Ask Slashdot: What's the Fastest Linux Distro for an Old Macbook 7,1?

Long-time Slashdot reader gr8gatzby writes: I have an old beautiful mint condition white Macbook 7,1 with a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and 5GB RAM. Apple cut off the upgrade path of this model at 10.6.8, while a modern-day version of any browser requires at least 10.9 these days, and as a result my browsing is limited to Chrome version 49.0.2623.112.

So this leaves me with Linux. What is the fastest, most efficient and powerful distro for a Mac of this vintage?
It's been nearly eight years since its release, so leave your best thoughts in the comments. What's the best Linux distro for an old Macbook 7,1?

Comments

Arch Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Its base install contains only the bare necessities to run a text-based terminal. You can freely choose your window manager & other GUI applications.

More the desktop environment than the distro.

[serviscope_minor]

I found arch worked well on very old machines, but even so the main thing is to use a lightweight desktop environment or not. I use FVWM which isn't to everyone's tastes, but I like it on machines of all sizes including fast ones.

But you won't like unity on that machine I expect.

Oh also, replace any spining disks with flash.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[eneville]

evilwm http://www.usenix.org.uk/conte... and/or ratpoison. Both provide great usability. If you spend all day in a GUI or text environment, you really should learn these.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually we need to stop yammering about the DE.

The DE is pretty marginal when it comes to resource usage compared to the applications. E.g the allegedly "heavy" KDE will run pretty well even on a pretty limited machine, the problems only really start when you try to load up libreoffice, firefox, chrome and whatever. Wise choice of applications will get you far further than choosing some "lightweight" window manager where you have to compensate for not having a DE by adding on a mixed back of loose pieces which knows little of each other and basically have no commonality.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[KiloByte]

The only current desktop environment I would disrecommend is GNOME and stuff that uses Gnome's display parts (ie, Cinnamon). Unless you have a fast efficient GPU, it's really sluggish even on 2017 hardware.

XFCE works indistinguishably from a high-end machine on a slow SoC with 2GB ram, unless loaded with bloated programs. Without a browser, you'd need to really try to make a dent, a single browser with 10 tabs can bog the machine down single-handedly :/

First gen RasPi (256MB) shipped with LXDE; at this point talking about reducing bloat further is a waste of time. You can use a simpler environment if you find it suits you better, but machine's resources are not a concern.

Oh also, replace any spining disks with flash.

Yeah, that does more to modernize the machine than replacing all other components together would.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Window Maker is still a thing.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

vtwm is actually my friend. Old, bog-stable, very lightweight, and the virtualization of additional windows gives me a far more effective workspace.

Re: More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree with the parent. The kernel is pretty small on any distribution compared to the specs you provided. The chrome on the GUI is going to take a lot more resources in many cases and present a load on the graphics in some cases. I run Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE) on a laptop with lesser specs and it flies with sub-15 second boot times and sub second app launches for web bowsers and other basic apps.

Buy an SSD if you donâ(TM)t already have one. Anything will do and it will make a huge difference in system and app start time.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Teun]

You said it, "the allegedly heavy KDE".
Of all full DE's KDE is the lightest, a KDE distro like Neon only installs the bare necessities which makes it even lighter than the Kubuntu it is based on.
I'm running it on a 6 years old i5 with 4GB RAM and it's great.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[drinkypoo]

Hell, fvwm is still a thing. But personally, I'd probably run lxde. You get all the basic functionality one expects from a modern gui, but it's still plenty lightweight.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. "Allegedly". Not "admittedly".

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Big Bipper]

I have an old Dell Vostro with a Core i7 860 @ 2.80 Ghz, 8 gig of ram, and spinning rust as my everyday machine. I run OpenSuSE Leap 42.3 with the KDE Plasma 8.6 desktop which is probably the most functional and customisable desktop out there ( i.e. not a lightweight ). I find the performance perfectly acceptable except when starting up, but an upgrade to an SSD would fix that. Throw leap on your Macbook, tweak KDE to look and work like IOS and enjoy it for years.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Knuckles]

I found arch worked well on very old machines, but even so the main thing is to use a lightweight desktop environment or not. I use FVWM which isn't to everyone's tastes, but I like it on machines of all sizes including fast ones.

But you won't like unity on that machine I expect.

Oh also, replace any spining disks with flash.

I am using Unity on a midyear 2009 MBP 5,3 with 2.52 GHz Core 2 Duo and Nvidia GeForce 9400M just fine
I have to compliment Apple on this machine, it has been serving me just fine over 10 years for browsing, email, and video watching

Re: More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Posted one year from now."

Re: More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Knuckles]

"Posted one year from now."

Right. "Nearly" 10 years

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the 2008 Macbook with the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo and 4GB RAM. I use Mint Mate 18.3 on it and it works perfectly well. Like the above poster states - it is more the desktop you use that the distro.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[slashdot_commentator]

A 6 year old i5 isn't exactly ancient hardware. The entire i-series CPUs are pretty much computing overkill for general audience computing (games/websurfing).

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Teun]

True, especially for a laptop they are still very useful.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[The123king]

Building your own car can be more efficient than buying one from the dealership, but it requires a lot more more effort to pull off

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Gnostic Nomad]

I have an almost identical machine regarding specs - a ShuttlePC case with Core2Duo 2.4 Ghz, originally with 4 GB memory, updgraded to 8 GB. It is running Xubuntu 16.04, ie. XFCE as a desktop. The one thing I really recommend is swapping the HD to an SSD - that really makes a difference. I bought a 120 GB Kingston for 50 euros when I set the machine up. I got the machine for free, as a friends company was throwing them into the trash heap :) Boots up really fast with the SSD. It was completely usable even with the 4 GB it originally had, and with 8 its sweet. -- It works great for everything I normally do - movies, web, email, light photo editing and so on. I even play older games on Steam - I have an Nvidia 620 passively cooled graphics card on it - games such as Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2 on low details, Divinity Original Sin etc run just fine.

Re:More the desktop environment than the distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Efficiency is defined economically as the ratio of output value to input value.

So unless the time and effort you put into building a car would not be better spend at some other task which pays you enough to just buy a car, it's unlikely you can be more efficient at building than buying.

Especially since you're competing with economies of scale.

LUBUNTU

[Anonymous Coward]

https://lubuntu.net/

Very light, and includes all the ease of use of ubuntu.

Re:LUBUNTU

[hazardPPP]

Lubuntu it is. I find that this distro runs just fine od 10+ year old PCs (once-upon-a-time Windows laptops), no reason why it shouldn't run just fine on an old Macbook.

Re: LUBUNTU

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Lubuntu. I installed Linux Mint on an old white MacBook (2GB RAM) and I found it a bit slow. Installed Lubuntu instead and it was much faster. Also, full disk encryption slowed things down significantly. And yes, SSD speeds things up enormously.

Good luck and happy hackintoshing!

Re: LUBUNTU

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Lubuntu. I installed Linux Mint on an old white MacBook (2GB RAM) and I found it a bit slow. Installed Lubuntu instead and it was much faster. Also, full disk encryption slowed things down significantly. And yes, SSD speeds things up enormously.

Good luck and happy hackintoshing!

that's not a hackintosh

Re: LUBUNTU

[giggleloop]

A hackintosh is a non-Apple computer configured to run MacOS. You can't hackintosh an Apple product.

Re: LUBUNTU

[farrellj]

Gee, someone should send you a button that says "Does Anal Retentive have a hyphen?"

Re: LUBUNTU

[Anonymous Coward]

You could hackintosh an iphone.

Do you reaaly want the "fastest"?

[BellyJelly]

The fastest would be something minimal like puppy linux, but I don't think you really want something that ugly on your beloved macbook. Linux Mint Mate Edition will work fine, with a reasonably attractive and conventional UI.

Re:Do you reaaly want the "fastest"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I found that Antix is even faster than Puppy Linux.

Installing few packages makes it enough for most people.
Worth checking if it can meet your needs.

Re:Do you reaaly want the "fastest"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux Mint XFCE would run fine.
I also like Peppermint Linux (a sort of customised Linux Mint XFCE). It has features you might prefer.

Re:Do you reaaly want the "fastest"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, does he mean fastest pre-meltdown and pre-spectre, or post-meltdown and post-spectre? I'll bet the answer changed.

Re:Do you reaaly want the "fastest"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I second Mint MATE. You want elegance, functionality and performance. :) Besides, if you later add some of the 17.x wallpapers, there's one called "Electric Apple" which is very apt to your situation. :)

Arch + openbox

[tr33beard]

I have this laptop and, when my desktop is booted, it uses about 230mb ram. The only issue Inhad was with the WiFi card which is a Broadcom card and required firmware, downloaded from the Broadcom site. I run Arch base system with: Openbox, Nitrogen, Tilda, Chromium, Pulse audio, VLC I run this as a second machine now and only upgraded because so wanted a better screen; the performance was fine.

Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

The one that is installed on an SSD.

Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[carlhaagen]

I'm not sure why you think it's "capped" to 10.6 - that's just the version that was current at the release of your Macbook model. It will happily install and run El Capitan (10.11), and that's bound to be a more compatible and pleasant desktop experience than putting anything Linux on it.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Halo1]

It can even run macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) (the current latest version).

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Admiral Trigger Happ]

It can even run macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) (the current latest version).

Yep it will indeed However you can't install 10.13 directly on a system with 10.6.8 you need to be on 10.8 or later but you can got to 10.11 and then to 10.13 Check out https://support.apple.com/en-a... for the link to download 10.11.6 from the appstore for free.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Carewolf]

I'm not sure why you think it's "capped" to 10.6 - that's just the version that was current at the release of your Macbook model. It will happily install and run El Capitan (10.11), and that's bound to be a more compatible and pleasant desktop experience than putting anything Linux on it.

