Linux variant install on old machine

17th August 2020

Machine under consideration:

Eee PC 1015CX 10.1 inch screen size, Atom Processor 1.6 Ghz with 2 GB ram with pre-installed Windows 7

It was an old PC and I wanted to make it workable for my little daughter & for other usage. I tried installing Lubuntu 18.04 LTS, Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.3, Xubuntu 18.04 LTS. Here were my observations post installation:

I finally chose Xubuntu 18.04 even though Lubuntu is suggested by various websites for low specs devices. I found Lubuntu to be disappointing as even after doing full installation the support to video etc was quite slow and faced difficulty in navigation. Also (surprisingly!) loading the login prompt was taking lot of time. Along with that after entering the credentials and entering it took relatively longer time than Xubuntu to load the desktop. I found that the overall experience with Xubuntu 18.04 LTS on the low spcecs & old laptop was quite pleasant.

I found the desktop environment of Linux Mint Cinnamon so appealing (information buttons, selecting the apps, app drawer etc) that I changed the desktop environment of my Ubuntun 20.04 LTS (installed on my regular laptop) to Cinnamon from Gnome Desktop environment.