Subj : Re: Linux gaming on low end PC's?
To   : Malvinas
From : pyrewyrm
Date : Wed Mar 26 2025 20:38:20

 Ma> I've always considered Linux to be a power-hungry highly demanding OS.
 Ma> You need quite the specs to get the thing going, especially with a
 Ma> window manager desktop built in.

This has never been my experience. The running joke is that Linux runs on anything. 

When the netbook trend first cropped up, most of the offerings ran
Linux, not Windows, because of the lower hardware demand. Those netobooks were part of how Ubuntu got its start and made such inroads with the general populace. The Asus Eee PC 700 was the first mass-produced netbook; it ran Xandros, IIRC. Others followed and many lineups started with some Linux distro before later models (as more powerful energy-efficient mobile processors hit the market) offered Windows (XP at that time) option as well.

ChromeOS comes from this period and the Chromebook is perhaps the last enduring survivor of that era.

We can see this as well in other devices that will run Linux. Raspberry Pi 2 was running a desktop environment on 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and 1GB RAM in 2015. 

I have a small collection of Panasonic Toughbooks, all a decade or two (or more) old. They are obviously sluggish running whatever version of windows they came with (XP or 7) but all of them run the latest version of Linux Mint w/ the MATE DE quite fine. And LM is not some ultra-strip-down distro either. In addition to being one of the most popular (if we judge by distrowatch) for quite some time, its also intended to give a Windows-like experience, making it an excellent comparison OS (no matter which of its DEs you pick) for performance.

Continuing on - Ubiquitious Roku devices found in homes all over, pushing hi-res movies and video and performing onboard transcoding for the enjoyments of millions? Roku OS is a distro variant of Linux.

On the DIY front, OSs like LibreELEC/OpenELEC or Kodi exist, converting anything from the old family computer to a Raspberry 4 into a Home Theater PC as a free alternative to Firestick or Roku.

Please don't take this the wrong way but its honestly shocking to find someone who's experience with linux is not the trope-ish "it runs on a potatoe". Usually the complaint is compatibility and drivers for hardware. Or how strange/different it is.

I am curious what machines/use cases/setups you saw the reverse of
this traditional relationship between Windows and Linux. I smell an interesting story.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
 * Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

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