Well. Any upgrade to Linux would still be an upgrade ;)

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[carlhaagen]

Of course you can DIRECTLY install 10.13 (read: fresh installation), or any other compatible version, but you can't UPDATE a 10.6 installation to 10.13. In my opinion doing a single fresh install is a lot faster and tidier than jumping through several intermediate updates to land where you want.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[carlhaagen]

Yeah because 2018 is finally The Year, right? Tired song ;) Don't get me wrong, I use linux for the desktop in my line of work, and it gets the job done, but it's just not the same polished desktop experience that macOS is, even by a stretch.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[angel'o'sphere]

From OS X 10.6.8 to Linux, no.

I'm working on Linux in my daytime job, it is light years behind OS X. Not as bad as Winwos bottom line, but pretty close to run me nuts.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what distro do you use that's so bad? Most people I know who switched older hardware to Linux Mint XFCE haven't found it much different, except for being faster.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Bing Tsher E]

What is so great about a 'desktop experience' from Poland?

Re: Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm working on Linux in my daytime job"

Same here and it blows everything I've ever used out of the water. Maybe you need a better distro at work.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[hey!]

that's bound to be a more compatible and pleasant desktop experience than putting anything Linux on it.

That's a bold statement. It's bound to be a more pleasant desktop experience for someone whose preferred desktop experience is MacOS, but fundamentally it's a matter of personal preference. I, for example, would immediately (regardless of distro) would but the i3 tiling window manager on the thing, because that's what I like, and it happens to fit well with the way I work. Generally I install Linux with i3 and XFCE for the desktop-style utilities in the situations where I want them. There is simply no way way that MacOS could ever beat i3 for me by adding features, because I really like minimalism.

I wouldn't install i3 in a corporate environment, where I need to come up with a common standard that works well enough for everyone for the full range of tasks, but for a personal machine by all means let's make an apples to oranges comparison. They're both fruit, and some people just like one better than the other.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm working on Linux in my daytime job, it is light years behind OS X". Err... No, I disagree.
I use Fedora, Ubuntu Linux and Windows 7 at work, Mac, OpenBSD and Slackware Linux at home. They all do exactly what I want them to do, since I know exactly how to make them do what I want them to do. If you don't, then you should hand your Geek card back.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that bold. It might not cover every single person out there, but it covers the vast majority. Most people want wifi, bluetooth and audio drivers that work, proper support for the MacBook's trackpad, good power management, decent and reasonably _consistently-designed_ applications that are easy to install (ie don't quickly descend into package management hell), and a whole host of other stuff that generally just works with macOS and only might kinda/sorta work on Linux, if you spend enough time dicking around with it.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[hey!]

Really, all that hardware support is easy in Linux for an older computer, particularly a Mac. And for the most part people who get themselves into package management hell are tinkerers who wouldn't be satisfied by a curated environment like an app store.

I'm totally with you on the idea of consistently-designed applications, but a lot of that went out the window even on MacOS years ago. They days of the all-powerful Mac HCI snob were over by the early 90s, killed by cross-platform apps. Yeah, Microsoft tweaks office to follow Mac conventions, but in the end is it more important for them to deliver a consistent Mac experience or a consistent Office experience?

Sure, there are still people who use iWork rather than LibreOffice or MSOffice, but talk about a minority. In general big name Gnome apps are just as well thought out and consistent as what people by-in-large use on the Mac -- which is probably damning with faint praise. And then there are apps which are laws unto themselves, like GIMP. Even if you *could* fix the problems with GIMP, it's not clear that you *should*.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a mid-2010 7,1 white macbook with 4G, and it's happily running 10.13.2. Yes, it's not terribly speedy now, but it is perfectly useable.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're underestimating the qualitative differences between the platforms. I don't use the Linux desktop on a daily basis anymore, but every time I do I'm surprised at how much stuff it's missing that a Mac user takes for granted (or even a Windows user, in a lot of cases). Some examples that come to mind: Does Linux support trackpad gestures and multitouch? How good is drag and drop and copy/paste between applications? Can I run Office or the Adobe applications on it? Is there a _real_ equivalent to the applications I depend on (e.g OmniOutliner)? What's the Linux equivalent of migration assistant? Time machine? How well does retina/high dpi work? Multiple monitors? Thunderbolt drivers? VPN support? Cloud syncing with my iPhone/iPad?

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree with this comment, but as always, it'll be met with resistance.
Upgrade the drive to an SSD too, your golden.

MacOS is streets ahead of Linux on the Desktop, with the caveat *depending on what you are using it for*.

I work within a very large dev team with a mixture of Linux and Mac operating systems.
The Linux guys are always having all sorts of issues with the infrastructure in place, quite simply due to lack of software.
For example, the office VPN - they have to jump through hoops just to connect to the VPN.
Then we get things like the new Cisco meeting room systems being put in place on a trial basis - there's a browser based solution that work for Linux, but it's severely hobbled. Half the functionality is missing.

Don't get me wrong, I have a soft spot for Desktop Linux, I used various flavours of Linux for a decade, before finally switching to an OS that has quality software & all the benefits of being *nix based.

I totally understand the freedom it brings, but ultimately, when you want to get your work done, you don't want an OS that gets in the way and you can't expect large companies who have to cater for computing in the modern world to support an OS that is not mainstream on the Desktop.

Sad, but true.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

'm not sure why you think it's "capped" to 10.6 - that's just the version that was current at the release of your Macbook model. It will happily install and run El Capitan (10.11), and that's bound to be a more compatible and pleasant desktop experience than putting anything Linux on it.

Just because the machine can run 10.11 doesn't mean it will be a pleasant experience. 10.6 is very fast and responsive running on Core2 machines. 10.11 is ... not. It's a lumbering behemoth by comparison, big and sluggish next to 10.6.

I was recently gifted with a similarly-aged iMac that I took the opportunity to nuke & pave, so I tried both just out of curiosity. 10.6 was very zippy. 10.11 works, but it's noticeably sluggish in comparison. Fortunately the RAM was easily upgradable; there's no way I'd be willing to run 10.11 on the original config. I'm accepting the performance hit of the HDD because it's not worth my time and effort to swap it for an SSD.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess, if you like annoying hipster design.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Apple f*cked up the fonts for all non-retina machines?

Re: Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Anonymous Coward]

linux, Ubuntu in particular does support multi touch on the track pad and the touch screen. if you really need ms office compatibility, wps office is nearly there. copy/paste between apps is the best i've had so far, but I only tested with text and a few images between libreoffice writer and calc. everything works just fine for me on an x1 carbon gen3. can't say anything about thunderbolt as I have never used it on linux. you seem to use a lot of of apple's ecosystem apps, can't help you with alternatives there.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Knuckles]

It's not that bold. It might not cover every single person out there, but it covers the vast majority. Most people want wifi, bluetooth and audio drivers that work, proper support for the MacBook's trackpad, good power management, decent and reasonably _consistently-designed_ applications that are easy to install (ie don't quickly descend into package management hell), and a whole host of other stuff that generally just works with macOS and only might kinda/sorta work on Linux, if you spend enough time dicking around with it.

MBP 5,3 from 2009 here, every single piece of hardware worked perfectly on day 1 of this machine with Ubuntu, and still does now 10 years later. I was and actually still am very happy with this machine

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[EddydaSquige]

I recently sent an old Mac Book 7,1 to my mother-in-law. Ram upgraded to 6gb, solid state drive and OS X 10.10. It works great for light browsing, email and FaceTime.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[Carewolf]

From OS X 10.6.8 to Linux, no.

I'm working on Linux in my daytime job, it is light years behind OS X. Not as bad as Winwos bottom line, but pretty close to run me nuts.

I work on both Linux and OS X professionally. We always try to get the new recruits to volunteer for the OS X maintenance, but within a few weeks, they like rest of us, refuse to touch it unless they absolutely have to. An there is so much more that needs to be fixed on OS X because Apple routinely breaks APIs with their upgrades, so we need to constantly test beta releases to see what they have broken this time. Of course being professionals we also support older OS X versions than Apple does.

Re:Your Macbook model can run El Capitan 10.11

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah,
that is a pain.
I only _use_ my Macs, I don't develop for them. All my private development on my Macs for myself is done in Java, like all my professional development is in the Java eco system.

Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC for obvious reasons :)

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

You jest, but I came here to say something like this. If you don't want Windows, then you don't want Windows, and that is fine. But if your only concern is having an up-to-date browser, which is how TFS reads, Windows is an option.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I am a MS Beta Tester. I have a Win10 virtual machine running on Linux and that is where it should stay. Win10 is not ready for the desktop yet.

Re: Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a option alright, if you are ready to put up with all kinds if windows only idiosyncrasies (telemetry anyone?). My guess is that OP isn't, so Linux it is.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody care?

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Because good hardware don't become obsolete when something new and shiny comes out.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because good hardware don't become obsolete"

doesn't, creimer. Y u no grammar gud?

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Who?

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

You, you yoohoo! creimer!

The awful photographer, terrible author, useless YouTuber, below-average help desk technician, crapposting, shitflooding nuisance!

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

"My camera lens has good bokeh. Shadows are very black."

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching creimer is like watching a child. His enthusiams, his misunderstanding of the adult world, his naive outlook would be great from an eight year old.

Not so much from a morbidly obese virgin middle-aged recluse with a speech impediment and personality disorder.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure? I've had troubles installing Windows 10 on older 64 bit processors. I don't recall the exact error but it was that the processor was lacking some feature that Windows 10 needed. I'm not even sure Windows 8 worked.

Re:Windows 10 works

[ChunderDownunder]

Windows works on a Core 2 Duo; source me.

The main caveat would be the on die GPU, for which Intel refuses to provide updates (not sure whether that model of Macbook came with nvidia).

