on some of the modern versions on the latest ISOs, they are defaulting to JWM. JWM is an open box like Window Manager. It's very similar to OpenBox. It has a right-click menu system. It does have a panel by default, which is something that OpenBox does not have, but JWM is extremely lightweight. One of the most lightweight Window Managers you can actually have on a Linux distribution. Not only that, you have a variety of other lightweight applications. For example, instead of a heavy bloated Office Suite that probably wouldn't work on ancient hardware, they have lightweight alternatives like Abbey Word for a word processor and GNU Meric for a spreadsheet program. Now, the one bloated program that they do have to include is a modern web browser here on this version of Puppy Linux. They include Mozilla Firefox. Obviously, if you're going to use a modern web browser and view modern web pages, unfortunately, you're going to need some RAM. Honestly, if you're going to use Puppy Linux as a normal desktop operating system where you spend most of your time in a web browser on things like social networking sites and things like that, you're not going to be able to just run it in a few hundred megs of RAM. You're probably needing at least four gigs of RAM on that potato laptop or whatever it is you're trying to run Puppy on. The next distribution we should talk about is Antix. Antix is definitely one of my top five distributions for ancient hardware because like Puppy, it does include 32-bit ISOs and 64-bit ISOs. Antix has been around for a number of years. The first release of Antix dates back all the way back to 2007. I should have mentioned Puppy Linux is also quite old. Puppy Linux, their first release, was all the way back in 2003. So these distributions are tried and true. They've been around for nearly two decades at this point, so they're not likely to disappear tomorrow. One of the cool things about Antix, it includes some lightweight window managers out of the box. It actually includes a multitude of lightweight window managers because by default, it uses ICWM, which we're looking at now. It also includes FluxBox and JWM, JWM just like Puppy. And it also includes a tiling window manager, Herb's LuftWM installed out of the box as well if you want to go the tiling route. Antix was originally based on the old Mepis Linux distribution, but it has since now been based off of Debian Stable, being based off Debian Stable. Antix is quite stable, rock solid. One interesting aspect to Antix is unlike mainline Debian, Antix does not use system D for its init system. Rather, they use a sysvia init still, or they also have an option for you to choose run it as your init system as well. Antix is one of my favorite Linux distributions, not just for old hardware, but also on modern equipment as well. I take a look at Antix a lot on the channel. I keep up with a lot of their releases. As a matter of fact, they had a new release not that long ago. And I actually did a quick installation and first look at the last release of Antix just a few weeks back. So check that out on the channel if you're interested in running Antix. Number three on my list is Q4OS. Q4OS is a unique Linux distribution. Nowadays, you do have ISOs that are 64-bit ISOs using the Plasma desktop. And honestly, Plasma is a rather lightweight desktop environment these days. It's really been slimmed down quite a bit. Typically, it boots in like 600 megs of RAM. So if you have a machine that's got at least, I don't know, four to eight gigs of RAM, you're probably good with the Plasma edition of Q4OS. But they do have 64-bit and 32-bit ISOs that do have the old Trinity desktop environment. And Trinity is an old fork of KDE. And I'm talking about KDE 3.5. So we're talking about KDE from like 16, 18 years ago, a really old fork of KDE. And it is actually still a really nice desktop environment. It's really attractive, the Trinity desktop environment. And again, because it is an older fork of KDE, it runs better on really ancient hardware. So you do have options with Q4OS, you know, with the Trinity desktop or the Plasma desktop, depending on how ancient, how old, how outdated that hardware happens to be. In the past, Q4OS, they did experiment with some LXQt ISOs as well. But those have since been discontinued. And one of the things with Q4OS, whether you're using the Plasma desktop or the Trinity desktop, it is very Windows-like. It really tries to be new user-friendly. So if you're one of those Windows users thinking about coming over to Linux, trying Linux for the first time, Q4OS is a convenient, and quite frankly, a very easy way to get into Linux. And if Q4OS is an easy way to switch to Linux from Windows, Linux Lite, it takes that to the next level, because that is what Linux Lite is all about. Linux Lite is actually trying to appeal to Windows users that want to try Linux. That is Linux Lite's claim to fame. Now, one thing about Linux Lite, this is the first distribution that I'm covering on the list that is 64-bit only. And that's because Linux Lite bases off