Recommended Linux distro for an Acer Aspire One netbook?

[Moonchild]

I'm wondering if someone can help me pick the best Linux distro for an Acer Aspire One 532h-2Bb netbook that I have.

Specs of the machine:

• Atom N-450 CPU, 1.66 GHz, dual core
• 2 GB of Ram
• WD1600BEVT Western Digital HDD, 160 GB
• Intel GMA 3150 GPU
• Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder
• Built-in Webcam
• Realtek HD Audio
• Synaptics touch pad
• Atheros AR81 family Gbit ethernet (wired)
• Atheros AR5B95 Wireless adapter
• Intel N10/ICH7 system board controller (USB/PCI-e/etc.)

The only reason I currently have XP on it instead of Win 7 is the CrystalHD decoder chip. I haven't been able to find drivers for Win 7 for it and it is essential for my intended use. I'm assuming Linux support for it is available since the netbook had a Linux option out of the factory.
XP however is really not usable anymore for anything, so I'm hoping for a compatible Linux distro that gives me the options I need as well as the hardware support.

I need:

• Support for a delphi Windows application (password manager, PINs) under WINE
• A dropbox client to synchronize
• A windows-like desktop environment
• Synaptics touchpad support with pointer momentum
• A DE that works well on a smaller screen (1024x600 px)
• An efficient media player that can play at least 720p on that hardware, using the CrystalHD decoder
• Automatic updates and frustration-free software management

Suggestions?

[Alexander]

Q4OS comes to mind - https://q4os.org/ I'd go with 32-bit edition considering there are only 2 GB of RAM. It looks like Windows, is simple to use for new users and isn't planning to deprecate 32-bit support anytime soon. Since it's based on Debian, drivers shouldn't be the problem. P.S. Make sure to allocate big enough swap partition during the install - 4GB should be enough, otherwise you might easily run out of memory.

[tuxman]

Gentoo would work just fine on it if you're not in a hurry. Otherwise, Void is neat for older hardware.

[filip]

If you're after stability, then Debian with XFCE.
Xubuntu should be good as well, and be easier to setup, however from what I've read Ubuntu 18.04 has been bashed pretty hard for the issues it has ( likelly fixed mostly for the 18.04.1 ).
Anyhow, I'd personally stick to Debian. It's rock solid after the initial bit of hurdle to set it up to one's liking.

Or, of rolling is preffered, then certanly Void!

If you go Deb/Ubuntu route:

> Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder

You'll need to install the firmware first, which is non-free, so you will need "non-free" repo enabled. https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList#Exa ... urces.list

Code: Select all

#Once non-free is enabled:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install firmware-crystalhd gstreamer1.0-crystalhd libcrystalhd3 

> An efficient media player that can play at least 720p on that hardware, using the CrystalHD decoder

VLC should work fine, even for 1080p. However, from what I've read, it may need the command line switch ( vlc --codec crystalhd ) to actually use the decoder ( v2.1 did, maybe it's "fixed" in later versions ).
Anyway, if it doesn't work by default, you can edit the .desktop file to append the switch ( which will be overwritten if VLC is upgraded )... To keep it short, if it's necessary in the first place, and you need help, let me know.

> A dropbox client to synchronize

https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux

If you go with XFCE desktop, do install Thunar (XFCE file manager) plugin, which will get you Dropbox related items into context menu:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install thunar-dropbox-plugin

> Automatic updates and frustration-free software management

Code: Select all

# GUI:
sudo apt install synaptic

Auto updates: https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades

> Support for a delphi Windows application (password manager, PINs) under WINE

https://wiki.debian.org/Wine
Or if you want the latest version, with lots of patches and fixes, use "wine-staging": https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian

> A windows-like desktop environment
> Synaptics touchpad support with pointer momentum
> A DE that works well on a smaller screen (1024x600 px)

XFCE will run smoothly on that machine, and it's also ridiculously stable and dependable while not getting in the way.
Synaptics with accelleration is supported.
Regarding the screen space, you can put the panel on top, with the window title and controls and enable borderless maximize, which should get you this:


The plugin is not packaged in Debian. So you'll need to build it yourself, or let me know and I'll upload the package for you.
https://github.com/cedl38/xfce4-windowck-plugin

Also, if you prefer Win7 style start menu ( with search ), do install "xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin" and add it to the panel.
https://gottcode.org/xfce4-whiskermenu- ... ermenu.png & https://gottcode.org/xfce4-whiskermenu- ... search.png

If any further info/help needed, do let me know.