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

"Except he has no fear of putting himself out there and holding his naysayers in contempt."

creimer is not doing that. creimer would have to produce quality content first. creimer has no viewers, so creimer is not "putting himself out there".

"That's not a personality disorder."

We aren't talking about that when talking about creimer's personality disorders.

"That's a person who is confident enough"

Delusional, creimer.

" overcome his own limitations"

creimer is still an obese virgin with below average skills. creimer has not published his book of haiku. creimer procrastinated again and again.

"not allow others to impose limitations on him."

No is imposing any limitations on creimer. The person putting limits on creimer is creimer himself.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he has no fear of putting himself out there and holding his naysayers in contempt. That's not a personality disorder.

That is, in fact, a personality disorder. "A lack of concern for social norms and holding contempt for people who disagree with you"? They may have an inflated and arrogant self-appraisal (e.g., feel that ordinary work is beneath them or lack a realistic concern about their current problems or their future) and may be excessively opinionated, self-assured, or cocky. They may display a glib, superficial charm and can be quite voluble and verbally facile (e.g., using technical terms or jargon that might impress someone who is unfamiliar with the topic).

A pre-occupation with silly schemes such as used lottery tickets or Youtube channels which will clearly never work out or old coins is also a personality disorder.

Of course you can't do a formal diagnosis from Slashdot comments, but on the other hand what you yourself are describing is classic personality disorder.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

A pre-occupation with silly schemes such as used lottery tickets or Youtube channels which will clearly never work out or old coins is also a personality disorder.

The problem is that you think these are "get rich quick" schemes. Most people would think of these as eccentric hobbies. Entering discarded lotto tickets for a second chance drawing is no different than picking up a penny on the street and dropping it into a jar at home. YouTube has over 1M+ content creators and not everyone is going to be a superstar with 10M+ subscribers. As for old coins, ever wonder why you don't see $2 bills, gold or silver certificates, or pre-1965 silver coins in general circulation?

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't say "get rich quick schemes," I said "silly" schemes. Digging through bus stations for used lottery tickets isn't a hobby. And if a person spent substantial amounts of time looking for pennies on the street, that would be a personality disorder. There's nothing wrong with having a Youtube channel. I have one myself, so do many people. Putting lots of time into it (including promoting it) expecting financial rewards when it's clearly not going to happen is a sign of a problematic thought process. And finally, I don't wonder, because I'm not interested in gold or silver certificates or pre-1965 coins. The lack of popularity of $2 bills doesn't make old coins a good investment, that makes no sense and is an example of "using technical terms or jargon that might impress someone who is unfamiliar with the topic."

This is a classic catch-22, where Creimer not being aware of how crazy he is is a symptom of how crazy he is. But I guess one can ask: what are your goals? Are your actions helping you further these goals? If not, you should question the quality of these actions and realize that you perhaps have mental disorders.

The decisions you've made have so far landed you in a position in life where you are a morbidly obese virgin who lives in a studio and used to be in a cult. You should question your decision making process, and in fact you'd probably be better off just doing the exact opposite of your natural impulses.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

The decisions you've made have so far landed you in a position in life where you are a morbidly obese virgin who lives in a studio and used to be in a cult.

Here's another failing you have: you believe every AC is creimer.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of popularity of $2 bills doesn't make old coins a good investment, that makes no sense and is an example of "using technical terms or jargon that might impress someone who is unfamiliar with the topic."

Two-dollar bills are uncommon (technical term) but not rare (another technical term). Most people get a $2 bill and keep it, taking it out of circulation. Currency and coin collectors do the same by taking old bills and coins out of circulation. BTW, if you watch any of creimer's PM videos, you would know that he is a silver stacker (dang, another technical term). Except for some Kennedy half-dollars and Eisenhower silver dollars, he collects poured silver and bullion coins. Poured silver tend to go up in value over time due to uniqueness and rarity. Bullion coins go up and down with the spot price. He's one of the few people who want silver to go down since he's stacking for the next 30 years.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Old coins are a shitty investment that nobody respectable recommends, and having less than $5K as your retirement fund at age 48 is about 1-2% of where you should be. Throwing out inane bullshit terminology about silver bullion and coin collecting doesn't change anything.

You're unable to face that you haven't saved for retirement, and so instead you talk about the wonderful schemes you have. You will be sleeping on the street if the economy takes a downturn.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

If any AC has $5K in retirement funds, they're doing better than 50% of Americans who have $1K or less saved up.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimertards are delusional, thinking every AC comment is creimer.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody thinks "every" AC is creimer, creimer. Did you read "every" reply on Slashdot tonight, you shambolic Snuffleupagus?

It's obvious it's creimer. creimer's usage of bizarre expressions, creimer's unique interests, and no one else is reading here, creimer.

Also, creimer is talking about creimer in the third person... even in creimer's bio.

"C,D, Reimer is reinventing himself on YouTube. Come along for the journey and find out where it takes him. "

PS: creimer is using commas instead of periods for creimer's initials? creimer's big mongoloid fingers lack precision. creimer's ego uses the third person because even IT can't quite accept what creimer is doing or saying.

creimer will have a mental breakdown soon. It will be ugly.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

creimer is confusing "saved up" with retirement funds. This AC has much more than 5K in retirement funds, and real estate.

creimer is not doing very well, and creimer is wasting untold amounts of time and money on silly nonsense a high schooler would find childish.

creimer is lucky that summer is coming, creimer will find it easier to sleep in a cardboard box. creimer will be lucky to find a box that large, however. Not sure how well barrel-chested individuals with sleep apnea fare sleeping in the street.

But creimer's soft hands and large breasts will be popular on the streets.

Re: Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

These people might have family to support them, or even a house they could sell.

And itâ(TM)s sad to say, but America does have a homelessness problem. Creimer shows us why.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

What is with this "hatred" towards this creimer user? I don't get it. If you don't like the guy fine, but constantly harping on and attacking someone online is in itself a mental disorder. Pot meet kettle. I see no evidence of this user causing trouble here. But I do see lots of animosity directed towards this person. Do something positive with your short time here on earth. Anyone can make someone else feel bad, but it's more rewarding to make them feel good.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

It's APK. He gets into an argument with someone and can't let it go afterwards. He takes it personally and begins to obsess about getting even and/or driving the target du jour off Slashdot. We've seen it many times before; he stalks the person from thread to thread hurling insults from multiple sock puppet IPs until he gets bored and finds a new target.

There is no solution but to wait it out. If he spent half the time programming that he did chasing vendettas online, his software might not be shit.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

+If you really care to know what's happening here:

Creimer was spamming slashdot for (a very small) profit. When people told him to knock it off he responded arrogantly that it didn't matter because he thought he had a karma surplus of something in the thousands.

When reality struck and he was eventually modded down to terrible he then demanded that the slashdot management delete his old account (they renamed it). He then made a new account. He refers to this as his "power play" to dodge what he considered unfair moderation.

He then started a campaign to submit stories and mod them up using a collection of sockpuppets. This amazingly enough worked to circumvent the moderation system and then he resumed spamming slashdot.

The hatred you see probably stems from his insistence that he loves pissing everyone off and is doing it intentionally as the bad attention makes him money. It is my belief that this is totally untrue because he will sulk off to pout and make bitter entries about it on his blog.

-If you want to know more:

I personally trolled creimer for awhile but after watching his vlog entries I realized he's not merely a little bit aspie but is indeed retarded and I just can't do it anymore. It completely explains his behavior and failure to learn from his past mistakes. It was hard to accept that we're dealing with a retard because creimer does show signs of some above average intelligences. He understands at least some coding, networking and has devised some rather clever schemes to circumvent the forum moderation here but you only need to watch his video to recognize that he was dealt a lousy hand made up of good cards.

Why is he doing this? He genuinely enjoys slashdot, but like many slashdotters he turned the collection of karma points into a sort of shitposting game. He unfortunately picked up some online marketing/online business type books that encouraged the posting of monetized links. Mutating his slightly annoying karma whore shitposting into for profit spamming which just won't fly here where most of the still active community longs for the days of the pre-idiot spam-free internet days of old.

I encourage everyone to avoid engaging creimer in any sort of legitimate discussion. Make it clear that he is not welcome here, mod him down, reject his stories, and use the m2 system to punish his anonymous sockpuppets and anyone else stupid enough to mod him up. If we don't he will shit all over the place, it's a fact and it probably won't change. I used to enjoy trolling him but now babysitting creimer is just another boring chore like spending my mod points and doing a little m2.

I discourage everyone and especially tranny appreciator and partner in trolling FatCashewsLoveMe (calling you out buddy) from picking on creimer. We're all nerds and most of us got straight shit on so we should be above picking on a retard.

To creimer: I would not be totally shocked to learn someone has already pwned you.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

So, since two wrongs make a right, cyber-bullying creimer is the answer?

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't let him go unchecked.

As I said he's persistent and has has had some limited success subverting the moderation system here. He will post thousands of low quality spam posts if given the chance. Numerous people have told him he's free to make a new account and behave but it doesn't appeal to him because his primary interests on the site are brand building and spamming.

Before he started vlogging I think most of us were under the impression he was only a maladjusted aspie and since that could describe a large portion of the reasonably behaved posters here a little bit of fun at his expense seemed like an ok means of discouraging him.

It isn't even cyberbullying anyhow since as far as I know we've all been really good about not hounding him offsite. He's the bully but it just so happens that he's outnumbered. He refused to adopt community norms and flat out said that he didn't have to because he believed he was operating from a position of strength. When he discovered this was not the case he was unapologetic and insisted that all his misbehavior was an attempt to monetize bad attention. Even though it's clearly not true he has stated many times that he loves it and wants us to bring it on.

His behavior wouldn't fly from a junior monk at a buddhist monastery so you shouldn't expect more compassion from a forum full of old nerds.

