I really like the stuff in the middle like midnight commander. Idk why, it’s just the best of both worlds to me.

I support the antix project for sure, but non-systemd can be a lil tough. Not that other init systems are inherently more difficult, just systemd is far more standardized/widely used and that helps with troubleshooting.

In general, following as many standards and defaults as you can is helpful when learning. Debian, Ubuntu LTS, RHEL, SUSE, and anything most things derivative of them. All get a person used to a certain set of commands and software, all have sane defaults, and all are stable.

Why not? You (usually) just click the check box during install, and you have 1 extra password when you boot up your system. Doesn’t seem too hard but I might be missing something.

I’ll pass on further debate, thank you for understanding! <3

It seems for the last 5 years or so, Ubuntu has done a good job of making everyone hate them.

https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/

“The legacy 32-bit PC (i386) architecture is supported only as a co-architecture for running 32-bit software on amd64”

You can’t just install 32bit debian anymore.

Granted, bookworm will be supported for a while still.

Some distros do call their 32bit version i386.

Debian did drop 32 bit support. (although some 32 bit packages will exist)

This started with me saying I didn’t like that people were cheering this on and you decided to get triggered about it.

I said you were sucking up to big tech because…pfft you’re sucking up to big tech!

Distros are not linux.

Linux is the kernel.

Linux is not linux distros.

Linux is the kernel.

The Linux kernel is not dropping 32 bit support.

Where is this coming from?

Linux isn’t ditching it. A few distros stopped supporting it.

That isn’t the point.

If someone has a 32 bit computer that is doing everything they need to do, and that hardware is now being rendered unusable…its e-waste.

And I get it, software has to end support at some point for certain hardware, it doesn’t make it suck any less that it is happening.

Yeah man, lets just abandon shit that works perfectly fine, let it become e-waste because we can just buy the latest and greatest thing.

Do people think anymore or do they just let the tech companies do that for them?

Anyone suggesting a rolling release distro to you is setting you up for failure, especially on a 2014 laptop that will absolutely not benefit from it.

Use Linux Mint. It’s still Linux, you can still break it customize it as much as you want.

edit: Y’all are absolutely insane to downvote this when we are talking about a NEW linux user using a 11 year old laptop.

There’s hardware as recent as like mid-late 2000s that’s 32bit. That’s still within the realm of stuff that consumers might be using, let alone corporate/industrial applications.

Even if Firefox leaves us behind, the kernel likely won’t stop supporting it for years to come. We just removed 486 support. Surely 32bit support will be around a while.

I hate how people are cheering this on. 32bit has its place and linux has always been a sanctuary for legacy hardware.

Headline: “Company does the thing that all companies do!”

Maybe not true for phones, but the linux desktop IS usable day to day, and I’d say this has been true for atleast the last 5 years. KDE and GNOME are both fully fledged desktops, and with the popularity of snaps and flatpaks there isn’t really alot getting in the way of software installation either. Even wine/proton has come so far I don’t see the “linux bad for gaming” as an actual excuse anymore.

I started using linux exclusively on desktop in 2021 and I’m not any kind of programmer or anything, just a regular user. :)

This is gonna be a lot of work, like, a lot a lot of work.

You’re on the right track, I think antix is your best starting point. Its the closest you’ll get to a fully featured distro. Damn Small Linux would maybe be my next choice, but I’m not sure if development is ongoing.

Regardless, you want something without systemd. Im personally hopeless without it, but there are plenty of people who daily drive openrc, runit, etc so it’s possible with determination.

id probably do 3gb of swap, maybe more if you are crashing a lot. I suspect even if you keep memory usage down you will be swapping A LOT. If you had even 1gb more memory I’d be less worried, but you’re cutting it close.

If that’s still not light enough, you could try using CDE or Motif as a desktop.

On a modern system built around modern philosophies, its convenient. Doing stuff on systemd seems very intuitive to me and feels like a bit less work than the alternatives (atleast from my non-developer POV). If systemd hadn’t become the standard maybe my opinion would be different, but most of the time it “just works”.

On an older system, the alternatives are definitely lighter! If you’re in the group of people who believes every megabyte counts, you care about systemd. There are also oldschool tech nerds who believe systemd is insecure (they might be right idk anything).