Trying to turn a very slow netbook (Samsung N150 Plus w/ 2GB DDR3 RAM & N455 Atom processor) into a (somewhat) usable portable productivity machine
Specs Rundown:
- 10.1-inch netbook
- Atom N455 - 64-bit processor, 1 core / 2 threads operating at 1.67 GHz, with 512KB L2 Cache, released in 2010
- 2 GB DDR3 (max)
- Upgraded to 120 GB SSD
Distro: Started with MX Linux, then switched to Ubuntu MATE, and finally switched to antiX (runit version for faster boot time and support)
- Rolled back to Kernel 5.10 (better compatibility for older CPUs)
- Using IceWM as the window manager
- Installed TLP for battery management
- Using mpv + yt-dlp to watch YouTube videos, set to 480p and include h264 to reduce lag and CPU usage
- Using Chromium
- Installed lightweight apps (MComix for manga/comic reading, Anki for daily Kanji study, CherryTree for note taking, and mpv for general media usage)
Results:
- Lightweight browsing is doable and somewhat smooth.
- Modern sites are barely usable (Facebook is very laggy), YouTube (somewhat usable, but much better if used with mpv, can even play live videos without any issues).
- Videos play without issue as long as they’re at 480p.
- LibreOffice is smooth.
- Surprisingly, the battery can last 3-4 hours with heavy usage.
- N455 can also handle retro games, but I haven't personally tried it yet. I’ll try an Arch setup soon once I get more Linux experience. So far, it’s very usable for my needs, and it's easy to carry at work.
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