[Night Wing]

My suggestion is 32 bit Linux Mint 19 (Tara) with the Xfce desktop environment. Xfce is not as resource intensive as the other Mint desktop environments (Cinnamon, Mate). Over on the Mint forums, there are a few people, the last time I checked, which were running XP in the Xfce desktop environment, but they might be running Mint 18.3 (Sylvia) so you'll just have to check.

Mint 19 is supported untill 2023 and Mint 18.3 is supported until 2021.

https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php

[tooshorttoolong]

I have an Atom N270 1024×600 netbook on which I used to run Xubuntu 12.04. It worked ok but I can’t say Xfce was perfectly adapted to this small resolution (not only Xfce but also apps tend to open windows that are bigger). I was considering installing a tiling window manager, mainly controlled with the keyboard, to help with this and the crappy touchpad, but never did it.
Also newer versions of Xubuntu stopped working correctly due to an issue with the screensaver. And the Ubuntu software center was incredibly slow.

Gentoo is of course out of the question due to the extreme difficulty of installing and maintaining it, on top of the compilation times on an Atom (I use Gentoo on two computers, but not on the netbook).

I don’t really have a distro suggestion, but for the stability and ease of maintenance requirements, I’d look at something Debian-based. Either with a tiling window manager or LXQt. Maybe look at lubuntu or antix (I haven’t used either).

The crystal hd codec thing should work on all the distros if it works at all.
Edit: I recommend mpv as a video player, and I see it has a crystalhd option.

[Isengrim]

For the broadest driver support for your setup, your best bet is probably a Debian-based OS such as Ubuntu (or Kubuntu or Lubuntu or Xubuntu) or Mint.

I have not used too many different distros or DEs, so take my word with a grain of salt... But having come from years of Windows XP and 7 useage, Linux Mint with the Cinnamon DE was quite easy for me to pick up and learn. With your limited hardware configuration however, you may want to opt for a lighter-weight DE such as XFCE, though I'm not sure how that compares to Cinnamon in terms of its "Windowsiness". I highly recommend making one or two (or twelve) live boot USBs with different OSes and DEs to try out their look and feel on your laptop before fully installing anything.

I think Filip hit the nail on the head with regards to most of your requirements. I haven't found much on Synaptics pointer momentum in Linux, but this unfortunately doesn't make it sound very promising.

[Night Wing]

With your limited hardware configuration however, you may want to opt for a lighter-weight DE such as XFCE, though I'm not sure how that compares to Cinnamon in terms of its "Windowsiness".

With Mint Xfce, one can make Xfce look very similar to Windows 7 since Xfce is highly customizable in my opinion. Since I have Windows 7 as my backup operating system to linux Mint, this is why I chose the Mint Xfce desktop environment as my default linux distro. And the use and feel of Xfce reminds me of Windows 7 as well.

[ron_1]

For me, Mate was the DE that most closely resembles Windows, and it is light on resources. In addition to Mate, I tested Xfce, KDE, Cinnamon, and Trinity (can't remember if there were others).

The distro I use is Miyo which is based on Devuan. There is an option to add automatic updates, I think (via a downloadable app).

[Night Wing]

For me, Mate was the DE that most closely resembles Windows, and it is light on resources.

In Mint, Mate uses more resources than Xfce does. Moonchild's netbook has only 2 Gb of memory with a slow processor speed of 1.66 GHz. This is why I suggested Xfce.

[Al6bus]

http://rgho.st/6cf84ScpX Broadcom CrystalHD Decoder
https://yadi.sk/d/FcSm1KmD3Zoet7 Videoplayer, Daum Potplayer (repack), BCHD support dunno
Instead of perversions in Linux, a cut version of win7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGmI6h71d6g
mb someone helps more

[ron_1]

Night Wing wrote:
In Mint, Mate uses more resources than Xfce does.