Re:Windows 10 works

[Anonymous Coward]

> We can't let him go unchecked

Who made you the fucking Comment Police?

You assholes don't get that your anti-creimer flooding is just as annoying and worthless as anything he might post.

Congratulations on joining APK in making Slashdot unreadable. Now you've even got ME doing it.

What Slashdot needs is a good, old-fashioned killfile!

Uh why not just run OS X 10.11?

[Anonymous Coward]

10.11 (OS X el capitan) fully supports your macbook 7,1. Source: me, having a macbook 7,1 (2.4ghz c2d penryn) for 7 years, running everything from 10.7 up to 10.11 on it today.

Re:Uh why not just run OS X 10.11?

[Farmer Tim]

Unfortunately it isn’t possible to upgrade directly from 10.6.8 to 10.8+ without first installing 10.7, and that’s not available from Apple unless you bought it already...I suspect that’s actually the problem here, since 10.13 will work on the MacBook 7,1. There are some installers floating around the net, but they fail with a checksum error (even if you use Pacifist to bypass Apple’s installer program).

However, it is possible to clone the drive, format, install a later version, and use Migration Assistant to restore user accounts and files.

Re:Uh why not just run OS X 10.11?

[mfnickster]

Unfortunately it isnâ(TM)t possible to upgrade directly from 10.6.8 to 10.8+ without first installing 10.7

Yep, it is – I upgraded directly from Snow Leopard to Mavericks. You just need an update to the App Store certificate.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT205702

Re:Uh why not just run OS X 10.11?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem rather is that the author mistakenly thinks his computer cannot run anything newer than the version of OS X the computer came with, and that he's unaware he can download any current version of OS X/macOS free of charge from Apple, and do a clean installation. He's just not the tech savvy kind; not even the finest Linux desktop distro will save him.

Re:Uh why not just run OS X 10.11?

[Farmer Tim]

I stand corrected and better informed.

It is a decent piece of hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

5GB of RAM and Core 2 Duo CPU is enough to run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (64 bit), so no need to think about getting it extremely lightweight.
Ubuntu 16.04 would give you access to the latest Firefox and Chromium/Google Chrome.

Best would be to just update your OS X/macOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Because your Macbook is one of the supported models for macOS 10.12 Sierra. That's what I'm running on my 2010 Macbook 7,1. I could be wrong so don't quote me on it but I think even 10.13 High Sierra might officially support this Macbook.

you have a really good machine.

[lkcl]

2.4ghz with 5GB of RAM is insanely quick, and an insane amount of RAM. it's only the fact that modern OSes are so stuffed with eye candy, adware and freeware that you've been hood-winked into BELIEVING that the OS *is* the computer. the only thing that will make a HUGE difference to speed is if you get yourself a GOOD SSD. by that i mean one with an Intel chipset i.e. not the 3700 series which is made *by* intel but using a shitty consumer-grade controller IC from Marvell. you want an S3500 or basically hunt around for anything that has "Intel Power-loss Protection". see here for full details http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_an...

the actual OS doesn't techincally matter, none of them will make a blind bit of difference, you have such a fast machine, you might as well pick one that will make your life easiee.

all apps will work perfectly fine as long as you don't do what i do which is try to run qemu, two web browsers, 3D Graphics Editors, videos, IRC, 2D CAD Packages *and* try to compile the linux kernel all at the same time. this tends to bring even a machine with 16GB of 2400mhz DDR4 RAM to its knees. don't do it :) keep an eye on things, but libreoffice and a few tabs open in browsers should be fine.

your main concern is web browsers, which is one application, and you should try to keep the size of the window to the minimum that you can tolerate. i manage fine with chromium running at around 1024x800 and underneath that firefox with 200 tabs open ar around 1024x700 or so (i use a 3000 x 1600 resolution laptop screen).

someone else here suggested fvwm2: i too love it, because the startup time is well under half a second. for everyone else i recommend XFCE as it's based on the older gnome2 infrastructure so does well at auto-detecting drives and so on. the other desktop i love and thoroughly recommend for end-users is Trinity Desktop.

the only other thing i recommend is that you NOT install systemd as it actually slows boot times DOWN (as well as making your life geneerally hell). you can either install debian and then install sysvinit, which will "disable systemd but still leave it hanging around like a bad smell" or you can go the whole hog, add http://angband.pl/deban and actually get rid of it entirely, going back to udisk2, policykit, consolekit and other packages that debian's developers rather foolishly removed.

bottom line is, the threshold for "good enough computing" was crossed many many years ago, and it's only the marketing teams DELIBERATELY making the proprietary OSes do more so that your machine APPEARS so slow that you feel you HAVE to buy a new one... you see where that's going? anyway, welcome to the freedom that comes with being able to choose your own OS, you're one of the few people that actually has control of their computing hardware back, now.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[carlhaagen]

I fully agree with "picking one that will make your life easier", meaning he should stick with OS X / macOS by simply updating to a current version. The original author is suffering the misunderstanding that he cannot update to anything beyond what was on the laptop when he bought it 8 years ago.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[drinkypoo]

2.4ghz with 5GB of RAM is insanely quick, and an insane amount of RAM. it's only the fact that modern OSes are so stuffed with eye candy, adware and freeware that you've been hood-winked into BELIEVING that the OS *is* the computer.

5GB was a lot of RAM for a laptop, but now it's anemic and it's only a lot of RAM for a phone. Anything less than 16GB might as well just go home and shoot itself. Just loading one game can regularly use 4GB or more. Or one large image. Editing a decent-resolution video will rapidly use more than 5GB. Running multiple components of an office suite can easily eat up your 5GB.

5GB is not a lot of RAM any more. Even if the OSes weren't using more and more RAM, the data sets we're working on have grown to that point.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[serviscope_minor]

5GB was a lot of RAM for a laptop, but now it's anemic and it's only a lot of RAM for a phone. Anything less than 16GB might as well just go home and shoot itself. Just loading one game can regularly use 4GB or more. Or one large image. Editing a decent-resolution video will rapidly use more than 5GB. Running multiple components of an office suite can easily eat up your 5GB.

5GB is not a lot of RAM any more. Even if the OSes weren't using more and more RAM, the data sets we're working on have grown to that point.

A little anemic, perhaps, but still far from unusable. Yes, if you're doing RAM intensive stuff like editing large videos, or truly colossal images (gigapixel images aren't readily available), then you'll want something better. Or machine learning, but then you'd mostly use the laptop as a terminal for a machine with a few fast GPUs.

But even for compiling, you'd have a hard job finding a job for which 5GB isn't enough memory.

I doubt that the OP is interested in playing top end games especially as he wants Linux.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[drinkypoo]

But even for compiling, you'd have a hard job finding a job for which 5GB isn't enough memory.

Ha! What about Android? Is 50GB enough memory? But seriously, my browser sometimes uses more than 4GB. It's not difficult to imagine exhausting 5GB as a regular user any more. It's a bit obscene, but it's just how it is.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're clearly a novice computer user and an idiot. I have used SystemD in a production environment for the last 3 years and it works beautifully once the new system has been learned. It boots faster since it doesn't load processes in a serial fashion so you are extremely wrong there.
At least learn a bit about what you are talking about before you open your mouth on Slashdot.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[DeBaas]

That upgrade in Apples world means buying a new OS.
Years ago in our household we had one Apple that had the same issue, just a few years old and the only way to be able to run a recent browser was buying a new OS.
I installed Linux on it, and we were able to use the that laptop for years. Oh and not everyone likes MacOS better than Linux. I personally prefer a Mate or Cinnamon desktop any day over MacOS.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's good to know that Lennart reads Slashdot, I guess.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[carlhaagen]

No, it doesn't mean *buying* a new OS at all - Apple made OS X / macOS free of charge about 10 years ago, and you can download any version you want directly from them without cost or registration. If you want a physical copy that will obviously cost you a small spot of cash ($25, believe).

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

This statement is absolutely ridiculous and plain wrong. My desktop is an i7 920 with 6GB Ram and runs just about every game (including fairly CPU intensive ones like Xplane 10) perfectly with fully acceptable framerates. The only exception are some of the very latest games such as GTA V and Watchdog 2, who indeed need a bit more RAM. I also own an old Asus Tranformer with 2GB Ram and it works perfectly for web surfing, etc. In fact, I can do basic web surfing , writing and development with Emacs on my old Z61 Thinkpad with 2GB Ram without problems - Firefox is a bit sluggish, but it works just fine, running on Ubuntu 16 with XFCE.

The original advice is perfectly sound. Get an SSD. Another good advice is to use some Linux with lightweight desktop environment such as Linux Mint XFCE.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[DeBaas]

Do you have a link? I definitely had to buy a new OS at the time and that was a lot less than 10 years ago.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[j-beda]

That upgrade in Apples world means buying a new OS.
Years ago in our household we had one Apple that had the same issue, just a few years old and the only way to be able to run a recent browser was buying a new OS.

Yeah, that was a problem for a while - Apple was charging $20 for 10.7 as I recall. Later versions we all free. However, even if the machine in question will not do an upgrade jump from 10.6 to 10.13, Apple provides a free download for 10.11 here: https://support.apple.com/en-u... and one can upgrade for free from 10.11 to 10.13. With the proper firmware updates, this machine seems to be able to do "Internet Recovery", so one should be able to install or update it even with a bare drive and no OS installed.

https://support.apple.com/en-u...

According to https://everymac.com/systems/a... the MacBook7,1 supports up to 16GB of RAM and can run the current version of macOS, "High Sierra" 10.13. Put in a SATA SSD and this machine is perfectly capable of running all the latest macOS software at very acceptable speed.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least he is not an insulting Son of a Bitch like you!

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you really don't know who lkcl is?! XD

Re:you have a really good machine.

