80 Lightweight Linux Programs To Speed Up Your Old PC

Sometimes its hard to replace some of our old stuffs — like our first PC.

Most of us still uses our old PC even if it can’t run new operating system. But luckily some Linux distributions out there are suitable to power up your old buddy.

But having a good lightweight Linux distro can’t guarantee smooth and faster Linux experience, since you use different other programs which utilizes more RAM. However you can speed up your old Linux PC by using it with some lightweight Linux software.

In this article we are going to list some lightweight Linux programs that will power up your old or low configured Linux computers.

Lightweight Linux Programs To Speed Up Your Old PC


Lightweight Linux SoftwareDescription
Audio Players
 Ario Ario is a GTK2 client for Music player daemon.
 Pragha Pragha is based on Gtk, sqlite, and completely written in C, constructed to be fast and light.
 Audacious Audacious plays your music without stealing away your computer’s resources from other tasks.
 DeaDBeeF DeaDBeeF is an audio player for GNU/Linux, *BSD, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, and other UNIX-like systems
 Cmus cmus is a small, fast and powerful console music player for Unix-like operating systems.
 cplay Limited music player written in bash using mplayer features: search/play music, colorized output
 MOC MOC (music on console) is a console audio player for LINUX/UNIX designed to be powerful and easy to use.
 QMPDClient QMPDClient is Qt4 based mpd client features : Covers’ display, Lyrics’ display, Tag guessing, Internet radio and lots more.
 mpg123 A fast free MP3 console audio player for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Hpux and near all other UNIX systems. Also decodes mp1 and mp2 files.
Browsers
 Midori Midori supports many of the most popular parts of the web along with  built-in privacy tools, including script disabling, third-party cookie blocking, stripping referrer details and automatic history clearing after a set amount of time.
 Vimprobable Vimprobable is a WWW browser that behaves like the Vimperator plugin available for Mozilla Firefox. It is based on the WebKit engine (using GTK bindings)
 surf surf is a simple web browser based on WebKit/GTK+. It supports the XEmbed protocol which makes it possible to embed it in another application.
Arora Arora is a cross platform web browser built using Qt and WebKit.
 Conkeror Conkeror is a keyboard-oriented, highly-customizable, highly-extensible web browser based on Mozilla XULRunner
 Dillo Dillo is a multi-platform graphical web browser known for its speed and small footprint.
 ELinks ELinks is an advanced and well-established feature-rich text mode web  browser, which is portable and runs on a variety of platforms.
 rekonq rekonq is a web browser for KDE based on WebKit with nice minimal look, lightweight approach and have advanced features.
 NetSurf NetSurf is a multi-platform web browser for RISC OS, UNIX-like platforms (including Linux), Mac OS X, and more.
 Hv3 Html Viewer 3 (hv3) is a powerful yet minimalist web browser that uses Tkhtml3 as a rendering engine and SEE (Simple ECMAScript Engine) to interpret scripts.
Email Clients
 Trojitá Enables you to access your mail anytime, anywhere without slowing down your pc.
 Alpine Alpine is a fast, easy to use email client that is suitable for both the inexperienced email user as well as for the most demanding of power users.
 Sup Sup is a console-based email client for people with a lot of ema
 Mutt Mutt is a small but very powerful text-based mail client for Unix operating systems.
 Claws Mail Claws Mail is a user-friendly, lightweight, and fast GTK based email client.
 Sylpheed  Sylpheed is a simple, lightweight but featureful, and easy-to-use e-mail client.
File Managers
 PCManFM PCManFM is the default file manager for LXDE, to be a lighter alternative to Files (Nautilus) on your GNOME desktop. It features tabbed browsing and can optionally manage the desktop background.
 Thunar Thunar is a modern file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment. Thunar has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy to use.
 emelFM2 It is a file manager for UNIX-like operating systems. It uses a simple and efficient interface.
 Vifm Vifm is an ncurses based file manager gives you complete keyboard control over your files without having to learn a new set of commands.
 Ranger Ranger is a file manager with an ncurses interface. It is designed to give you a broader overview of the file system by displaying previews and backviews, dividing the screen into several columns.
 ROX ROX is a fast, user friendly desktop which makes extensive use of drag-and-drop.
File Archiving Tools
 Squeeze Squeeze is a modern and advanced archive manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment.
 Xarchive Xarchive is a GTK+ 2 front-end for various command line archiving tools.
 Xarchiver Xarchiver is a lightweight desktop independent archive manager built with the GTK+2 toolkit.
Image Editors
 Fotoxx Fotoxx is a free open source Linux program for image editing and collection management.
