[System] System requirements

[dodoGames]

First of all, i would like to apologize if this wasn't the right place to ask in. So, recently my laptop has gotten unstable with windows especially win 10 so much that i decided to try Linux distros and make a switch in case windows stops working one day.

For a while, i was looking for some of the distros that could work with my laptop and most of distros i find seems to have higher requirements (at least to my knowledge) than my laptop to the point where i'm kind of lost. I have a 2010 laptop or so that originally came with windows 7 before i upgraded it to windows 10 due to EOL stuff. It mostly consists of 4 GB of ram and an intel core i3 as the current processor so i was curious to know if Kubuntu or at least any Ubuntu flavours could be used on the laptop.

This is kind of last option for me as there is nothing else i can do. I'm open to answers since i'm open minded so feel free to answer me.

[TinyTim]

Yes it is big enough. Create a bootable live USB with a Kubuntu .iso file on it using Win 10. Most people use Rufus. Boot up on that USB and I would try it first without installing it, and there will a option to install on the live desktop if you like it. This is a Kubuntu forum which is a Ubuntu OS that uses a KDE Plasma desktop graphic interface, and this flavor will work with your laptop. Now there are other flavors that use less resources, but this is a Kubuntu Forum.

• 2 GHz dual core processor
• 4 GiB RAM (system memory)
• 25 GB of hard drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
• VGA capable of 1024×768 screen resolution
• Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
• Internet access is helpful
• Recommended: 3D Acceleration Capable Videocard with at least 256 MB

[Schwarzer Kater]

As TinyTim wrote: I would also recommend trying Kubuntu (or any other Linux distribution) from a live USB stick first before installing it.

Until last year I had a Kubuntu 22.04 installation on an old mini PC with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S CPU (4x 2,83 GHz), an AMD Radeon HD6450 graphics card, 4 GB of RAM and a hard disk drive and it worked quite satisfactorily (after removing Snaps ).

If your laptop turns out to be not powerful enough for Kubuntu/KDE Plasma I would suggest Debian 12 with LXQt.

[jlittle]

... recently my laptop has gotten unstable with windows especially win 10 so much ...

• How recently have you reinstalled Windows? If the answer to that is greater than a small number of years, IMO a reinstall of windows would be a good idea, though you might break some software and hardware support.
• If you are still running a hard drive, think seriously about changing it for an SSD. I wouldn't expect a 2010 laptop to have a M.2 socket for an NVMe drive, but a SATA SSD should be a drop in replacement for the hard drive. You'd get more space for Kubuntu at least; 25 GB is getting tight for Kubuntu, unless you de-snap it (saving at least 5 GB).

[oshunluvr]

Just an FYI: I have a Kubuntu install running in 11GB but it's very bare-bones - no snaps, no LibreOffice, uninstalled a bunch of fonts and other stuff not related to anything I do. I would call 25GB a minimum for system intended for "normal" use and would suggest a separate home partition at that amount.

[oshunluvr]

First of all, i would like to apologize if this wasn't the right place to ask in. So, recently my laptop has gotten unstable with windows especially win 10 so much that i decided to try Linux distros and make a switch in case windows stops working one day.

For a while, i was looking for some of the distros that could work with my laptop and most of distros i find seems to have higher requirements (at least to my knowledge) than my laptop to the point where i'm kind of lost. I have a 2010 laptop or so that originally came with windows 7 before i upgraded it to windows 10 due to EOL stuff. It mostly consists of 4 GB of ram and an intel core i3 as the current processor so i was curious to know if Kubuntu or at least any Ubuntu flavours could be used on the laptop.

This is kind of last option for me as there is nothing else i can do. I'm open to answers since i'm open minded so feel free to answer me.

The only real show-stopper these days is making sure you have a 64 bit CPU. 4GB of RAM is fine and if you can clear up 25GB of drive space you could dual boot Kubuntu with Windows until you are ready to change over. Also note that if you just wiped Windows out and installed Kubuntu you could still use Windows applications by using Windows in a Virtual Machine if you need to hang onto specific Windows applications.

The idea that the KDE/Plasma Desktop Environment (DE) is a CPU and RAM hog isn't really true anymore. There are "lighter" DEs but the difference isn't as great as it used to be. With some fine tuning. there's no reason why Kubuntu wouldn't be a good choice for your laptop. Obviously, no matter which DE you choose, your CPU and RAM will be the bottleneck more than the DE.

If you want to explore other DEs, this might be a good starting place: https://www.tecmint.com/lightweight-...-environments/

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…] you could still use Windows applications by using Windows in a Virtual Machine if you need to hang onto specific Windows applications.[…]

I do agree with the rest of your post, but Windows 10 or 11 in a virtual machine with just 4GB of total RAM is not practical for serious use on a permanant basis (and especially not with a hard disk drive instead of an SSD due to the inevitable swapping) - 4GB of total RAM should work so-so with a Windows 7 VM or quite good with something much older like a Windows 2000 or NT VM.
It also depends on what you additionally install and use within the Windows VM, of course.

[oshunluvr]

Fair enough. I run Windows 10 with 2 CPUs and 4GB RAM allocated (using KVM/QEMU not Vbox) and it does fine for my application - postgresql server with a GUI front end. I suspect if you need only a specific application, the requirements of the application itself would be more critical than the requirements of Windows. If you weren't running a lot of stuff on the Linux side and only one application on Windows, it would likely be usable. Regardless, with the hardware the OP listed, no modern OS is going to be fast or able to multitask well.