A good Linux Distro for AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+

[AUTOEXEC.BAT]

What would be a good Linux distro for a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+. It has 2GB DDR2-800 RAM

I want a good GUI, and be able to go on internet if possible.

 

[unwind-protect]

Mint with XFCE sound good for that.

 

[DaemonForce]

Literally anything XFCE is going to be it. If you try loading default modern Ubuntu stuff and it crashes 4-10 times loading desktop, that's pretty much your first tell.
I've got a Athlon 2650e with 2GB DDR2-800 and that's just how it is. Might be a memory thing but I don't have memory issues running Windows Server Core.

 

[unamed]

With only 2GB RAM I would look for an x86 disto if I would want to browser the internet (ad blocker is a must). And most major distros dropped the x86 images. Browsing internet with 2GB RAM is no fun those days.

While the GUI is dated I would give it a go to Debian 11 x86 lxde ( you can find it here https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/11.9.0-live/i386/iso-hybrid/ ) with only 2GB RAM. lxde should use less ram than xfce and the i386 variant should use less than the amd64 variant.

For videos from internet look here https://wiki.debian.org/HardwareVideoAcceleration#Browser_support (all I can say is that with Intel igpu I had no luck to get it working in Chromium, but it works fine in Firefox ; no idea about the other 2 gpu manufacturers).

 

[kilo]

Mint XFCE will run fine. I installed it on a 5400+ with 2GB 667 with a 256GB sata ssd about a month ago and it had no issues.

 

[Courier 6]

Zorin OS, maybe?

 

[SchumannFrequency]

Simply Linux is a lightweight and user-friendly Linux distribution that is designed to be easy to use and install.

Simply

getalt.org

I tested the i586 image for an old Intel Atom netbook with 1GB of RAM and a slow HDD.
The device has weaker hardware than 99.5% of the hardware still in active use today, even some laptops from 15 years ago are faster.

It is still usable for many tasks like downloading torrents, light web browsing via Firefox, games like chess, LibreOffice, playing/recording audio, viewing images, Telegram, email, watching movies, etc.

 

[Kodehawa]

MX Linux would be my pick.

 

[Assimilator]

Dustbin Linux.

 

[GoldenX]

Any major AMD64 distro with a light DE will do the job. XFCE remains the best pick, but I'm outdated on what light DEs are now compatible with... ugh... Wayland. Kubuntu would be a solid pick, and I would personally prefer Fedora XFCE.

There's no point in going x86 when support is dying, or in going with a distro running outdated packages to save on RAM if that means the browser will still eat the remaining memory or be insecure due to not being a more current release.

 

[Bones]

Peppermint Linux is another that would work with it.

 

[pavle]

Linux Lite Easy to Use Free Linux Operating System

Linux Lite is a free easy to use linux based operating system that is suitable for people who are new to linux.

www.linuxliteos.com

Easy on hardware, with many options.

 

[Tanzmusikus]

Bodhi Linux

Bodhi: The Enlightened Linux Distribution

Bodhi, a lightweight Linux distro featuring: Fast, fully customisable Moksha Desktop; 64-bit & 32-bit Non-PAE support; Built on top of Ubuntu

www.bodhilinux.com

The DE "Moksha" needs very less memory (768 MB).

 

[AleXXX666]

Literally anything XFCE is going to be it. If you try loading default modern Ubuntu stuff and it crashes 4-10 times loading desktop, that's pretty much your first tell.
I've got a Athlon 2650e with 2GB DDR2-800 and that's just how it is. Might be a memory thing but I don't have memory issues running Windows Server Core.

2650e compared to OP CPU is nonsense, waste...

 

[ShrimpBrime]

AM2 5200+ I've used Ubuntu and Kubuntu in the past. But man that was a long time ago. Or just slap W7 on it.

