Post by @debby@hear-me.social

Question – what OS should I install?

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e with only 2 cores, 4 threads, and 4 GB of RAM. I'm looking for OS recommendations that would be suitable for this machine.

I'm considering Debian, possibly as a command-line installation, to see if I could manage without a GUI. I've also thought about something more exotic like OpenBSD. Regardless, I'd mainly like to use this machine as a portable typewriter. Importantly, I need TTS (text-to-speech) because of my personal accessibility needs—a screen reader is essential.

I enjoy experimenting with distros and learning through hands-on experience.

Any advise and tips are welcome!

#ask_fedi #linux #ThinkPad #Recommendation #MinimalComputing #AskFediverse #LowSpec #Debian #OpenBSD
#BSD #OS #OperatingSystem

Photo of a black ThinkPad yoga 11e on wight background.

#lowspec #ask_fedi #minimalcomputing #recommendation #os #askfediverse #operatingsystem #debian #thinkpad #bsd #openbsd #linux

14 Replies

0 Boosts

blotza

@blotza@framapiaf.org 35 min. ago

@debby
I recently brought back to life and even lowest end laptop thanks to @VoidLinux
Very lightweight and fast.
#BSD philosophy with #Linux hardware compatibility.
And... NO systemd!

nousersmanual

@nousersmanual@social.vivaldi.net 59 min. ago

@debby I have one of these and it works flawlessly on Debian, it works well with Fedora as well. I think there was a problem with Fedora and the power management? It was minor but enough to have me check out Debian. My next step is to try out the writerdeck project by @veronicaexplains because I really dont like the trackpad on it and it is not a fast computer (it does its best!!).
https://makertube.net/w/66mZUqhKRqFbDhM3YJRpUe

Debby ‬⁂📎🐧:disability_flag:

@debby@hear-me.social 16 min. ago

@nousersmanual @veronicaexplains
In my experience Debian runes smoothly on mostly every thing 😃

Veronica’s Writing Deck is a great inspiration, fore me too.
The main difference between what I need and WriterDeck projec is that I really need speech synthesis—on an 11‑inch display I can’t magnify enough for comfortable visual reading.

Raster

@raster@mastodon.uno 1 hr. ago

@debby Debian is "slow", imho, and the repository is a frustration to keep updated if you use it as desktop-office. You had to pick layers like Flatpak and such.

I agree to check for Void, or Arch/Artix. With Gentoo you pay the compiling time with some performance, could be worth if you are keen for this tradeoff.
Possibly there are some other targeted for very low power systems listed on Distrowatch that do not comes in my mind for now.

choffee

@choffee@mastodon.me.uk 1 hr. ago

@debby Debian with something like ICEWM, XFCE or one of the text based ones. You can try them all from Debian. You could go console only with either tmux or screen. You could do it with just consoles Alt-F<n> to switch. There are probably voice typing inputs for your editor of choice. whisper seems to be a popular choice.

Emil Jacobs - Collectifission

@collectifission@greennuclear.online 2 hr. ago

@debby Are you familiar with SpeakUp? I just learned about it and it's actually part of the kernel (??)

https://github.com/linux-speakup/speakup

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Debby ‬⁂📎🐧:disability_flag:

@debby@hear-me.social 1 hr. ago

@collectifission Yes, with out it I would not be able to go thru a installation poses of Linux - but except for installation and startup I manly use orca.

Doc Chris Thib

@docthib@mastodon.social 2 hr. ago

@debby with the same kind of config, I run Lubuntu from a recent LTS version. Simplicity + Repositories + Light footprint. No info on TTS, though.

Iho-aNn

@IhoaNn@piaille.fr 2 hr. ago

@debby Debian command line + #offpunk ?
No idea for text-to-speech by the way.
With GUI you can try Debian XFCE or Mint XFCE. Or #fluxbox that is really extralight !

https://fluxbox.org/screenshots/

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Philipp :geeko:

@derfopps@digitalcourage.social 2 hr. ago

@debby If too little memory for a fully featured desktop environment is your concern, you could consider @opensuse Leap with the #IceWM desktop https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/tumbleweed/pick_an_image/#icewm

Choosing a distribution - openSUSE User Documentation Project

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Neurotransmitter

@Neurotransmitter@social.tchncs.de 3 hr. ago

@debby
#haiku Linux
https://www.haiku-os.org/

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Debby ‬⁂📎🐧:disability_flag:

@debby@hear-me.social 3 hr. ago

@Neurotransmitter I only know Haiku by name – I've never tried using it. Is it ready for hardware installation, and not only as a virtual OS right now?