that could be why
found a different os that’s even lighter weight
android based OS called bliss os
Please don’t use Android. Your hardware more likely than not won’t work at all, and you will not receive any support here if you do use it.
When using Linux, I would recommend a specific Desktop Environment, and then just choose any distro that is supported and works with the Desktop Environment.
In my opinion GNOME and KDE are the best DEs. They both have some pros and cons, so you should try both and see which one you like. For the OS I would recommend Fedora.
bruh
Just because OP mentiond that Windows has worked great for them, only barring the storage issue. I would urge them to consider using Windows 10/11 Enterprise IoT LTSC (Google online to know how to get the ISO).
Because of the following reasons:
- Its binary equivalent to Windows Enterprise which means it supports everything windows and has all the non OS crapware removed.
- I have successfully installed it on a 16 GB emmc drive.
- You can reduce OS storage by
- Disabling SWAP (aka Virtual Storage on Windows).
- Disable Hibernation.
- Compressing WIndows using CompactOS.
- Uninstalling default Windows features that you might consider useless.
After just the first 2 optimisations, the OS storage is reduced to less than 8GB.
However, there are some limitations to this approach:
- Windows updates will fail because it will require at least 20 GB free storage on C drive. But you can manually download updates from Microsoft on an external drive and install.
- Your machine relies entirely on RAM after disabling SWAP.
However, it’s possible to reduce SWAP size instead of disabling it entirely. So choosing a middle ground is highly advisable.
However, SWAP on EMMC drive will cause unnecessary write cycles (reducing lifespan of EMMC considerably) and you don’t wanna store SWAP on a very slow EMMC anyway.
TLDR; Try W10 Enterprise IoT LTSC or W11 Enterprise IoT LTSC with optimisations listed here → Device Optimization Overview - Windows IoT Enterprise | Microsoft Learn
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Do you have experience running it on 2GB RAM?
I have installed Windows 10 LTSC (not IoT) on a laptop (not a Chromebook) before, I was amazed by how little space it used.
P.S. A LTSC release based on Windows 11 hasn’t been released yet.
No. I have not yet tried it on a chromebook but I dont think it will pose any obstacles that regular windows wont.
No. But I had documented usage of 0.9 - 1.4 GB RAM post-boot on a fresh install of W10 Ent IoT LTSC with Automatic Updates and Virtual Memory disabled. This was a 8GB RAM laptop. Maybe you could try it out and optimise RAM storage after checking out if its needed.
IK but non-LTSC version for Windows 11 Enterprise IoT does exist. I have tried it briefly but W11 isn’t for me. AFAIK the only difference would be extended updates which is hardly a benefit in this case.
I only asked because OP’s Chromebook (Dell Chromebook 3180) only has 2GB RAM.
Late reply, but if you plug in a second flash drive it should bypass the out of space error and allow you to install Mint on the eMMC. (Source: I did this on my Braswell machine)
It has 4gb