I'm not sure that is entirely correct, but the difference between the two should be negligible.

[Mercury]

I have an Aspire One 725. I run Peppermint Eight (64-bit) on it, and I'm decently satisfied with it. I see version Nine is out; I'm in no rush to update.

[adisib]

I'm not going to recommend a distro, but for an efficient video player with CrystalHD decoding support, I would recommend mpv (https://mpv.io , you can set CrystalHD hardware decoding with "--hwdec=cyrstalhd" on the command line or "hwdec=cyrstalhd" in the mpv.conf file).

[Moonchild]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I'm not sure why Gentoo was suggested because any LFS distro is going to be an immediate no-go for me on it. I don't want to compile everything (or anything, for that matter) on a dual-core Atom.

I'll have a look at some live-USBs of Debian based distros to see if anything works reasonably well on the netbook.

http://rgho.st/6cf84ScpX Broadcom CrystalHD Decoder
https://yadi.sk/d/FcSm1KmD3Zoet7 Videoplayer, Daum Potplayer (repack), BCHD support dunno
Instead of perversions in Linux, a cut version of win7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGmI6h71d6g
mb someone helps more

If I can get Win 7 to run at reasonable performance (but I'm afraid it may be sluggish...) with the CrystalHD decoder then that would definitely have my preference!
I'll have a look a the suggested player and CrystalHD driver... but my Russian isn't good enough to understand the video you linked to, sorry.

[Al6bus]

but my Russian isn't good enough to understand the video you linked to, sorry.

We are interested not so much the video itself as the content in the description:
First of all, we need seen in bold:
Broadcom - http://goo.gl/Dv3unb may be u find more recent drivers there...
Windows 7 Preferred Filter Tweaker - http://goo.gl/GfZiub
Haali Media Splitter - http://goo.gl/CkH1fr
AC3 Filter - http://goo.gl/Rt1lVo
CoreAAC - http://goo.gl/TQF3RZ
GraphStudio - https://www.videohelp.com/software/GraphStudio

p.s. what exactly is your Broadcom CrystalHD Decoder model name?

[Moonchild]

what exactly is your Broadcom CrystalHD Decoder model name?

Pretty sure it's the 70015

[Al6bus]

LMGTFY mod on
Here you are!
LMGTFY mod off

found some add info

[Moonchild]

I guess it wasn't because the installer "can't detect a decoder module" and aborts.

[Walter Dnes]

I need:

• Support for a delphi Windows application (password manager, PINs) under WINE
• A dropbox client to synchronize
• A windows-like desktop environment
• Synaptics touchpad support with pointer momentum
• A DE that works well on a smaller screen (1024x600 px)
• An efficient media player that can play at least 720p on that hardware, using the CrystalHD decoder
• Automatic updates and frustration-free software management

Suggestions?

Forget anything beyond a basic window manager. Otherwise, if you own a rifle, it'll be excellent for target practice. I have an Atom netbook. Read "Five Years Later, Intel Poulsbo Is Still A Linux Mess" (that was in 2013) https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTMyODA

The Poulsbo video chip had a proprietary Imagination PowerVR SGX-535 graphics core that Intel marketed as the "GMA 500". If the netbook was shipped with Ubuntu, it had a proprietary driver that worked... with the Ubuntu linux kernel it was shipped with. In linux, kernel updates often change the video driver ABI. At least Nvidia ships updated binary blob drivers for newer kernels for its cards for a few years. Imagination (the company that Intel sourced the Poulsbo "GMA 500" from) did not ship updates. You could not upgrade from the Ubuntu/whatever that the machine shipped with without breaking the video driver... yikes.

Otherwise, linux GUI had to run under painfully slow generic VESA. After a few years, a proper digital rendering driver was reverse engineered, but it did not have hardware acceleration. Even with a lean+mean highly optimized "Gentoo Ricer Build", Pale Moon 27.x barely managed 360p on Youtube on my netbook. You're not going to get 720p with anything other than the original ancient (10-year-old) Ubuntu/whatever that some of them shipped with.

Are you able to get "off-lease" Lenovo notebooks with 3 or 4 gigabytes of ram? That's what I'd recommend if you want a cheap usable 2nd-hand machine.