Laptops from over 5 years ago are well supported by Linux (for the most part). However, the very modern laptops have bits and pieces that aren’t supported, from fan profiles, to the new intel webcams etc. They will run Linux, but you might fry them if your fans don’t work properly. So your best bet would be to get either an old one (I got a Macbook Air from 2015 with 8GB RAM, works great), or get a Tuxedo, or a System76 one, or a couple more Linux-specific ones. And it’s not because suddenly Linux does worse job supporting hardware, but it’s because these machines are. getting more complex and they need drivers for every little thing. Back in the day, things were more generic (e.g. the fans) and worked with a single driver.

With 4 GB of RAM you will be limited, so either XFce or Mint are your best bet (and edit their StartUp pref panel to disable some services – that will save you 200 MB of RAM). I wouldn’t put Gnome on a machine with 4 GB of RAM, it’ll start swapping before long.

Not sure why you say that “ubuntu studio is absolutely not an option”. You don’t give any reason why it’s not an option. Ubuntu studio has special scripts to make things like jack2 work in pipewire correctly, for one. I couldn’t get Presonus StudioOne to get any sound on my Mint installation without that ubuntu studio setup script, for example.

Reaper is nothing like Ableton, it’s its own thing, and you’ll need to get used to it. Ardour is another option, Bitwig, and some others I mention here: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/113358203445896735

LMMS is mostly for electronic/midi music (the UI is like FL Studio’s). For recording, you’ll need to download their .appimage dev-build (they implemented it a few months ago). Still no vst3 support in it though.

And you’ll need to get a supported audio interface, you can’t judge audio quality via BT.

Personally, I’d go for Linux Mint and do these things: 1. Install a theme that pleases you visually, 2. Edit startup sessions to not load useless things (I’ve even turned off bluetooth) 3. Uninstall fwupd (you don’t need that on a mac), 4. Uninstall the evolution-data-server 5. install the ubuntustudio pipewire config script, 6. install the daw you like, and use the pipewire connection kit to make sure you get sound out of it.

On my Mint, I’ve been able to get it down to 700 MB of RAM on a clean boot (out of 1.3 GB by default). That gives some headroom to do better web browsing or media work.

I do the same for my friends and family, installing linux for them while their laptops only have 2 or 4 gb of ram. XFce with debian on slow hardware, mint on 4 gb laptops with medium speed. However, for something really low end, do consider Haiku, as I wrote earlier.

With that little ram, you’re better off with jwm, lxqt, lxde, or icewm. Not xfce or mate, that require over 600-800 MB of ram just to start up. In fact, with so low ram, you’re better off with something like Haiku.

No, none of them are. I tried 2-3 versions of it, none is good. However, Android on the other hand, which is also linux-based, is good. Go for Murena’s e/OS, or LineageOS.

You can still install other distros, but the power profiles won’t work well, and you might fry your cpu if the fans don’t kick in – for example.

Enough packages show up.

I avoid flatpaks, so I don’t mind.

Linux Mint, because I don’t like to tinker with the system, I like good defaults (and Mints has them).

Yeah, I don’t understand flatness either. Neither I understand the dark themes either. My eyes and brain simply can’t do the separation easily, I spend more time trying to process an image. Old style icons and UI colors are the best IMHO.

I’ve tried several distros to fit on my repurposed Chromebooks that came with 16 GB emmc storage. Debian was the smallest one, using by default about 5.5 GB of data, plus 1 GB for swap, plus the boot partition. I had about 9 GB left after installing, with XFCE. After I installed a few apps and games, I ended up with 6 GB free space. It works fine and it updates fine.

I don’t like flatpaks. Some builds don’t support printing, for example. Same for snaps. That’s why I always prefer appimage from these types of binaries, but my favorite always remains the repo versions.

Gimp 3 is scheduled to be released in May, around the time that Debian 13 is about to come out. Given that Gimp is never on time, and that Debian will only include stable software in their repo, you won’t see Gimp 3.x on Debian for another 2.5 years (the next major release).

However, don’t fret. There’s a way to run Gimp 3, even now, without overwriting the 2.10.x version of Gimp that comes with Debian: https://github.com/ivan-hc/GIMP-appimage/releases That’s how I run gimp 3 on my Debian too, I just download the 3.0-rc1 .appimage file, make it executable, and it’s up and running.

I’d say Linux Mint is your best bet. It’s easy to use and it works well. Update it after you install it, and then install a new menu applet for it, Cinnamenu (from the applets dialog). It’s much nicer than the default imho.

You are making a mistake. You are comparing an Android or iOS tablet, that have a user interface that makes sense for these devices, and you’re trying to shoehorn Linux in them, and expect the same “fine enough”. It won’t be, because while it might work, it won’t be ideal. Linux was optimized to be used as a desktop OS, with a mouse or touchpad. You’d have to install something like LineageOS to get it working properly, but then you will lose the cool abilities of a linux desktop for the most part. Conclusion: get a tablet if you want, but don’t throw away your laptop.

Edit: Also, this was posted just an hour ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H669Fwtv-3o

Can’t wait, it’s becoming really usable (I always needed adjustment layers, and it now mostly has them). I wish they offered an appimage though, I’m not big on flatpaks due to size.

Actually, I’d trust the Graphene guys’ evaluation. They do know what they’re talking about there. And it’s true that Playstore is more secure than foss store offerings, unfortunately. You see, these are built securely. Google is a security-driven company. That much is true, and I know that first hand. BUT they are not a PRIVACY-driven company. There is a difference here.

What we need, is a totally de-googled Chromium with added hardened extensions (e.g. bringing back the v2 manifest to run various privacy and security extensions). This would have more security than Firefox, but also more privacy.

I believe that’s the best way forward, because creating a new web browser from scratch with these performance expectations, is a pipe dream (looking at you, ladybird). So, yeah, the open source community needs to fork chromium, not firefox. Firefox was never great to begin with as a technology, it’s measurably slower than Chrome for example, and it uses a LOT more RAM. Linux users are known to want to resurrect old computers with less than 4 GB of ram (I’m one of them), firefox can’t deliver that. I always have to resort to Chrome to make it bearable. But I rather use an official foss fork instead. One that is trusted.

Everyone is replying as if the OP is asking about normal live environments, but I think he’s asking about having Linux actually fully installed on a usb instead of the ssd. In that case, most of the replies don’t apply. However, Mint has a way to install itself properly on a usb drive. Boot with the burned iso, insert a second usb drive, unmount it, and then install on it (you choose it during installation). It has to be unmounted first.

It doesn’t matter if we “people use it in new projects”, but rather, we often have to compile stuff that use them. So they need to be around, regardless of how bad they are. Just last week my husband had to compile two emulators that used autotools.

A Cirrus Logic, on VLB on my 486DX/40, with 4 MB of RAM, and a SoundBlaster card. December 1994.