which download of linux

[Eduard the weeb]

I have a really old laptop which I am installing linux on because that what I need right now anyway what version of linus would you recommend I think I am leaning toward Ubuntu or Mint.   

[LtStaffel]

Lubuntu and make it a 32bit

[Zando_]

Ubuntu 16.04. Looks nicer than Lubuntu and Mint IMO, and you can tweak it easily with themes and such if you don't like the stock look. I use the themes from noobslab.com, and usually use some minimalist window design and brightly colored flat icons, along with a macOS style dock. Looks dope IMO.

[Aleks NE]

7 minutes ago, Eduard the weeb said:

I have a really old laptop which I am installing linux on because that what I need right now anyway what version of linus would you recommend I think I am leaning toward Ubuntu or Mint.   

Ubuntu is pretty easy to use and can run on a potato, it's also very easy theme the UI for a user that is new to Linux.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Eduard the weeb said:

I have a really old laptop which I am installing linux on because that what I need right now anyway what version of linus would you recommend I think I am leaning toward Ubuntu or Mint.   

Is your Use of GUI or Command Line?

[ProjectBox153]

What are the specs of the laptop?

[Eduard the weeb]

5 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

What are the specs of the laptop?

not 100 percent sure due to not having it on me but I think a version of Celeron or Atom processor with a 500gb hard drive I plan to put in becuase I had it on hand the processor is if I am correct running at 1.7 Ghz- 2.1 Ghz due to throttling and if correct from about 2008-2009 

[Eduard the weeb]

11 minutes ago, Raziq_26 said:

Is your Use of GUI or Command Line?

no I am setting it up for doing my dads work so mostly just storing old pictures google searches and storing customer date ( Cars he is a mechanic) and maybe some light 900 by 600 lows settings CS GO, I only have experince with Mac OS and Windows so was asking for help. 

[LtStaffel]

23 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Ubuntu 16.04. Looks nicer than Lubuntu and Mint IMO, and you can tweak it easily with themes and such if you don't like the stock look. I use the themes from noobslab.com, and usually use some minimalist window design and brightly colored flat icons, along with a macOS style dock. Looks dope IMO.

The whole point of linux is that it's customizable. Go Lubuntu and change the desktop environment if you want. Don't use full Ubuntu on an old machine.

[samcool55]

I have a system that runs linux mint on worse specs and apart from slow boot times it's not so bad.

It even plays youtube video's quite decently

[ThatUnicornOverThere]

Have you considered Puppy Linux? You can run it from a usb stick for a trial run. It's Foss discusses it, as well as Lubuntu, in this 2017 article on 32-bit compatible distros.

Just go through his list, check your pc's stats against each distro's system reqs, then mercilessly compare community size and support. If you can't find a board that seems to quickly answer new user questions in a manner you can learn from, move on. This last one is why I think Puppy will work well for you. The community is large enough to provide help when it's needed. Lubuntu is also very popular but it's support is blended with Ubuntu and can sometimes seem complex.

Puppy Linux Community Forum

Lubuntu Support

[Guest]

I hadn't a 2009~ netbook with an atom. DSL and lubuntu ran beautifully. Full Ubuntu 14.04 was a bit slower when starting up, but almost as fast as DSL and LUBUNTU. 

[Dat Guy]

On 10.10.2017 at 4:54 PM, Eduard the weeb said:

what version of linus would you recommend

Don't use one of the typical desktop Linuces, those come with a lot of preinstalled crap. I'd recommend you to try OpenBSD. If you absolutely insist on "a Linux", how about Slackware? 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

Don't use one of the typical desktop Linuces, those come with a lot of preinstalled crap. I'd recommend you to try OpenBSD. If you absolutely insist on "a Linux", how about Slackware? 

Is OpenBSD even easy for average users?

 

I have zip experience with it though I've heard the user base compared to Linux, is like Linux compared to windows. Most everything is open source and needed to be compiled from source so I hear. 

[Dat Guy]

That's entirely wrong. I never had to compile anything on my OpenBSD machines, minus my own code. And yes, it is pretty easy. Just read the manual. 

[Guest]

On 10/13/2017 at 1:43 PM, Dat Guy said:

That's entirely wrong. I never had to compile anything on my OpenBSD machines, minus my own code. And yes, it is pretty easy. Just read the manual. 

Oh, shows what I know. 

Thanks! 

