How to speed up linux distribution?

Question

linux

Good day. Now it's time to reinstall the distribution again. I'm writing here because I don't know what to do anymore. Dell inspiron laptop with soldered Intel Celeron 3205U (1.5Ghz Dual-Core) does not overclock. Before it was i7 quad-core with HT support (8 threads). It costs a lot of money and I would not want to solder it, otherwise it may even be covered. For other characteristics: 8Gb RAM 1800Mhz with one bar, 160Gb + 500 Gb HDD, FHD screen.

I tried to install win 7/8/10 - nothing works at all, it starts up - it starts up, but nothing more.
Completely switched to linux - arch, ubuntu, debian, fedora. Interfaces xfce4, lxde, i3wm.
Surprisingly, linux lite does not work badly.

The processor is often under 100% load. I would like your advice on what to put as economical as possible to resources.
I read the forum - they say Gent compiles, I thought to try it in combination with i3wm. Immediately, the thought came to me, perhaps I need to compile a kernel for this processor, with the necessary drivers. What would be a clean core and the necessary drivers to squeeze all the power out of the laptop. Video card GeForce 860M, but I don't feel it at all. It seems that the graphics integrated into the processor is working.

I need your help!

Answer 1

No way. Linux is not about old hardware and certainly not about performance.
Well, you can only put some Fluxbox instead of DE (forget about XFCE, this is a fat monster for a long time). Also forget about rebuilding the kernel, this does not give any advantages.
Also make sure that your video card is pulled up by the kernel and uses a normal driver, with this for old hardware, Linux can have big problems up to the complete non-support of hardware 5-7 years ago (in particular, video cards), which may cause brakes and hanging.

Answer 2

If you can, you can try to build Linux Form Scratch, or at least Arch. But it's pretty difficult. Although, I don't know which is harder to build, LFS or Gentoo.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, in your case there are not many options to choose from, I would recommend installing windows 7, turning off all decorations and using the laptop for some undemanding tasks. The fact is that 2 cores with a frequency of 1.5 GHz, this is extremely small, it will not work to achieve good work on such a processor these days, since I myself have such a laptop available with similar characteristics, 2 cores of 1.4 GHz.