this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
90 points (98.9% liked)

Linux

48329 readers
639 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi all, the private school I work at has a tonne of old windows 7/8 era desktops in a student library. The place really needs upgrades but they never seem to prioritise replacing these machines. Ive installed Linux on some older laptops of mine and was wondering if you all think it would be worth throwing a light Linux distro on the machines and making them somewhat usable for a web browsing experience for students? They’re useless as is, running ancient windows OS’s. We’re talking pre-7th gen i5’s and in some cases pentium machines here.

Might be pointless but wonder what you guys think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] solrize@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The biggest demands will come from the browser and its media players, not the OS. An i5 with 4gb RAM will be ok. Anything less will be marginal or worse. The modern web sucks. Did you know that mobile phones are starting to come with cooling fans? OMG.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

There are very lightweight media players available that will run on anything with enough CPU power to decode whatever codec you are playing. It's modern web browsers that will be an issue with less than 4GB of RAM. There are lighter web browsers, but they usually don't support javascript or have very limited support for it.

[–] LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Eh, JavaScript is overrated anyway

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 months ago

but required in modern world

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I mean the media players that browsers and the web use. People want to click on youtube links. It all sucks.