(Btw I don't auto follow topics I reply to, not demanding but if you can quote/mention me) 

[friedbun]

Hi Eduard!

 

First of all, what type of laptop is it? Do you have an SKU/Product ID we could lookup maybe the name of it? Depending on that it might be possible to help you with answering your question.

 

Kind regards,

 

friedbuN

[Eduard the weeb]

21 minutes ago, friedbun said:

Hi Eduard!

cccccccccf

First of all, what type of laptop is it? Do you have an SKU/Product ID we could lookup maybe the name of it? Depending on that it might be possible to help you with answering your question.

 

Kind regards,

 

friedbuN

 Hp Compaq CQ50-215NR 2008 model

[friedbun]

Thanks Ed!

 

Okay, so looking at the rough specs this definitely a 64bit CPU so you can happily ignore LtStaffel's advice

 

Seeing as this laptop by default comes with 2G of ram anything heavy of the bigger Desktop Environments (ie. KDE/GNOME) won't do the trick. Do you intend to buy newer/bigger RAM for it? 

 

What's your goal for this Laptop? Just a productivity machine? Are you in University and need to write Papers?

 

Something like LXDE should be a good shout, or XFCE, you can use a Debian Stable for this they'll provide you with the option to choose your Desktop Environment during setup. You can imagine a Desktop Environment like a fancy way of defining a collection of tools and utilities representing the concept of a desktop. That means these environments provide you with:

  - A window manager (aka that which makes windows, minimizes, maximizes them and so on)

  - A root window (the thing where your taskbar and background image will be displayed)

  - usually a file/browser

  - Multimedia Utilities (players eg. VLC, Amarok for music, DragonPlayer for video, ...)

  - A calculator and other minor things

 

Many will fullfill this definition to an extend.

 

Let's concentrate on the basics tho. Download this Iso Image: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-9.2.1-amd64-netinst.iso

 

And either burn a DVD with this Iso image and boot from it to install debian or make a bootable USB stick to do the same. (I leave this to the reader as excercise).

 

The Guided Debian installation should go through most of the important stuff with you. If you don't feel confident in doing the correct decision take the defaults as they should be for the most part sane enough to get you going.

 

Please feel free to report back on this thread once you got Debian installed  

[Eduard the weeb]

productivity I do plan on adding so DDR2 so dims and a 500gb hard drive mostly Cs go on lowest settings and 900 by 600 and my dads work of recording business. until I can build his own work computer over the summer.

[friedbun]

On 10/16/2017 at 6:46 PM, Eduard the weeb said:

Cs go on lowest settings and 900 by 600

Maybe I'm wrong and the GPU/CPU Combo supports this but I'm afraid this won't cut it and explodes the frame of just "productivity". Beyond that, recording in terms of video/audio recording? I assume you have specialized equipment for that and just feed that into the device via a ADC/DAC? Even then this won't really fly. If you have specialized software for recording this will also not work or only in a limited fashion if you are using something like wine. I'd definitely check if the software you're looking into running is supported on Linux or if there are open source or Linux supported equivalents that you can run for what you are interested in.

[Eduard the weeb]

16 minutes ago, friedbun said:

Maybe I'm wrong and the GPU/CPU Combo supports this but I'm afraid this won't cut it and explodes the frame of just "productivity". Beyond that, recording in terms of video/audio recording? I assume you have specialized equipment for that and just feed that into the device via a ADC/DAC? Even then this won't really fly. If you have specialized software for recording this will also not work or only in a limited fashion if you are using something like wine. I'd definitely check if the software you're looking into running is supported on Linux or if there are open source or Linux supported equivalents that you can run for what you are interested in.

I use another computer for audio and video and I do have a recording equipment but recording buisness I meant like keeping track not actually using a mic lol sorry if I confused you.

[friedbun]

Oh. You mean like bookkeeping and accounting?

[Eduard the weeb]

6 hours ago, friedbun said:

Oh. You mean like bookkeeping and accounting?

yeah sorry to confuse you.

[Thyrth]

On 10/10/2017 at 10:54 AM, Eduard the weeb said:

I have a really old laptop which I am installing linux on because that what I need right now anyway what version of linus would you recommend I think I am leaning toward Ubuntu or Mint.   

I would Check out Ubuntu Mate it's Gnome 3 and its actually regularly Updated. It's also light on the resources as well.  It's very easy to install as well .