I recently got a 10 dollar working netbook from a thiftstore. It has 2 ram and is from 2010 but isint the up-gradable version. Im wondering what os to run on it do i go with something like a android build or a linux setup? Im could also use some neat use cases. Ive thought about doing retro game on it but there are possible better solutions?
I suggest Q4OS (with Trinity DE). It loads itself at 340 MB of RAM, so it leaves you with a lot of free RAM (especially since the heaviest apps now are browsers – youtube needs 1 GB for itself). Arch Linux with XFCE can be made to boot at 470 MB. Debian starts at 650 MB. Ubuntu/Fedora start at over 1.5 GB so avoid.
Then of course there are the damnsmalllinux, antix etc, but the user experience on these is bad. Q4OS feels like a modern OS with GUI panels for everything, while not taking lots of ram.
You totally beat me to it. This was going to be my recommendation.
You may even choose the 32 version which will be dramatically more memory efficient. Not everything is available but probably everything you need.
It is possible that hardware from 2010 requires a 32 bit OS anyway. 64 bit only appeared a couple of years before and low end systems could still be 32 bit.