4MLinux 38.0

Any distro that’s survived for over a decade must be doing something right, but Mayank Sharma wasn’t prepared for what he saw inside this one…

- By Mayank Sharma

IN BRIEF

A distro for underpowered machines, 4MLinux uses lightweight components so as to once again reinvigorate old workhorses into galloping stallions. You won’t find any mainstream programs inside the distro, although there’s hardly any desktop-use case that it won’t be able to tackle.

SPECS

Minimum CPU: Any 64-bit processor

Memory: 128MB when installed

HDD: 4GB Build: 64-bit only

4MLinux isn’t unique in what it does, but rather how it does it. The distro will put an old PC back into active duty, and there are quite a few other distros that can do that. However, 4MLinux addresses the issue by breaking down every desktop use-case into four broad categories –Maintenance, Multimedia, Miniserver, Mystery (read: gaming) – and then stuffing the distro with programs to address them.

The tools are inside sub-menus, which is the next best thing in the absence of an application searcher in the application launcher, which has become a mainstay of the modern desktop environment.