What distro would you recommend for a 32-bit old Acer One laptop?

It's an old model (Acer One D257) Processor is Intel Atom. Memory is 1GB DDR3 with 320 GB of HDD. I currently Have MX 21 running on it, but I need to reinstall because I forgot the root password. Since I'm reinstalling the OS, I thought I'd ask here for recommendations for an OS that makes the most of this oldie.

LunchEnjoyer,
@LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

Alpine Linux could be worth giving a shot very lightweight!

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,

Interesting. I search for Alpine Linux and the first search result was a Lemmy community. Looks interesting. Thanks!

Tibert, (edited )

I have no experience for this matter, nor a lot of Linux either, but there seem to be some interesting choices here (there isn’t best and worst, it’s just a list, and the most adapted to what you need).

itsfoss.com/32-bit-linux-distributions/

Obviously the minimum system requirements should not be your max amount of ram. You need to account for apps or tools you’ll run.

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,

Thanks, that list was very helpful in confirming some of the ideas I already had.

yum13241,

Arch Linux 32.

Lemmchen, (edited )

I’d probably try a minimal Debian installation with the Openbox WM.

Link, in case you’re having trouble locating the .iso: …debian.org/…/debian-12.2.0-i386-netinst.iso

ik5pvx,

You might be able to reset the root password by booting to single user, or using a rescue usb.

That said, you could take the chance to try one of the BSDs.

ani,

Lubuntu

RubyWitch,
@RubyWitch@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

One distro that I’ve recently found runs pretty well on older/slower systems like this is wattOS. It’s a distro focused on power efficiency, but because of that it does well on underpowered systems.

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