 

[DaemonForce]

Well yes. That's exactly right and kind of the entire point. Just look at any bench chart and it will confirm:

They're both AM2 socket chips from the DDR2 era and you'll be hard pressed to find a unit pushing more than 2GB.
They're out there somewhere but the memory kits don't exist and if one stick goes bad, that's it. Literal eWaste.
#1156 and #1406. These are #300 and #50...From the bottom. Glad I get excellent use of mine on Windows Server.

OP can get much better use out of the dual core with some XFCE desktop.
I'm sure of this because the linux community finds a way and it's great.
Windows 7 was what shipped with these desktops in their era. I don't like it but I get it.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Well yes. That's exactly right and kind of the entire point. Just look at any bench chart and it will confirm:

View attachment 354056

They're both AM2 socket chips from the DDR2 era and you'll be hard pressed to find a unit pushing more than 2GB.
They're out there somewhere but the memory kits don't exist and if one stick goes bad, that's it. Literal eWaste.
#1156 and #1406. These are #300 and #50...From the bottom. Glad I get excellent use of mine on Windows Server.

View attachment 354059

OP can get much better use out of the dual core with some XFCE desktop.
I'm sure of this because the linux community finds a way and it's great.
Windows 7 was what shipped with these desktops in their era. I don't like it but I get it.

Memory kits dont exist? Wat?

Both kingston and g skill still make DDR2 RAM, and newegg still has crucial and Hynix RAM as well. A-Tech sells kits and I've long had good luck with them.

Recently bought 4 2GB sticks for my new retro rig. Not hard to find at all.

 

[DaemonForce]

Oh, you're in for a bigger headache. I don't mean the kits don't exist, I mean good luck finding a kit that works.
You know how AM3 board manuals will say it tops out at 4x4GB and how that was mostly a lie because modern DDR3 kits work fine? DDR2 isn't like that.
A lot of the systems still puttering around are low grade nForce era boards that don't like anything more than single DIMM per channel.
They all recognize and use 1GB sticks but 2GB is luck and 4GB is usually a hard NO. Setting timings for 800/1066 is another issue that won't go over well.
The product is ancient too. You won't find Crucial/Corsair provisioning DDR2. You'll be extremely lucky to find any G.Skill or Kingston that gets to POST.
These chips still work great but the systems are severely limited by memory compatibility well before speed+capacity. It's why I haven't budged from 2GB.

 

[remixedcat]

Mint with XFCE sound good for that.

hubby uses that and he likes it and it's very lean and stable

 

[wNotyarD]

I'd like to recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed with XFCE because it is solid as heck and officially supports 32-bit architectures older than x86_64, however it could be pushing a little on the RAM side of things.

Otherwise, LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) using either XFCE or MATE.

 

[Frick]

I was going to say Lubuntu, but some googling shows that LXDE is not longer maintained and I haven't tried what Lubuntu uses instead (LXQt) so I can't speak for it any longer.

 

[Rafael.luc]

Lubuntu or Debian (select LXDE when installing).

I had to retire a PC (notebook with 4G Ram) recently with a similar configuration. Websites use Flash, javascript and others will take your processor to 100% in many cases and it will crash, on a website it couldn't load what was supposed to show, regardless of the OS you use. I was using Win 7 and Debian with LXDE, both equal for the problems.

This is the PC (motherboard is from a notebook)

I was going to say Lubuntu, but some googling shows that LXDE is not longer maintained and I haven't tried what Lubuntu uses instead (LXQt) so I can't speak for it any longer.

Yes, Lubuntu has changed to LXQt, but it remains a light version.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

While everyone is throwing their two cents in, I like openSUSE Tumbleweed. Yast makes configuration easy.

 

[Tanzmusikus]

Bodhi Linux has now a Debian version -> DeBodhi Linux.

Bodhi Linux - Browse /7.0.0-beta at SourceForge.net

A minimalist, enlightened Linux distribution

sourceforge.net

 

[remixedcat]

While everyone is throwing their two cents in, I like openSUSE Tumbleweed. Yast makes configuration easy.

I tried suse leap on a dell latitude E5420 and it worked very well.