Best Linux Distro for my notebook

[Heksmeester]

Hi guys,

I have quite an old laptop. It's running a 1.7GHz celeron with 1GB of ram and a 40GB HDD. I basically use it only for web browsing and the occasional movie or two, but Windows XP performs terrible on it - even a fresh install.

What distro would you guys recommend for this dying piece of machinery? :erm:

 

[Johan_Els]

If you've never installed Linux, then Ubuntu.

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[calvin-]

try the ubuntu netbook edition - http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook - designed for what you have in mind methinks

 

[Heksmeester]

Thanks for the input. I figured the netbook edition should do the trick.

Cheers

 

[ponder]

Archbang will fly on your laptop. Arch is however not something I would recommend for new linux users though.

 

[dabbler]

Try a LXDE desktop and Ubuntu (Lubuntu)

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[Smiley_lauf]

stick with ubuntu netbook edition--it is a much richer desktop experience compared to others 'buntu flavors like LXDE--you have enough resources to run Ubuntu Netbook Ed

 

[BigAl-sa]

Hope you don't have one with a proprietry graphics chip in it. I had an HP with an ATI chip which I couldn't to run properly, as there were no drivers specifically for it and the ATi generic driver was pretty useless. It sort of worked with Ubuntu 9.04, but nothing later.

 

[chaos_theory]

what I have heard is that opensuse is currently one of the better options for a laptop, it has some pretty good power management features.

 

[Smiley_lauf]

Test OpenSuse and then test Ubuntu--you be the judge.

 

[ponder]

Test OpenSuse and then test Ubuntu...

And then install Arch

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Ubuntu netbook edition is too restrictive to me, can't multitask properly.

 

[spiderz]

Xbuntu?

 

[john6504]

I think PCLinux Os or Pardus 2011 is a good choice. They are userfriendly.

 

[Heksmeester]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Good thing Linux can boot from a Live CD

 

[kingmilo]

Gentoo www.gentoo.org

 

[SomeoneEls]

bodhilinux.com ubuntu-based enlightenment distro so its fast but still pretty

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[garyc]

Lately I have been trying a few of the Linux distributions on a "notebook with limited resources" - i.e. an Acer Aspire One netbook. In addition to some of the light weight distributions several full sized distros were tried, namely SUSE, Ubuntu and Fedora. The desktop version of Ubuntu 10.10 works well, although the netbook version was not quite as happy. The full sized distribution that worked best was Fedora 14 - it ran a lot smoother than the others. Installation of easylife can also make the Fedora experience more Ubuntu like.

Subsequently the RAM on the notebook has been increased from 0.5 to 1.5G and this has made a bigger difference than any distro change.