Well, on most distros, the live image is loaded onto ram. Thus, whenever you restart, you lose everything. You could install linux on a usb, but thats incredibly slow, in my experience. If you could detail your problem, maybe we can help you fix it, instead of applying an ineffective bandage.

Something that surprises me is that no one mentioned just running debian 12 with lxde. Though, I don’t reccomend using the netinstall, as the user created there won’t be part of the sudo group. You should use the live iso.

Lubuntu is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. It meets all of your requirements, and has never crashed on me in my 2.5 years of using it, except when running kde, but that’s probably kde’s fault.

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-12.9.0-amd64-lxde.iso

If you don’t trust my link (fair enough, don’t click links from strangers), the iso can be downloaded by going to debian.org, clicking “other downloads” under the big “download” button, locating the live isos, in the “Try Debian live before installing” clicking “other live iso”, and finding the lxde iso.

-2% market share?!?

Antix linux would also work great, and DSL is based on it.

Seconding this, webapp-manager is what linux mint comes with and is the best option so far

I mean, I feel that the 4mb (I assume 4gb) of ram needs a 32 bit os claim is downright untrue.

I have a Thinkpad X301 that’s been upgraded to 4gb of ram, and I run Debian 12 stable, 64bit, and performance, even on a laptop from 2008, like mine, as long as I used pale moon for browsing, was stellar. I use xfce on that laptop.

DO NOT RUN A 32BIT VERSION OF LINUX ON 64BIT HARDWARE. I looked into the celeron in the computer, and it supports 64bit instructions. Just run Debian with xfce.

This might help you, though I can’t try it at the moment https://askubuntu.com/questions/91195/how-do-i-adjust-the-screen-contrast

I’m on pop os, with an Nvidia 3060 12gb and sleep works perfectly fine

I personally don’t understand why anyone would put endeavour os in “why”

caught in the eye of the tornado… blow me away!

Honestly, i understand this isn’t what you’re looking for but apps like spotube, vimusic, nuclear and others provide different interfaces without ads. Spotube is what I use and it’s available on both desktop and mobile.

What’s wrong with GNOME?