of Ubuntu LTS, and Ubuntu no longer supports 32-bit architecture. So therefore, Linux Lite can no longer support 32-bit architecture. So if you have something that's 15 years old or older, Linux Lite probably is not going to work for you because those devices probably have 32-bit CPUs. But if you have anything reasonably modern, Linux Lite will work just fine for you. And honestly, Linux Lite is not necessarily just for your old potato machines because I actually install Linux Lite all the time on friends and family computers. It is actually one of my go-to distributions for people that bring me old equipment, old laptops, old desktops that, you know, are still running Windows, but Windows is crashing now, it's not working. And these people just want their machines to be revived with something. And one of the distributions that I often put on these machines is actually Linux Lite. And every single person I put on Linux Lite has had nothing but a great experience with it. Linux Lite uses a customized XFCE desktop, which honestly has some very beautiful theming. The GTK theme and icon themes they use is very beautiful. And it really tries to faithfully mimic the old Windows desktop design and experience, even with the start menu, because we have the button down here that actually includes the word menu, just in case that new Linux user can't figure out where the menu is. And they tell you right there in four little letters. And the last of my top five Linux distributions for older and outdated hardware is going to be Maybox Linux. Now, this is a little bit of a different kind of choice, but I really like Maybox. Maybox is unique because it is actually based off of Manjaro. Manjaro, of course, is based off of Arch Linux. Therefore, Maybox is a rolling release distribution. And none of the other distros that we talked about on this list are rolling release. Most of them are very stable distributions, either basing off a Debian stable or Ubuntu LTS. Well, Maybox, if you want something that rolls, you just get a fresher package as if you need it for whatever reason. Maybox may be just the right thing for you. Maybox uses the OpenBox window manager, which is one of my favorite window managers. And what Maybox does with OpenBox is amazing. The theming is gorgeous, gorgeous wallpapers, gorgeous cockies. That's the system information here on the screen. They do a lot of different theming with the panel. This panel is the old Tent2 panel. And it comes with a variety of built-in themes that you can switch to. And overall, I would say Maybox, it's one of those distributions if you want to get into not just Linux, but also get into the whole window manager experience where you start customizing a standalone window manager, such as OpenBox. Maybox may be the gateway into getting you into window managers. For those of you that have been around Linux long enough to remember the old CrunchBang Linux distribution, that's kind of what Maybox is inspired by. It's inspired by the now-dead CrunchBang Linux distribution that was very popular and also used OpenBox and had a lot of fancy scripts and theming and things like that. And that's what Maybox is using. They're using a lot of those old scripts and old utilities that CrunchBang used and that some of the newer CrunchBang forks like Bunsen Labs also use. So there you have it, my top five Linux distributions for your potato laptop. So once again, PuppyLinux, Antix, Q4OS, Linux Lite and Maybox. And a lot of times when I do these top five lists, I have to do an honorable mention. And I think the honorable mention, I shouldn't have to say it because I think you guys know the distribution that I'm going to say, by the way. Arch Linux. And yes, Arch Linux is actually really good on old hardware. It can't be too old though because Arch Linux is 64-bit only although there is a fork of Arch Linux that's maintained out there that is 32-bit compatible. But for mainline Arch, 64-bit only, but the great thing about mainline Arch is if you do Arch by installing at the Arch way at the end of the day, all you get is a TTY. All you get is the command line after the installation. And from there, you build Arch Linux into whatever you want it to be. And if you essentially want to build a Linux distribution that is geared toward older hardware, Arch Linux allows you that flexibility. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this show. Daniel Gabe James, Matt Paul, Royal West, Armored Dragon, Commander and Green George Lee, Matt Thosnate, Orion Paul, Peace, Arch, and Dora, Realities for Lust, Red Prophet, Roland, Sol Astri, Tools Devler, Warchintu, and Ubuntu, and Willie. These guys, they're my high-steered patrons. Over on Patreon without these guys. This top five Linux distributions that run on potato laptops, it wouldn't have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work, we want to see more videos about Linux and free and open-source software. Subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. Peace, guys. Did you notice there's no GNOME-based distributions on this list?