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Do you have an old PC lying around gathering dust?
How about a small-capacity USB flash drive sitting, unloved in a drawer?
you could reuse your old computer and a USB flash drive by installing a tiny Linux distribution.
Jerry Bezencon/Wikimedia
You’ll need to burn the tiny Linux distro to bootable media before doing anything else.
There are manytools you could use to create a bootable USB flash drive.
However, the best recommendation for Windows users is Rufus, while Linux and macOS users should try Etcher.
Rufus
Rufus is one of the fastest, smallest, and easiest USB-burning tools available for Windows.
It has decent customization options and can automatically detect your USB flash drive.
Download: Rufus forWindows
Etcher
Linux and macOS users should use Etcher, an open-source USB-burning tool.
Etcher doesn’t have many prefs, but it works well the overwhelming majority of the time.
Windows users who find Rufus confusing can also use Etcher, as the tool is also available for Windows.
Download:Etcher
Now, onto the tiny Linux distros!
1.ArchBang
ArchBang is based on Arch Linux and inspired by CrunchBang, another small Linux distro.
ArchBang is essentially Arch Linux made easier and reduced in size.
ArchBang is a fully-featured desktop operating system or a portable live OS.
The Tiny Core Linux TinyCore installation is a minute 21MB, including the base distro and a decent GUI.
The best option for most people is the CorePlus installation, which comes in at 106MB.
3.Absolute Linux
Absolute Linux is a 64-bit Linux distro based on the Slackware project.
Instead, Absolute Linux uses the nimble IceWM window manager.
4.Porteus
Porteus is a lightweight but complete Linux distro optimized to run from a USB flash drive.
Don’t have one?
Porteus works on an SD card, CD, DVD, hard drive, or other bootable storage media.
You dont need a hard disk since it can run from removable storage media.
At the time of writing, there are ten official Puppy Linux distributions.
All require no more than 300MB of hard drive space.
To find out more and choose the right version, head to the officialPuppy Linux distribution download page.
Thus, Intel Pentium Pro and AMD Athlon CPUs are the minimum.
One cool feature of SliTaz is that it runs largely in your system memory.
Once you boot SliTaz up, you might remove your bootable USB flash drive for other tasks.
Keep in mind you’ll need to keep your media in the machine for this feature to work.
Jerry Bezencon/Wikimedia
The recommended minimum RAM for AntiX is 256MB, though it can run with less.
You’ll also need a 7GB hard drive for installation.
Even though antiX Linux is tiny, it still looks good.
The base installation package includes the IceWM window manager, which offers a lot in terms of customization.
8.Bodhi Linux
Your penultimate tiny Linux distro to check out is Bodhi Linux.
Bodhi Linux is an Ubuntu LTS-based, fully-featured Linux distro using the Moksha Desktop.
9.Linux Lite
Onto the final minimal Linux distro, Linux Lite.
Now, Linux Lite isn’t the smallest Linux distro, but it runs well on sufficiently scaled-back hardware.
So, it’s possible for you to imagine how well Linux Lite will run on an older machine.
Furthermore, Linux Lite is a tiny Linux distro designed for user-friendliness.
