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Schiann

Linux aficionado opinion needed!

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I've inherited a very old laptop from my mother-in-law that is just useless for most everything in its current state. On top of being low spec, it's running Win 7, which is horrible and bloated.

 

I thought I might try installing a lightweight Linux distro and see if I can at least use this old brick for watching films or general web surfing.

 

I have used some lightweight Linux distros (Mint, Puppy) on old desktop PCs, but any specific suggestions for laptops? 

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Laptop or pc there will be no big difference unless it has some sort of dedicated GPU like nvidia and such. I'd say use the one you are most familiar with. Can give a try to SparkyLinux(Debian based) :) But as well Mint or Puppy will work ;)

 

I'd say it does not matter much which distro you will choose as long as it is actively developed, has great community around or is based on other popular distro.

Edited by Tokeiito
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im no expert but if its a computer made for win7 it should be fine running mint or anything similar with xfce or other light desktops, youll want to avoid heavier desktops.

 

Edited by Tpikol
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Can always try EndeavourOS (arch based), it's pretty light as well.  Don't let people fool you in saying X distro is more stable than Y distro etc... It really depends on the software on top of the kernel that you put. I run Endeavour and honestly, I've had a much more stable experience than even Mint. Most distros are nearly the same besides the extra bits of the kernel that debian/arch/suse/rhel adds then ships down to child distros. You're biggest difference is the package management system that it ships with. After this you can make any distro look and feel like the other. I can put a tiling window manager on vanilla debian and make it look and feel just like a classic arch system or put Gnome on gentoo and make it look and feel exactly as ubuntu. Distros are just a starting point. Where you end up is totally up to you. Linux distros are the most customizable operating system in the world vs windows/mac. Also check out distro's specific forums, most if not all the communities are really nice people. (there  are some *holes but that exists in every community)

 

Edited by polarbear
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The laptop is so old, it can't even boot from USB. OK, so time to burn a disc. Except...

 

Just a few months ago, we threw away all our blank CD/DVDs because we hadn't burned anything to disc in years. So at the moment, I don't know how to get *any* distro at all onto this thing. 😂

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Thanks everyone for the tips. Found a stray blank CDR, and got Puppy running on the potato now. Working well, although I don't think it will run Wurm, sadly. 😉

Edited by Schiann

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