{"id":211998,"date":"2026-02-10T11:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/this-lightweight-linux-distro-i-tried-can-run-on-older-machines-but-looks-modern\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:00:11","slug":"this-lightweight-linux-distro-i-tried-can-run-on-older-machines-but-looks-modern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/this-lightweight-linux-distro-i-tried-can-run-on-older-machines-but-looks-modern\/","title":{"rendered":"This lightweight Linux distro I tried can run on older machines &#8211; but looks modern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/waydog-proves-that-lightweight-linux-distributions-dont-have-to-look-outdated\/\">This lightweight Linux distro I tried can run on older machines &#8211; but looks modern<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/waydog-proves-that-lightweight-linux-distributions-dont-have-to-look-outdated\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/waydog-proves-that-lightweight-linux-distributions-dont-have-to-look-outdated\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-10 11:56:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Jack Wallen\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Waydog is a lightweight Linux distro with panache.<\/li>\n<li>This distro uses Wayland and offers both Labwc and Sway.<\/li>\n<li>Wayland does feel like it&#8217;s still in early development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Linux is on the rise, and that means even more distributions will be popping up. Some of those distributions are meant for modern hardware, while others run just fine on older machines, with fewer system resources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: <\/strong><strong>This fun tiling window manager may be rough around the edges &#8211; but it has big potential<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know what I&#8217;m talking about\u2026 lightweight Linux distributions.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Linux Lite<\/li>\n<li>Lubuntu<\/li>\n<li>Puppy Linux<\/li>\n<li>antiX<\/li>\n<li>Xubuntu<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That list goes on.<\/p>\n<p>There is yet another lightweight Linux distribution to jump into the fray: Waydog.<\/p>\n<p>Waydog picks up where Lilidog (RIP) left off, only adopting the Wayland compositor, instead of X11. Although there was an update to Lilidog in 2025, the distribution still remains dormant. Given that Lilidog was part of a trio (made up of Lilidog, Beardog, and Waydog), it&#8217;s surprising that one would end and the others continue. Although that had me question the viability of the *dogs, I know that Waydog was updated on January 17, 2025. If that&#8217;s any indication, it certainly seems at least Waydog is still alive and barking.<\/p>\n<p>For a lightweight Linux distribution, Waydog certainly doesn&#8217;t look like it was created in the early 2000s. If you&#8217;re an aesthete like me, that matters.<\/p>\n<p>On the occasion that I need a lightweight Linux distribution, I&#8217;m going to look for something that checks all the boxes. It must run well on older hardware, must have a modern package manager, and must have a modern aesthetic.<\/p>\n<p>Such is the case with Waydog.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: <\/strong><strong>The best old-school Linux window managers that still hold up<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before I continue, it&#8217;s important to know that Waydog is still in early development (or so it seems). The reason I say that is because the desktop acts a bit flaky. That could also be because I&#8217;m running it as a virtual&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/waydog-proves-that-lightweight-linux-distributions-dont-have-to-look-outdated\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This lightweight Linux distro I tried can run on older machines &#8211; but looks modern&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/5497322d8305d0fb15f14dd14576a6171e138c49\/2026\/02\/10\/08437ca5-4561-4388-9c33-68effa2cda80\/sway.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71,131],"class_list":["post-211998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux","tag-lubuntu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212000,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211998\/revisions\/212000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}