I have an Acer Chromebook R11 which has reached End of Life and won’t receive updates (which is insane, I bought it new four years ago). I have checked, and my model is now fully supported by most Linux distros.

I need suggestions for a lightweight distro to use. I will use the machine for surfing, playing Pixel Dungeon, streaming some indie games over Moonlight/Steam Headless and manage my home server over ssh. So nothing major. I want something lightweight and really low maintenance.

Specs:

  • Processor: 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron N3150 (quad-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.08GHz with Turbo Boost)

  • Graphics: Integrated Intel HD Graphics

  • Memory: 4GB DDR3L

  • Storage: 32GB (with SD card reader for more storage)

I have a lot of experience with Arch-based (EndeavourOS, Manjaro), Ubuntu-based (Mint, PopOS) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian) distros, but I am open for other suggestions

  • jrgn@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 months ago

    Wow, thanks for this write-up! I will definitely look into ZRAM! I have been wanting to give Fedora Atomic a go

    • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      First look if your Chromebook is supported.

      You can do this in ChromeOS. The model number needs to match exactly.

      Chromebooks run some version of Coreboot but that includes many proprietary drivers.

      Mrchromebox is an awesome developer, patching coreboot to include all the needed drivers.

      • jrgn@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Thanks! I have figured all that out. I went with Tumbleweed for now, because I had it lying around on a USB stick and wanted to see if it worked. Looks like it works pretty much out of box. I found a ZRAM guide too. Might distro jump over to Fedora though

        • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Tumbleweed is better than traditional Fedora. But it is worse than Fedora Atomic Desktops.

          The key words are

          rpm-ostree reset
          rpm-osree rebase
          rpm-ostree status
          

          this is not possible even on OpenSUSEs “immutable” distros, which to my knowledge are not better than Tumbleweed in any way.