[DeBaas]

Glad that they changed their policy! At the time it really put me off Apple.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[jouassou]

The computer uses as much RAM as you have available, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work fine with less. I'm using Ubuntu Mate on my laptop with 8GB, and at the moment only require 4GB, even though the machine hasn't been rebooted for 10 days. (That's 3GB used by Firefox, and 1GB used by the desktop environment, syncthing, evince, etc. Technically, 3GB of the "available" space is used for caching, but you can do without that if needed).

I guess the conclusion is that the main hog is the web browser; limit the number of tabs you keep open, and 5GB should be fine. Go old-school and disable tabbed browsing completely (using bookmarks for things you want to revisit, and browsing the internet sequentially instead of in parallel), and 5GB should be plenty.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[drinkypoo]

I guess the conclusion is that the main hog is the web browser; limit the number of tabs you keep open, and 5GB should be fine. Go old-school and disable tabbed browsing completely (using bookmarks for things you want to revisit, and browsing the internet sequentially instead of in parallel), and 5GB should be plenty.

So 5GB should be plenty as long as I websurf like it's 1999? That's a typically dumb argument to make on Slashdot.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[carlhaagen]

You can just go to https://support.apple.com/ and search for "how to download os x" (or ditto for "macOS"). Here's f.e. the download for El Capitan: https://support.apple.com/en-u...

Re: you have a really good machine.

[Monster_user]

What world are you living in? Linux software hasnâ(TM)t ballooned so much that 5GB of RAM is anemic. 5GB should be plenty for even the heaviest Linux distributions.

Also, I donâ(TM)t think the sata sets, outside of web pages, have really increased that much either. Iâ(TM)ve been able to run on 4GB of RAM for a decade.

Re: you have a really good machine.

[Monster_user]

So iOS 11 uses unicode apostrophes. How annoying. Another reason to stay on 10.2...

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would $20, a very reasonable price, put you off from buying a new major version? It's a small sum, incomparable to the $100+ that Microsoft asks for Windows. If your time is free then I understand how it works out "cheaper" for you to fiddle about with getting a Linux desktop installation set-up just the right way.

Re: you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

> So iOS 11 uses unicode apostrophes. How annoying. Another reason to stay on 10.2...

You can turn off Smart Punctuation

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't even open my email on 5GB of RAM on Mac OS 10.13 at this point. I just had to buy an iMac two months ago because my 2012 mac mini couldn't handle email or intellij anymore.

I know there will be a ton of people claiming that an ancient device running a newer OS will work fine and it may for some. However, some of us use email, java apps, facebook! If you actually get spectre patches, you get a hit on CPU, RAM and disk I/O. The latest chrome mitigations start new processes for javascript in iframes, etc. That takes more RAM.

The bare minimum for a PC or Mac is 8GB now. I think Amazon should update their RAM on ec2 instances for the same reason. A server shouldn't be less powerful than my iPhone.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, 5GB is fine for 98% of users, no matter how you web browse. I'm currently on an old Macbook Air with 4GB, I have like 30 tabs open and a bunch of programs and it's 100% totally usable.

Anyway, a "power user" (by which I interpret "hobbyist," because how many fucking people edit videos or use a Mac to play games) wouldn't be asking people how he can keep using his old laptop, he would just buy a new one.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact it takes gigabytes of ram to browse fucking websites tells you exactly what's wrong with the internet. That is certainly slashdot material.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of that is caching.

Basiclly, if you can cache your whole browsing session in RAM, why wouldn't you?

Re:you have a really good machine.

[vaibhav.dlv]

Got a 4 yr old Lenovo with Pentium D 2.3GHz dual core cpu with 2GB RAM. Works fine for basic tasks. Of course if you use Chrome or Firefox, don't expect to have more than 10 tabs open. These guzzle memory like a V12 guzzles gas. I use Vivaldi generally which is lighter and faster. Gets me through those 20+ browser tabs sessions. With 5GB RAM it's way better!

Re:you have a really good machine.

[The123king]

My work machine is a Core2Duo running at 3GHz with 4GB RAM and an ancient HDD with Win10 on it. The thing is slow, but not unusable. I mean it's pretty frustrating and sluggish, but not unusable. You just have to be patient, much like you would with an OAP.

Re:you have a really good machine.

[The123king]

Mountain Lion was the last OS you had to buy, which came out in 2012, so about 5 years ago

Re:you have a really good machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

This part of the conversation is really interesting to me. I jumped on tabs when Firefox 1.0 came out, and have used only tabbed browsers since then, except at work where we were stuck on IE 6 for a long time. I have lots of years of experience using tabs, and I like them a lot.
The mention of using bookmarks caught my attention too. I have hundreds of bookmarks, very carefully and hierarchically organized over a long time. No one told me that had gone out of style.
Is that what's going on? Do typical users keep hundreds of open tabs instead of hundreds of bookmarks? If that's what's happened, I've never heard of it. I use maybe 8 tabs at once, tops.
I've never had a computer with more than 4GB of RAM, and most of mine only have 2GB. But I've never had out-of-memory problems. Indeed, all the talk for years and years about memory problems in Firefox has perplexed me. Is this what it comes down to, not knowing that people have replaced bookmarks with tabs?
If that's really it, I've learned something new today.

Slackware 7.1

[blind biker]

Just kidding, of course.

But if you want to try, here it is, Slackware 7.1

Re:Slackware 7.1

[jmccue]

I am not be kidding. If that system is Intel, Slackware 14.2 will work great. I use it on a 2 core 4 gig memory machine and it is very fast.

I have noticed LibraOffice 5.2 (since 5.0 came out) is sluggish. Outside of that, I would not notice anything on my machine.

Re:Slackware 7.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the 'just kidding' disclaimer? Slackware IS the fastest distro. It is also easy to install and works perfectly fine on anything you can throw at it. The reason Slackware is so speedy, is mainly because it doesn't have SELinux or systemd or most other autobooting crapware that comes running by default on Ubuntu for example. As for applications, Slackware has everything all other distros have.

Re: Slackware 7.1

[Anonymous Coward]

slack 14.2 with generic kernel, if you need de, xfce is a good compromise. a lot of the Linux are like automatic transmission, they may be 8 speed automatic but slack is "4 on the floor", so if you are so incline, slack is the way to go, you do have to do a bit more work with commensurate control. all in all, less bull, no big brother "systemd"

Re:Slackware 7.1

[Anonymous Coward]

What I love about Slackware is NO SYSTEMD.

Re:Slackware 7.1

[toddestan]

I'm sure the "just kidding" part is the 7.1 version, which came out around the same time as Windows 2000.

But there's absolutely no reason Slackware 14.2 won't run on that system, and Slackware is a great distro.

This is both ironic and a bit sad

[Anonymous Coward]

OP has had a decent laptop for almost 8 years and all along he has been running the old 10.6 version of osx because he had no idea how to update to 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 etc., thinking that 10.6 was the last version it could run. Computers really aren't for everyone.

(ps. your macbook can run many of the newer versions since 10.6, you just have to update.....)

Re:This is both ironic and a bit sad

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure OP is grateful for the passive insult.

I prefer to more direct, you useless turd.

5GB RAM Core-2 Duo 2.4 GHz

[hcs_$reboot]

Most distribs should run decently with that hardware.

"Old beautiful mint-condition" laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Rol!! Is this how Apple people talk?

You won't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows!

Linux subsystem.

Betchabygollywow!

I can understand your wanting a 10ft pole. We all want them longer, and uncut, but it's true. Believe me. I know.

Arch or Clear

[aglider]

I am not sure if they run on that specific hardware.

Install

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo :)

Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a similar issue with an '06-'08 iMac (I can't look now). AppStore won't let me install the latest High Sierra. It says my hardware is incompatible.

I'm stuck on Lion.

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

High Sierra won't run on a '06-08 iMac. I know at least Mavericks 10.9 will, and possibly even up to El Capitan, but you will have to acquire the installation disc/iso somewhere else than via the appstore because Apple only makes the current version available for download - you can still install and acquire patches for an older version of course.

Re:Same issue

[Carewolf]

I have a similar issue with an '06-'08 iMac (I can't look now). AppStore won't let me install the latest High Sierra. It says my hardware is incompatible.

I'm stuck on Lion.

You can update the firmware manually, and then the newst versions will install and run just fine. It is entirely artificial.

Re:Same issue

[carlhaagen]

Your old iMac will likely run El Capitan, and possibly even Sierra. You normally can't find these older versions in the AppStore since Apple only offers the current version of macOS in the search results, but you can access the downloads from here: 10.11 El Capitan: https://support.apple.com/en-a... 10.12 Sierra: https://support.apple.com/en-a...

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy older versions from apple too by calling their support line. They run about $25

Re:Same issue

[gordguide]

Best practice is to download but do not install every MacOS version as it's released. If you do that, every version of MacOS will be available to you in the AppleStore (provided you access it with that machine). If you have multiple Macs, do the same on each one.

Re:Same issue

[Grand Facade]

You can download Mavericks or ElCapitan or Sierra but you need another mac to do it and make the USB flash drive to install it.

I just went through this recently and had to go to the apple store and have a tech create the USB drives since I did not have another Apple machine to do it on.

I'm going to guess that you will not want to go higher than El Capitan, I think you will have hardware issues with Sierra or High Sierra.

Max out the your ram for best results and SSD you must.

Re:Same issue

[Grand Facade]

You will not want High Sierra, encrypted file system AFS.

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you have another Mac, its very simple. Put the installer into /Applications, and in this example setup Sierra installer bootable on a USB, external HDD, or even an SD card named Untitled:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't need another Mac for that. You can extract the disk image from the installation app and write that to a USB stick just fine - has worked for years and years, and still does.

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't join hidden SSIDs either.

