[ale] Linux on 6GB Dell notebook?

[Steve Litt]

Neal Rhodes via Ale said on Mon, 15 Nov 2021 08:22:40 -0600

>So, Thanks for the advice on helping friend with virus scan on their
>6gb Dell notebook.
>
>I think that got it to the point of occasionally running ok, but also 
>often needing more than 6GB for Win 10, and starting to thrash.

I love Linux as much as the next guy, but did you try cleaning up
extraneous applications, getting rid of registry deadwood, and
defragging?

>
>It's one of those Dells without a RAM door on the bottom.

There's a special place in the devil's playground for those who design
and manufacture DIY hostile equipment and software.

>
>The recommendation from HL computer was to swap the drive with a 500GB 
>SSD, and virus scan the new drive.  They wanted $260 for that.

You could buy that same drive from Newegg for $60.00 and install it
yourself, except for no door. Special place...

>
>I'm seeing Walmart is peddling an HP I3 with 8GB RAM, 220GB SSD for
>$270 this week.
>
>Which is actually a better proposition.  Friend's finances are limited.

If finances are limited, my suggestion is install a *low resource use*
Linux. And my further suggestion is that your friend put the $270
toward a new computer, and save money every month just so his next
computer can handle today's browsers and browser apps. It's not that
Linux is getting more bloated, at least if you use the right software
with Linux. The problem is that browsers are turning into RAM and MIP
sinks.

>I'm debating telling him I'll give him $100 for the old notebook and 
>reformat it for linux.   Likely Ubuntu.
>
>Guessing Ubuntu will run fine in 6GB.

Not with the Ubuntu standard setup. I'd suggest:

WM/DE: Openbox or LXDE. Both are very light. Openbox is
       significantly lighter.

Daemons: CUPS and SSHD. Nothing else.

Browser: For picky sites, use Chromium. For the rest, use something
         like Dillo or Midori. With Chromium, keep only one or at the
         most two tabs open.

Workflow: Don't have a lot of programs running at once.

>It's been a couple of years since I did that.  Are there new hurdles 
>with doing a fresh install?  EUFI?  

UEFI shouldn't be a problem because an old computer like that is
probably either MBR or UEFI with Legacy Mode. Your hard disk is much
smaller than 2GB, which is the cutoff (as I remember) at which you lose
space not formatting GPT.

> What about audio?  

More and more software requires Pulseaudio. I dislike Pulseaudio
because it's the land of a thousand hidden mutes, but I've never
thought of it as consuming resources. If you choose Unbuntu, they handle
Pulseaudio pretty well.

> Audacity? 

If you're going to be editing sound files, I'd imagine that's pretty
resource intensive. I'd sure turn off all the browsers before using
Audacity.

>TeamViewer?

I don't know, but why would an individual like him need TeamViewer? If
it's so you can fix him remotely, why not use ssh -Y for a few minutes,
then set his sshd back to no-video?

>  Ultimaker Cura?   

I don't know. Depends on how they designed the software. Do they
malloc() hundreds of megabytes at a time, or do they work within a
megabyte or so of RAM?

> Zoom?

Zoom, Jitsi, BigBlueButton and especially GoToMeeting are extremely
taxing on the system, and prone to sound dropouts on anemic systems.
Also, my Daily Driver Desktop (DDD) uses Void Linux, which clicks and
drops out on all remote meeting software. My finding is that Ubuntu
sounds much better with such software.

By the way, you need Pulseaudio for Zoom, and my findings are that
apulse did not enable Zoom.

I've operated Jitsi on 16GB RAM and it worked as well as it could work
on Void, and perfectly on Ubuntu. I don't know about 6GB. Even more
unknown, does the Dell have enough CPU for the job? On my older 2
core, 1 thread per core 16GB DDD and Jitsi ran up CPU usage past 50%,
and Zoom and GoToMeeting pegged the 100% meter quite often. My new DDD
has 64GB RAM, but more important for meeting software, its 6core 2 core
per thread CPU never pegs, and is usually below 20% over all for Jitsi.

When operating meeting software, I use Chromium set to a Nice value of
-18, to minimize dropouts as much as possible. The shellscript follows:

===================================================
#!/bin/sh
nice -n 18 chromium --disable-gpu
===================================================

I couldn't understand parts of your post, so I'm going to assume this
is for your friend. If your friend isn't married to Windows, I think a
low resource consumption Linux install would work to a pretty good
degree, always assuming he doesn't abuse his browsers.

By the way, you could set up a 6GB virtual machine with his CPU, his
hard disk, and test it on the various tasks you described. That should
give you some further information.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques