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Browser for low-end computer

kongondo

By kongondo,
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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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HI all,

I am looking for Browser suggestions for a low end touch device. I occasionally use the machine for development but running VS code and Chrome on it eats up all the memory. It is very slow. I uninstalled the Windows 10 it shipped with, replacing it with Linux Solus. That too is slow on this machine. Google tells me that in this case, I am probably better off with Lubuntu or Puppy Linux. I prefer the former. I have a Sublime Text license and wouldn't mind using it on this machine. All that remains is a browser. The most important thing is speed and memory footprint. If it is developer-centric, that would be a great bonus. Does anyone have a suggestion for me? So far, I've narrowed the list down to these:

  1. K-Meleon (unsure if there is a Linux version)?
  2. Pale Moon
  3. Midori
  4. Maxthon

The machine specs are:

Intel N3350, 4GB DDRIII RAM, 32GB (eMMC)

Thanks!

Edited by kongondo
Lubuntu; not Kubuntu :-)
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OrganizedFellow Hero Member

OrganizedFellow

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28 minutes ago, kongondo said:

I have a Sublime Text license and wouldn't mind using it on this machine.

While there are many ways of installing Sublime Text on Linux, here is my favorite. 

cd ~/Downloads/
wget https://download.sublimetext.com/sublime_text_3_build_3200_x64.tar.bz2 
tar xvjf sublime_text_3_build_3200_x64.tar.bz2
sudo mv sublime_text_3/ /opt/
sudo ln -s /opt/sublime_text_3/sublime_text /usr/local/bin/sublime
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/editor editor /usr/local/bin/sublime 90

By the way: build_3200 is the latest version as of today. I just installed it myself and then went into VSCode and installed the extension Sublime Text Keymap and Settings Importer .

I've used Sublime for years and just started VSCode. It is slow loading on this tiny Acer Chromebook (runs Debian + XFCE).

If your 'low end touch device' runs slowly on Solus, it's most likely due to the visuals in KDE, GNOME or Mate desktop. I might suggest Debian with OpenBox. It is insanely minimal and super fast. I don't run it because of lacking support on this model.

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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4 minutes ago, OrganizedFellow said:

Debian with OpenBox

Good thing with Solus is that I was able to connect to WiFi and was able to use touch right of the bat. Hard to tell maybe, but do you know if Debian would be that friendly?

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OrganizedFellow Hero Member

OrganizedFellow

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7 minutes ago, kongondo said:

Good thing with Solus is that I was able to connect to WiFi and was able to use touch right of the bat. Hard to tell maybe, but do you know if Debian would be that friendly?

Maybe not after a fresh install but it can be done:
https://laptop.ninja/the-best-linux-distributions-for-touchscreens/
This page https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-laptop-and-netbook-25/please-recommend-a-distro-for-a-tablet-pc-touchscreen-a-must-4175638233/ says "Touch screen support is in the Linux kernel. Any distro should work, as long as the technology of the touchscreen is in the mainstream of touch screens."
This page  https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/81576.html states "Unity was designed with touchscreens in mind".

The suggestion there is either Unity or Gnome (desktop environment).


HOWEVER, just load up any Linux ISO as a LiveCD and it should automagically load the necessary 'drivers' to enable touch-screen. 

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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Thanks all.

I installed lubuntu and didn't like it at all. My mouse didn't work, which actually turned out its batteries had just died :-)! With hindsight, it was a good thing since it lead me to Debian Crunchband++ and eventually BunsenLabs which I am liking...(I think). 

15 hours ago, OrganizedFellow said:

I might suggest Debian with OpenBox.

Thanks! Went with a derivative, BunsenLabs

15 hours ago, OrganizedFellow said:

While there are many ways of installing Sublime Text on Linux, here is my favorite.

Thanks. I have now installed Sublime Text. I don't know where to find out though ;-). It's not showing up in the menus. run programme cannot find it as well. Any thing else I should do? Google is taking me down all sorts of rabbit holes...

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Beluga Hero Member

Beluga

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2 hours ago, kongondo said:

Thanks. I have now installed Sublime Text. I don't know where to find out though ;-). It's not showing up in the menus. run programme cannot find it as well. Any thing else I should do? Google is taking me down all sorts of rabbit holes...

According to the instructions in this thread, you should be able to run it from the command line with "sublime"

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tpr Hero Member

tpr

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I've switched to Vivaldi about 2 months ago and I really like it. If you were an Opera fan in the old days, this is what resembles the most to it (if I'm not mistaken, old Opera devs are working on it).

I was using SlimJet (Chromium-based) for a few years and it was fine, but waking up from hibernation it took sometimes minutes to it to get ready. Now this is entirely gone, Vivaldi is ready in a few seconds at most. I'm on Win 8.1, Core i5 and 8GB RAM notebook. I should have switched to it earlier but the developer tools couldn't be attached to the window and it was a deal-breaker to me.

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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3 hours ago, dragan said:

What about Opera?

I tried it when the machine still had Windows 10 and it didn't fare much better than chrome (memory)

2 hours ago, Beluga said:

you should be able to run it from the command line with "sublime"

Worked! Thanks.

2 hours ago, tpr said:

I've switched to Vivaldi about 2 months ago

I've had a quick look. Will investigate more, thanks.

 

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OrganizedFellow Hero Member

OrganizedFellow

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5 hours ago, kongondo said:

Went with a derivative, BunsenLabs

Thanks. I have now installed Sublime Text. I don't know where to find out though ;-). It's not showing up in the menus. run programme cannot find it as well. Any thing else I should do? Google is taking me down all sorts of rabbit holes...

2

I ran Crunchbang++ for years. I loved it. It led me to plain Debian and I ran my own OpenBox configs and learned how to manage my own dotfiles.

To run Sublime, do it from command line - 'sublime'.

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szabesz Hero Member

szabesz

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4 hours ago, tpr said:

I've switched to Vivaldi

I told you Vivaldi a is good browser ?

6 hours ago, kongondo said:

Went with a derivative, BunsenLabs

I wonder how you picked it, did you spot it on this nice tree? ? 

Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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So I tried Midori and it rendered ProcessWire website all funny. The Firefox that shipped with BunsenLabs (BL) seemed to be fast enough so I thought, what the heck, maybe Chrome will run just fine as well? We'll, what do you know! Of course it's eating up RAM like it's Google's Birthday but I reckon @OrganizedFellow was right about Solus being 'slow' on my machine due to the visuals. Since BunsenLab has a very light footprint, Chrome still has enough to chew on. I then tried Sublime Text. I've always loved Sublime but after using VSC, going back was difficult. I decided to install VSC to see if it would run OK in BL. Surprise!  So far, it seems to run just fine. I haven't opened multiple files (and I don't need to in this machine). I'm just happy I am able to use the tools I am used to without hiccups.

One other thing I liked about BL (yes, we are on first names now ;-)) is that it has a post-install script that runs and asks you if you want to install useful tools like a LAMP stack, etc. I let it install the LAMP stack and here I am, up and running. Apache2, PHP 7 with many useful extensions, phpMyAdmin, etc. 

ps: @OrganizedFellow, was that you who made the request to BL to port the CB welcome script  to BL? :-). If it was, thanks!

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OrganizedFellow Hero Member

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35 minutes ago, kongondo said:

ps: @OrganizedFellow, was that you who made the request to BL to port the CB welcome script  to BL? :-). If it was, thanks!

Negative, wasn't I, perhaps some other organized fellow? lol

35 minutes ago, kongondo said:

it has a post-install script that runs and asks you if you want to install useful tools like a LAMP stack

I always skipped that part of the set-up, as well as anything related to version control. I prefer to have full control of what I install. 

And I also have VirtualHosts set up and working fully. If you should need help with that, let me know. I'll share the code/commands here ?

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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6 hours ago, OrganizedFellow said:

And I also have VirtualHosts set up and working fully. If you should need help with that, let me know. I'll share the code/commands here

Yes, I do, thanks! That would be awesome! If I can skip setting these up manually, even better :-).

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Ivan Gretsky Hero Member

Ivan Gretsky

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I was reading a bit about Cloud9 yesterday, which is now an AWS service. Could this (cloud in-browser IDE and everything running on a remote server) be an ideal solution for developing on a low-end machine?

There is also a github-trending code-server which offers vs code in the browser. But it probably will need much more effort to set up. Just for an alternative

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kongondo Hero Member

kongondo

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I followed the instructions to the letter, except for using my home directory, I used a different drive. At first I was getting 403s (maybe because disk had to be mounted first?). Now am getting this site cannot be reached. 

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OrganizedFellow Hero Member

OrganizedFellow

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1 minute ago, kongondo said:

I followed the instructions to the letter, except for using my home directory, I used a different drive. At first I was getting 403s (maybe because disk had to be mounted first?). Now am getting this site cannot be reached. 

1

Yes, the disk must be mounted so your OS and www-data can see it.

Test everything by setting a locally accessible directory in the file  

/etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Just to make sure that Apache and everything else is properly configured. Once you got that set, then try mounting the other drive.

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wbmnfktr Hero Member

wbmnfktr

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9 hours ago, OrganizedFellow said:

I LOVE suckless tools.

I love their idea of minimal code and uncluttered but yet customizable tools.

I recently set up a machine with Linux again to find out if I could establish a more solid workflow than on Windows. After several tests I finally decided to go with Ubuntu 19.04 and the Gnome desktop. It works pretty well so far.

On another way way older machine I run Manjaro with i3 and hopefully soon some suckless tools. It's amazing how well that old Thinkpad X201 performs with that kind of OS.

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