Re:Same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

APFS is optional even on SSDs. People should read up on `defaults` instead of spreading FUD.

My 0.02

[DaMattster]

Why not consider running one of the BSDs on it? OpenBSD will cruise and you will have a very secure laptop.

Re:My 0.02

[Anonymous Coward]

What about power management?

Re:My 0.02

[Anonymous Coward]

Power management will cruise and you will have a very secure sleeping laptop!

It's not that old....

[mysidia]

You have a dual-core 64-bit processor there, I believe. I would try ElementaryOS or Linux Mint KDE first.

Of course if you REALLY want fastest, then you will need a distribution that has no desktop environment and simply drops you to a command prompt after installation --- that would be something like Ubuntu server, CentOS 7, or a minimal install of SuSE or Debian.

The biggest worry (IMO) with the old hardware is Spectre/Meltdown;l security risks which will likely never have a hardware/firmware-level mitigation released for such an old platform, as warranty expired; only the partial/temporary performance-killing workarounds that can be done by patching the kernel, thus the "fastest" choice of distro could be very well be to run a vulnerable/unpatched one.

Re:It's not that old....

[Zontar The Mindless]

OpenSUSE worked great on my 10-y-o single-core laptop until they dropped support for 32-bit.

There are many...

[wap3com]

I use distrowatch.com see what is hot.

MX-Linux [https://mxlinux.org/]

Dedoimedo [dedimedo.com] ranked it #1 XFCE for 2017.

Up to date with Firefox ESR, Thunderbird, LibreOffice
1.2g ISO

Requires CD/DVD [or system that boots USB]
i486 or AMD and above
512 MB Ram
5GB free disk space
UEFI or BIOS

Re:There are many...

[Bing Tsher E]

i486 or AMD and above

My motherboard has an AMD 80286 processor, you pratt.

Run the latest

[Anonymous Coward]

You got some information wrong there... I'm running the latest OS X version (High Sierra) in the previous model, still a Core 2 CPU. Yours will have no problem running OS X either.
Likewise, if you really want to opt for Linux any recent distro should work fine provided you opt out of the eye candy.

Re:Run the latest

[Zontar The Mindless]

5GB RAM is plenty for eye candy. Whether he wants the eye candy or not depends on what he intends to use the machine for.

Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware is generally the fastest Linux distro, since it is a 'cut the crap' kind of distro. It only has what is necessary. It feels orders of magnitude faster than Ubuntu for example.

Re:Slackware

[arth1]

I'd argue that Gentoo is far faster than Slackware. You get to compile everything for your particular CPU (in this case all the extra instructions a Core 2 Duo has compared to a generic x86), can build a kernel with just the hooks for the hardware you actually have, and build packages without things you don't need that only serves to gobble up memory and run extra code.
Binary distros, no matter how "light" they are, are going to be compiled to run on anything, with quite liberal guesses for what a user might actually want compiled in.

Re:Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo, Slackware and maybe Arch may be fast, but they have zero personality. They are differing degrees of hell to install. Linux has moved past 1994 and is quite usable now.

Re:Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also Void as well. Don't get me wrong. I like Slackware. But Void has grown on me. They have default binary packages by default but it's very easy to make your own packages. It's also a rolling release distro. And Void probably has the fastest boot time, only losing to an optimized Gentoo install. Not to mention Slackware started to include Pulseaudio by default. Like I'm using Void right now and it works fine without pulseaudio.

Re:Slackware

[Thumper_SVX]

While you're right, the difference in performance between the more generic compiles and a tuned compile on the particular hardware OP is asking about are so small as to be negligible. While I appreciate Gentoo, in particular in desktop type environments the amount of work required to set it up is just not rewarded by any appreciable improvements in performance or stability, and with Gentoo in particular I have found that you need to stay on top of maintenance and updates pretty religiously or you're going to get behind and get in a very bad place.

I stopped compiling Gentoo a decade ago... when I was using really old hardware (circa 2000-2005) yeah it could make a marked difference but anything with a Core2Duo or newer is really not going to see much if any improvement.

Re:Slackware

[ruir]

A rolling release is neither necessarily good or stable.

Antix

[Anonymous Coward]

Antix is fast, much faster than most other distros.

https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/82166.html

Speed it up with RAM, SSD

[Walter White]

I agree with others who have suggested upgrading the HDD to an SSD. That makes a huge difference even for a machine that may not fully support the fastest SATA speeds. According to this web page (if I have correctly identified the H/W) https://everymac.com/systems/a... this Mac can hold up to 8GB RAM. If it presently has 5 GB, it is presently populated with a 1GB stick and a 4GB stick. I would try to match the 4GB stick and bump the RAM to 8GB.

With this H/W you can reasonably run any Linux distro so the choice comes down to choosing a distro and desktop suitable for a new user. Ubuntu and Mint are both good candidates for easy installation. I would avoid Ubuntu 17.10 as it has a *lot* of new stuff like Wayland by default and a return to Gnome from Unity. 16.04 would be a good choice and it's an LTS version meaning it will be supported for a long time.

For a desktop I would consider XFCE or Mate. Both are fairly functional without being too bloated. Some people like the default Unity desktop on Ubuntu which was originally targeted at netbooks. I cannot comment on KDE because I don't use it but there are those that like it a lot and report that it is not a resource hog. Someone mentioned fvwm2. That was my window manager of choice 20 years ago when I ran Linux on a 486 with 4 MB RAM and a few GB of disk drive. I recommend a full blown modern desktop environment for ease of use for a new user. The nice thing about Linux is that you can install and test drive any of these desktops and choose the one to try from the login screen.

Re:Speed it up with RAM, SSD

[j-beda]

According to the linked website, this machine supports 16GB, as well as the latest version of macOS, 10.13 (as well as 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, and 10.12).

Install Linux if one wants, but upgrading to the latest version of macOS is probably a "simpler" way of addressing the "out of date browsers" issue.

Re:Speed it up with RAM, SSD

[Anonymous Coward]

> That was my window manager of choice 20 years ago when I ran Linux on a 486 with 4 MB RAM and a few GB of disk drive.

There is something subtly wrong with this sentence, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Capcha: crystal

Re:Speed it up with RAM, SSD

[Walter White]

You are correct. I read "... but third-parties have determined that it actually supports 8 GB of RAM" Had I continued reading I would have seen "... and 16 GB of RAM running OS X 10.7.5 "Lion" or higher and the latest EFI update."

I agree that if it can run the current version of MacOS that would be the preferred solution.

You might try an XFCE based linux such as Xubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Xubuntu and I love the clean interface and it is lightning fast even on older hardware. My desktop box is about 4-5 years old now but I don't feel any need to upgrade as it is still very snappy.

Define terms

[mi]

So this leaves me with Linux.

Or one of the BSDs... Maybe, even Solaris will work...

What is the fastest, most efficient and powerful distro

What is "the fastest"? The same program, with the same input will produce the same output in the same time under the same conditions...

The other terms — "efficient" and "powerful" — are even more vague.

The usual advice is: pick, what the person you'll be asking questions uses...

"Intel Power-loss Protection" is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just a tiny capacitor that keeps power going for another second.

So just get a $3 sata power plug or a $10 nvme riser/adapter card with extra capacitor, and every SSD will have "Enterprise Power Protection".

macOS High Sierra

[DontBeAMoran]

https://everymac.com/systems/a...

Apple officially supports a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have determined that it actually supports 8 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and 16 GB of RAM running OS X 10.7.5 "Lion" or higher and the latest EFI update.

Pre-Installed MacOS: X 10.6.3
Maximum MacOS: Current

So update EFI, upgrade RAM to 16GB, swap HDD for SSD and install the latest macOS.

Problem solved.

Re:macOS High Sierra

[Anonymous Coward]

I updated an 2009 iMac 9,1 to High sierra using the tool from http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/, put in an ssd in an enclosure where the cd drive used to be, a modern hdd, maxed out the ram, yanked out the screen which had died, hooked it up to an external monitor, and now it is a dedicated casual gaming computer for my kid. I had to run OnyX to clear the right caches per dosdude1's instructions to make Safari happy, works like a charm.

Re:macOS High Sierra

[kamapuaa]

So update EFI, upgrade RAM to 16GB, swap HDD for SSD and install the latest macOS.

This is the best answer and really should be +5. The only issue is, looking on Ebay it's a $100 laptop. Is it really worth putting a couple hundred dollars of new parts into it? Personally I would upgrade the OS and leave it at that.

Re:macOS High Sierra

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, if it won't even work as a laptop what do you get out of it? It's basically just an incredibly shitty old computer that won't run any game your kid wants to play and uses too much electricity.

Re:macOS High Sierra

[The123king]

It might be a better option than spending $600 on a new one.

Re:macOS High Sierra

[SuiteSisterMary]

A few caveats:

This system can run the last version of OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" and OS X 10.11 "El Capitan," although advanced feature support is minimal (Mac-to-Mac AirDrop is supported). When running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" it is not supported booting in 64-bit mode. It is capable of running macOS Sierra (10.12) as well, although the Universal Clipboard, Auto Unlock, and Apple Pay features are not supported. Finally, this model is capable of running macOS High Sierra (10.13), and it supports HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding), but it does not support hardware accelerated HEVC.

Additionally, please note that OS X "Lion" 10.7 and subsequent versions of OS X are not capable of running Mac OS X apps originally written for the PowerPC processor as these operating systems do not support the "Rosetta" environment. To run PowerPC applications on this Mac, it will be necessary to use Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard".

Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Android

I have an MBP 5,1 with Linux...

[tomxor]

I agree with others here that the DE is the more resource hungry consideration than the distro. I use Debian + i3wm on my MBP 5,1 and it's faster than any Apple OS that ever ran on it. I know that i3wm is probably the main reason for that, if I installed gnome3 (which i'm not entirely against) I expect It would be quite a lot slower. i3wm is the most friendly of the tiling window managers if you wanted to go down that route, once you do you tend not to go back.

ChromeOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about https://www.neverware.com?

Just upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get to an Apple Store, just book a Genius Bar appointment and they'll do a clean install of High Sierra for you right at the bar. Then you can restore your data onto it. Even better would be to install an SSD in place of the Hard Drive first.

Re:Just upgrade

[mfnickster]

If I'm not up for buying a whole new machine, I get a new drive and install the new OS onto it, then applications, then migrate user accounts.

If anything goes wrong, I can just pop the old drive back in and be back where I was...and if it goes right, I have a snapshot backup at the ready.

Use Slackware.

[sombragris]

I will second the other commenters who suggest to install Slackware. According to your Mac's specs, they are plentiful for running 14.2 or -current.

In Slackware64-current you can have the latest and greatest GNU/Linux software. Kernel 4.14.4, the latest Plasma 5, the latest iterations of MATE and Cinnamon, Firefox 58, Chromium 63.0.3239.132, LibreOffice 5.4.4...

If possible I would increase the RAM but that's not really necessary if you plan to limit yourself to light browsing or text editing.

Use Slackware; it's simple, it's fast, it's light. It's not perfect, but I think it fits your bill.

broad question

[v1]

If you ask THIS group "what distro is best for (anything)" within a few hours you're going to get at least one suggestion for every distro known to mankind.

People are going to tend to suggest what works best for them. You haven't provided enough context of what you want to use it for, or how you want it to work for you, or what you're comfortable with, to even begin to weed out the extreme suggestions.

My rule of thumb on asking for advice for computer purchases or OS installs is "If you ask for advice, and someone immediately gives you ideas without asking you some questions, they aren't telling you what they think is best for you, they are telling you what they think is best for them." When anyone asks me for such advice, I ask them several questions so I can figure out their needs and decide on a few options that are best for them.

- You've already answered what hardware you have. That's a start
- do you mostly use a gui, mostly (or exclusively) use command line, or do you want good support for both?
- do you want your options somewhat limited but setup to be mostly automatic and easy, or are you comfortable with manually setting things up so you have more control and more options?
- are there specific pieces of software you need to be able to run? (provide urls) Do you have a specific repo you want to use?
- are you likely to need to rely somewhat on a specific person you know for technical support, that may only be fluent in (or willing to support) a specific distro? (which one(s)) or are you equally open to any options?
- is there any other specific hardware you would like to have support for? (a laser printer, your favorite gaming mouse, an iPad, etc)
- are there any distros you already favor or want to avoid?

that will get us warmed up and help narrow the field.

antix

[Anonymous Coward]

antix has great tools, a helpful community forum, and updated applications bolted on top of debian stable.
There is a community repo that has all kind of latest backports, and the packaging team can usually package up anything you need.

hahaha, fast not a consideration

[iggymanz]

That machine is plenty beefy enough to run any full-monty linux with heavy desktop.

Example of old would be my Thinkpad T-41 running Debian with xfce,

Flowers online

[Anonymous Coward]

https://flowerportal.in/

Why Linux when FreeBSD is a better fit

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why not look into using the same underpinnings as OSX and stick to FreeBSD plus it avoids the SystemD issues completely. Use the Darwin Environment (if still in development) and you're looking at something close to what you have now.

Another possible benefit is that many of your closed source apps may actually be usable under FreeBSD - thus saving some of the investment.

Re:Why Linux when FreeBSD is a better fit

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why not look into using the same underpinnings as OSX and stick to FreeBSD plus it avoids the SystemD issues completely. Use the Darwin Environment (if still in development) and you're looking at something close to what you have now.

Have you actually ever tried this?

Re:Why Linux when FreeBSD is a better fit

[The123king]

I ran PC-BSD as my main OS for 6 months. Never crashed once. Wine ran fine on it, and most major linux software had a pre-compiled binary available. Ran fine, solid as a rock.

Linux OTOH suffered several kernel panics, and an update totally borked all graphical support. Ever since then i won't even entertain the idea of using Linux as a desktop OS. I'd rather use Haiku (which i had installed at the same time, and was still more reliable)

Re:Why Linux when FreeBSD is a better fit

[Anonymous Coward]

> I ran PC-BSD as my main OS for 6 months. Never crashed once.

Was that on a Mac?

Also running a BSD won't get you close to a Mac experience. Even if you can run GNUStep none of the goodies Apple includes in the OS will be there. And AFAIK there is nothing to replace Quartz.

Mate

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu mate 16.04 runs great on my 2.2ghZ 2gb ram pc

Re:Be careful. Linux can corrupt Apple's firmware

[Chromium_One]

Corrupted firmware? What had to get re-flashed on OS install?

Yeah, that sounds rather dubious to me. It seems far more likely something went wrong with the EFI partition and someone involved in the process managed to get those concepts confused.

Are you sure about your CPU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Core 2 Duo limited to 4 Gig RAM? And even then it was not all usable because of the chipset limitations. Either the amount of RAM you stated is wrong, or the CPU is wrong.

Also, is it 32 bits or 64 bits? As I recall latter incarnations of Core 2 Duo were 64 bit which gives you more options.

Re:Are you sure about your CPU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Core 2 Duo is 64-bit. You must be thinking of Core Duo.

http://lowendmac.com/2008/aluminum-macbook-late-2008/
http://lowendmac.com/2010/unibody-macbook-mid-2010/

Re:Are you sure about your CPU?

[farrellj]

You are close...it's not that the CPU is 32 or 64 bit, it is the BIOS. There is a hack to use a Mac OS 32 bit bootloader and allow you to load a number 64 bit Mac OS versions on to your Mac. I've seen this done on an old iMac, google around a bit and I am sure that you can find a Youtube video showing how to do it.

Re:Are you sure about your CPU?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were a few 32bit x86 servers with 8GB RAM (at least). There's 36 bit addressing on Pentium Pro and up.
32bit linux can even support this without configuring.

Perhaps some Core Duo system would support 8GB, or very nearly would with a very slightly newer chipset or firmware revision albeit that would be a curiosity.

Re:Are you sure about your CPU?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Perhaps some Core Duo system would support 8GB

Why don't you actually read the system specs instead of talking out of your ass?

MAC resurrections

[Anonymous Coward]

I have replaced mac os with Mint KDEnow, 18.3, with kernel 14.14. But since Mint's dropping KDE have started the switch to Manjaro. The 2011 MBP was utterly broken (trackpad, mouse...) and the "genius" folks were mystified because their hardware checks found no problems. It's a new machine now, Mint 18.3 works flawlessly, and Manjaro will replace it when the time comes. Speed is good, control is better....

Nobody cares; you have a macbook you coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me when you support the companies and community actually working to ensure we have chipsets that can be supported *properly* under GNU/Linux.

Lubuntu + LXQt

[Anonymous Coward]

I and my family have been using Lubuntu, but then with LXQt installed and using xwfm. At the moment it takes a bit of fiddling (it won't hopefully by 18.04) but it is super kind on the resources and is a better desktop experience than I've had from KDE for years (and much better than Gnome or Unity).

07 MacMini 2GHz Core2Duo 2GB RAM and GMA 945G here

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian with XFCE4 desktop runs pretty well. I can even watch Netflix albeit I can't do much else while watching. I think latter NVidia chipsets had support for h.264 so your Macbook should fly.

Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda funny how a Microsoft os would work and be supported on a Mac that Apple no longer supports.

Solus (Budgie)

[uncle slacky]

Solus is entirely independent (not a derivative of Debian or Red Hat etc.) and compiled to maximise speed (using the same improvements used by Intel for their Clear Linux).

elementary OS

[discowriter]

I think you should look for a replacement, not the fastest distro. elementary OS is Linux and looks like macOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

From the same boat

[SirCowMan]

Those spec's aren't too bad, I've just replaced an aging X300 with a T420s, as the softer parts have been giving out (screen bezel, speaker covers, etc.). The X300 uses an ultra-low-voltage processor at 1.2ghz, pretty anemic, had 4 GB RAM in it. I used/use Gentoo. With not much more than setting some USE flags, able to strip it of all the freedesktop stuff (consolekit, policykit, dbus, systemd, pulseaudio, etc.); have Fluxbox for the windows manager, wpa_gui + cbatticon in the tray and that is really quite lean yet fully capable of running what I wants (browser, terminals, etc).

Compile times have grown, but so long as one avoids anything with webkit and libreoffice/openoffice source builds, updates were manageable.

While I wouldn't directly recommend this route due to the probable compiling times of a typical install, it may be worthwhile if you're patient or willing to compile elsewhere (/setup some help via distcc). At a minimum though, whatever linux you might choose, would suggest compiling a custom kernel for it. There is a bit of room to eek out performance and battery life by removing the unnecessary (and perhaps being a bit caviler with the security features)..best of luck!!

Re:Be careful. Linux can corrupt Apple's firmware

[Anonymous Coward]

The low-level (pre EFI if I remember right) firmware was corrupt in a weird way. The boot chime was delayed by two minutes, and cold boots would always fail to find the OS. Rebooting caused the same two-minute boot chime day, but then the OS (Linux or macOS) would be found and boot as if nothing happened. Truly bizarre.

try installing osx on unsupported MacBook

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd look at tonymac and see if you can install El capitain, Sierra or high Sierra.

Installing Linux will probably result in video card driver difficulties and will likely be a bad experience. (That's how it was for my MacBook pro 5,2 with Linux mint anyhow)

Like most users suggest you should Max out the ram and install SSD and go for the most modern osx you can shoehorn in.

LFS

[thegarbz]

Linux From Scratch would be by far the fastest and most efficient thing you could put on there. http://www.linuxfromscratch.or... It's also the most powerful in terms of customisation.