 mtPaint mtPaint is a painting program from scratch that could easily create pixel art and manipulate digital photos.
Image Viewers
 Mirage Mirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer.
 GPicView GPicView is a simple and fast image viewer for X. Made by the developers of LXDE.
 QIV Quick Image Viewer is a very small and pretty fast gdk/Imlib image viewer.
 GQview GQview is an image viewer for Unix operating systems (developed on Linux). It’s key features include single click file viewing, external editor support, thumbnail preview, and zoom features. Some image management features are also included.
 Geeqie Geeqie is a lightweight Gtk+ based image viewer for Unix like operating systems.
Login Managers
 Qingy Qingy is ultralight and very configurable graphical login independent on X Windows.
 CDM CDM provides an ultra-minimalistic, yet full-featured login manager written in bash.
PDF Tools
 Xpdf Xpdf is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
Terminals
 LilyTerm LilyTerm is a terminal emulator based off of libvte that aims to be fast and lightweight, Licensed under GPLv3.
 st st is a simple terminal implementation for X.
 ROXTerm ROXTerm is a terminal emulator intended to provide similar features to gnome-terminal, based on the same VTE library.
 Xterm The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System.
 RXVT RXVT is a terminal emulator for X11. It is a popular replacement for the standard ‘xterm’.
Text Editors
 Leafpad Leafpad – GTK+ based simple text editor
 ACME Acme is a powerful text editor, development environment and textual-user-interface platform.
 Vim Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient.
 Beaver Beaver is an Early AdVanced EditoR.
 Sam A minimalist text editor with a graphical user interface, a very powerful command language and remote editing capabilities.
 Geany Geany is a text editor using the GTK+ toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment.
 Medit Medit is intended to be a useful programming and around-programming text editor.
 PyRoom PyRoom is a free editor that stays out your way – and keeps other things out of your way, too.
Torrent Clients
 Deluge Deluge is a lightweight, Free Software, cross-platform BitTorrent client.
 aria2 aria2 is a lightweight multi-protocol & multi-source command-line download utility. It supports HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, BitTorrent and Metalink.
 Transmission Transmission, A Fast, Easy, and Free BitTorrent Client.
 qBittorrent The closest open source (GNU GPL v2 license) equivalent to µtorrent
 RTorrent rTorrent client uses ncurses and is ideal for use with tmux, screen or dtach. It supports saving of sessions, allows the user to add and remove torrents and many more.
Video Players
 Parole  Parole is a lightweight and minimalist option that keeps the focus on what you’re watching.
 Gnome MPlayer Gnome-Mplayer is a simple GTK-based GUI for mplayer without heavy Gnome dependencies
 SMPlayer SMPlayer is a free media player for Windows and Linux with built-in codecs that can play virtually all video and audio formats.
 Videos Videos is a video playback application designed to work with GNOME 3. It’s based on Totem, the original GNOME video playback application, which has been included in GNOME since 2.10.
  MPlayer MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems.
Word Processors
 AbiWord AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.
 WordGrinder WordGrinder is a Unicode-aware character cell word processor that runs in a terminal.
Other Linux Lightweight Tools
 Orage Orage is a new modern calendar application for the Xfce Desktop Environment.
 Calcurse Calcurse is a calendar and scheduling application for the command line.
 Remind Remind is a sophisticated calendar and alarm program.
 Todo.txt Todo.txt manages your Todo list from the command line.
 Conky Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any kind of information on your desktop.
 htop An interactive process viewer for Unix systems. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses.
 PyPanel PyPanel is a lightweight panel/taskbar written in Python and C for X11 window managers.
 Docker Docker is a docking application (WindowMaker dock app) which acts as a system tray for KDE and GNOME2.
 Awesome Awesome is a highly configurable, next generation framework window manager for X.
 GnumericGnumeric is an open-source spreadsheet program.
 Shotwell Shotwell is a photo manager for GNOME 3.

That’s it for now — soon we will add more lightweight Linux programs..

And also if you know any other lightweight software for Linux please comment below.

Sabarinath
Sabarinathhttps://techlog360.com
Sabarinath is the tech-savvy founder and Editor-in-Chief of TechLog360. With years of experience in the tech industry and a computer science background, he's an authority on the latest tech news, business insights, and app reviews. Trusted for his expertise and hands-on tips for Android and iOS users, Sabarinath leads TechLog360 with a commitment to accuracy and helpfulness. When not immersed in the digital world, he's exploring new gadgets or sharing knowledge with fellow tech enthusiasts.

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