What Linux Distro should I put on my old laptop?

[MF270]

So, I recently built an awesome desktop PC, and my old laptop (which is pretty crappy) has been sitting around. It's this one, an HP 15-G 15.6 Laptop (https://www.amazon.com/HP-15-G-15-6-Laptop-A8/dp/B00LJXXLDK), except it only has a 500GB hdd.  I want to put a lightweight version of Linux on it, and was considering Puppy, but don't know which pup to put on it. I was also recommended the beta of Pixel Linux (Made by Raspberry Pi). What lightweight OS should I put. Also, when I'm done with it, could I reinstall windows (I saved the product key) and sell it?

[Canada EH]

Lubuntu

Xubuntu

[Anghammarad]

or Mint

[t4ils]

Lubuntu and Xubuntu are great for lightweight use. If you want to go a bit further, I'd suggest Arch Linux, thought you'll need a bit of Linux knowledge to get it installed.

Yes, you'll be able to reinstall Windows and sell it once you're done with it.

[Canada EH]

If OP is asking

Quote

What Linux Distro should I put on my old laptop?

then OP has no Linux knowledge! Thats why I mentioned the ones I mentioned.

[MF270]

50 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

If OP is asking

then OP has no Linux knowledge! Thats why I mentioned the ones I mentioned.

Yep, virtually NO Linux knowledge whatsoever. Why would you say Lubuntu and Xubuntu vs other light Linuxes? I'd love to learn.

[Canada EH]

2 hours ago, MF270 said:

Yep, virtually NO Linux knowledge whatsoever. Why would you say Lubuntu and Xubuntu vs other light Linuxes? I'd love to learn.

you most likely want a Linus distro with MS Windows feel right?

[noahdvs]

5 hours ago, MF270 said:

Yep, virtually NO Linux knowledge whatsoever. Why would you say Lubuntu and Xubuntu vs other light Linuxes? I'd love to learn.

LXDE, LXQt and Xfce are the 3 lightest Linux desktop environements.

A desktop environment (DE) is just the GUI that makes your OS intuitive. Without it, you'd just have the command-line, like MS-DOS.

 

LXDE and LXQt are the lightest of the 3, but are a bit more bare bones than Xfce. That's never been a problem in my experience, but I guess if you wanted to do something uncommon like use a Wacom tablet it might.

LXQt is the newest and nicest looking one of the 3.

Xfce has been around since 1996 and is the most mature, but it doesn't look like it's from the 90s.

 

Lubuntu uses LXDE, but will switch to LXQt at some point because that's where development has moved to.

Xubuntu uses Xfce.

 

Ubuntu based distros are often recommended to beginners because it's popular and there's tons of community support. Most information that doesn't have anything to do with a specific desktop environment will apply to all Ubuntu based distros.

[MF270]

7 hours ago, Canada EH said:

you most likely want a Linus distro with MS Windows feel right?

I'd say so. At least pretty close.

[TurbulentWinds]

If you are coming fresh from Windows I would run Zorin OS (lightweight version).

[noahdvs]

13 hours ago, JayKay3000 said:

Kubuntu then. The UI looks like windows, but it's a bit heavier than other distros. Mints cinnamon with it's slab menu is also fairly classic windows ish. Not had to get under the hood with mint either.

 

Mint is also one of the most out of the box friendly distros. Including media codecs and dvd playback. My mum can use mint easily and she knows less computers than a two year old child.

 

You can get by on 2GB ram on mint.

 

Kubuntu, while pretty used to suffer from stability. I used to often get 'stuff' crashing or ''x, y, z has crashed' which would get a bit annoying. But the interface, XP ish in look is really neat. Some cool features in KDE like desktop folders and some pretty cool inbuilt desktop gadgets. Just a generally pretty UI to use. When it works.

I still don't like Kubuntu since it uses libinput Xorg drivers by default even though libinput isn't fully supported by KDE Plasma yet and causes slow scrolling issues with Qt Quick.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

i'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon right now, and even with 7 tabs in chrome and a load of other crap open i'm sitting at 3.2 GB ram used. 

 

in other words, your laptop is good enough to run pretty "heavy" linux distro's. 

 

i'd use Linux Mint Mate. it uses less ram as the Cinnamon version, and is light overall. 

it also has a very familiar ui for someone coming from Windows. 

 

https://linuxmint.com/download.php

 

use the 64-bit Mate version.