That was an easy one to answer. Give us something harder next time, like a requirement to do something useful with your OS :-)

Re:"Intel Power-loss Protection" is bullshit - NOT

[flatulus]

I know I'm replying to score 0 AC, but misinformation should not be suffered to live.

Power loss protection is more than just extra charge in a capacitor. The important feature is that the SSD controller NOTICES when external power is lost and uses the on-board storage capacitor to keep it running long enough to flush the controller's RAM cache to flash in the SSD. On re-power, the controller can restore this dumped cache and return to operation with no lost data.

Just having a capacitor, without the controller feature of sensing unexpected power loss and dumping cache to flash IS bullshit. But this is not what Intel provides with their "power loss protection" feature

Since we're throwing brand names around, it is my understanding that Crucial MX300 SSDs also include this feature, but I really don't know as much about them as I do the Intels. Also Samsung enterprise SSDs (e.g. SM863a, PM863a) offer the same power loss protection feature. They *are* enterprise grade drives. They are white labeled by Dell, by the way.

7,1 is old?

[Anonymous Coward]

My man, you need XFCE in your life. OpenSUSE 13.2 (change repos to "Tumbleweed") or AntiX Linux would run really well on it. Give up on Ubuntu. They bend over backwards for Micro$oft now and only care about 64-bit, snaps, and eye candy. Just make sure to install rEFIt or rEFInd to get a /boot/efi partition and boot the distro's EFI version from the DVD/USB. This way, you're not booting off of the disc and choosing "Boot from Hard Drive" option just to get a GRUB menu after an install each time you turn it on. The lessons we learn...

puppy linux has a great new build.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it as a usb os.

Try MacOS High Sierra

[wayward_son]

The MacBook 7,1 WILL run High Sierra. This is probably your best bet.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-core-2-duo-2.4-white-13-polycarbonate-unibody-mid-2010-specs.html

If you really want to run Linux, you've got enough power to run whatever you want. Kubuntu or KDE Neon would give you a nice balance of functionality and performance. I'm running Kubuntu on a MacBook 3,1 which has the garbage GMA x3100 video and it is running just fine.

The big issue with the MacBook 7,1 is trying to get the proprietary nvidia drivers to work with EFI boot. Otherwise, you are stuck with nouveau, and nouveau sucks.

Try Bodhi Linux

[AHuxley]

Bodhi Linux http://www.bodhilinux.com/
Read about the ISO images.
http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/se...
A 64bit operating system is supported.
Need a 32bit release with no PAE extension?
Thats supported with the Legacy 32bit release.

Re:Try Bodhi Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried a couple of times to install Bodhi. Both times it worked fine, right up until I did an "apt-get upgrade" using nothing but the default, built-in, vanilla repositories, then it didn't boot at all any more with no fix that I could find.
Haven't tried it again since.

What I use on my old macbook air (obtained free)

[Anonymous Coward]

Devuan with xfce or lxde, depending on whim.

I have tested a bunch of distros and while all of them worked (including recent Ubuntu versions) Devuan boots fastest and runs smoothest.
I use the machine for general browsing and photo/video editing when away from home.

True that it is not as fast as it could be but it works a hella lot better than newer Macos versions.
My one regret is that I have been unable to get any of the good *BSDs to run on the thing.

What about PowerBook G4 (PowerPC) from 2002?

[antdude]

I tried various Linux, but lots of stuff were just too slow. :(

Lubuntu Would Work Fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Lubuntu (LXDE) or Xubuntu (XDE) would work fine. To be honest, I think pretty much any Linux distro would be usable on the box but those two use light-weight desktop environments that don't have all the cool desktop effects, so they don't require as much GPU horsepower or RAM.

I have a more modern system with lots of RAM and I still use LXDE because I like the simpler layout, but I'm not sure how you'll feel coming from an eye-candy Mac environment. The best bet is to pick a couple distros (MATE was mentioned above, and might be a good choice) and then go to Youtube to see some walkthroughs. Find one you like and then go grab it. Most have "LiveCDs" that you can run off of a USB stick to play around with to see if you like it without having to wipe your current OS.

Re: Be careful. Linux can corrupt Apple's firmware

[wayward_son]

I had a similar problem. Resetting the PRAM fixed it.

x/l-ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

xubuntu or lubuntu will do fine

This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

People lost all touch with reality.

Suggestions to use Window Maker, evilwm and whatever wm one happens to remember.

This is an excellent machine.

For comparison, I have an old (not that old!) XP machine which now runs Mint Xfce 18.x. It serves as banking computer and to access places which require smart cards (e.g. IRS in my country). The PC has 1GB RAM and a 1.7GHz Celeron and it works nicely. BTW, Clement dude, PDFs must have a text selection mode -- because we copy the digits over the bar code in a bill to paste them directly on the banking page. I had to make Chrome the default for opening those kinds of files...

2.4GHz is not much, but 5GB RAM will make the computer fly.

Zorin has a lite version, Mint is great... with that kind of RAM, just check DEs and go with the one which uses less CPU (I seems to recall it was Mate), for RAM is not the limiting factor. Good luck. Don't expect ultra-high performance, but depending on the graphics hardware, you might be able to watch netflix (maybe just HD, though, not Full HD).

antiX

[bigtreeman]

Have a look at antiX, choice of light desktops and definitely put in an SSD
http://antix.mepis.org/index.p...
even goes well on my old MSI Wind

You can run the current version of MacOS on that

[sdw]

I have a 2010 6,1 running the current MacOS and the current web browsers. I need to swap the hard drive for an SSD, and RAM is limited to 8GB, but otherwise it works well. It is easy to install current MacOS versions on any Mac: Clone a bootable backup, with Carbon Copy Cloner for instance, boot from that backup on your old laptop, and clone it to the internal drive.

linux - macos

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Macbook from late 2009 and it has 8GB and a SDD. High Sierra works very good, and you have brew if you want like a linux repository on it.
The latest Fedora Workstation also works very good on it and also Ubuntu.
So if you want GNU/Linux you can try Ubuntu or Fedora.

Silly, useless question

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but the car equivalent is : "I have an aging car from (famous vendor), it has a 240 HP six cylinder engine. Do you think I can drive it on a highway with a 65 MPH speed limit?"

The answer is yes.

Re:ae911truth dot org

[The123king]

I wish you were a blow job. I'm sure your mother does too.

Any XFCE Distro or LXDE Distro Should do the trick

[thedude1249]

You should be able to run a relatively new version of Mac OS X + SSD and your computer should be good.
But to answer the question, i'm usually on Ubuntu Distros, so in this case, Lubuntu and Xubuntu tends to be my Go-To for Older machines and it has yet to disappoint.

Available Here: https://lubuntu.net/ https://xubuntu.org/
Hope this helps

OSX Similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to keep a lot of the design aesthetic you could install Elementary OS.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mac - Linux?!

[peetm]

Pardon my lack of knowledge; but, it's possible to install Linux on a Mac (but not Windows)? And the same with BSD? Holy smokes - when'd that happen!?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

crunchbang++

[hoover]

I run cbpp on a few notebooks with similar specs (less RAM though) and it works quite nicely.

Why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, all the creimer trolls intentionally nest their comments as deeply as possible specifically to keep them out of the main thread. Your obsession with APK and rapid progressions from hippie to cussing has me thinking you're probably creimer.

Numerous people have thanked us for what we're doing AND no matter how clearly it's explained you fail to grok that creimer has circumvented the moderation system. His -2 terrible karma is the will of slashdot but creimer has come up with complicated schemes to artificially inflate his score. Making sock puppets who collect karma through story submissions and bland posts, who then mod up his posts. The end goal here is for him to make high visibility monetized links to amazon.

If you're not creimer I know this seems like an insane amount of work for nothing but he doesn't make sense unless you've observed creimer.

Creier is the bully here he is just at a disadvantage, he's hostile, belligerant, and nobody is making him come here for his abuse. He's even attempted to dox people. If the tables were turned and it was 5 creimer clones ganged up on one of us I think it would be pretty ugly. We could get him in trouble at work for violating the conditions of his employment, report him for DMCA fraud, and tell his entire neighborhood he's a creep who has talked about buying an underage wife in mexico. But no. We don't even troll the open comments on his youtube videos.

He doesn't even have to go away he can just get a new account and behave and nobody will ever know.

Why do you care about some stranger who is getting shit talked deep in the comments section of some dying website? Why do you double down with your objections when you have already admitted you don't have the faintest clue what's going on? Slashdot cannot sustain 1000 random spam posts a month without a significant reduction in quality. In the old days he'd be IP banned but our corporate ownership is not interested in wasting time playing mod, they won't even fix the comment score slider so it works on all popular browsers. I don't blame them but we're on our own to defend the site.

Re:Why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I'm not creimer nor do I even know him, I'm just another casual reader who's tired of wading through all your SHIT just to find a few worthwhile comments.

Re:Why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh so you browse at 0 and -1 and you're upset about the low quality? I thought we made it clear retards aren't welcome here.
Don't call me names either.. as you say two wrongs don't make a right.

Now you've admitted twice that you have no clue what's going on
It follows that you also don't know how bad creimer would shit the place up compared to what his trolls do.
So that means you're unqualified to to decide if I'm the solution or the problem. Numerous people have thanked up for containing creimer.

If you want higher quality comments then dial up the comment-o- meter to only show high quality posts. Most stories get dozens so if you can't manage to find a good comment thread then that's your fault. I manage to spend all my mod points and do 10 metamods a day at -1 and it only takes me a few minutes so I'm not really sure what's wrong with you.

linux on a old mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Ubuntu Mate. Its simple, fast, bug free, well thought out. Plus, I just want to get things done and not be trapped in distro la-la land.