Recommend me a distro or two to try.

Debian7 with XFCE4 runs well on just about anything :)

http://www.debian.org/

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_rc1/i386/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-rc1-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso

Or for a more "just works" out the box approach:

http://xubuntu.org/

http://torrent.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/quantal/release/desktop/xubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso.torrent

Minimum system requirements for Xubuntu would fall roughly between Ubuntu Server and Desktop:

700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB of system memory (RAM)
5 GB of disk space
Graphics card and monitor capable of 800x600 resolution

Or

http://lubuntu.net/

Given they (and most if not all others) mentioned so far should work fine on you'e laptop; Ide install them all in VirtualBox first to see which one feels right for you. :)
 
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Laptop has got Crunchbang Waldorf (Wheezy) on it and I must say I'm impressed, really polished OB distro. These guy took what they had in Statler and improved on it a lot.
 
Ubuntu:

Code: 
700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB RAM (system memory)
5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Internet access is helpful

Linux Mint:

2lANX.png


CentOS:

About the same as Ubuntu

OP should be able to run any Linux Distro....
 
Last edited:
Rickster said:
Ubuntu:

Code: 
700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB RAM (system memory)
5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Internet access is helpful

Linux Mint:

View attachment 43798


CentOS:

About the same as Ubuntu

OP should be able to run any Linux Distro....
Click to expand...

Kuk! Those would run like molasses if you knew anything and yes I have tried. They are beginning to quote minimal specs like they do for windows and games, meanwhile it's a exercise in futility.
 
I've been running Crunchbang on my old Mecer laptop for years. 1st it was the Ubuntu based version then obviously more recently Debian Wheezy based (Waldorf).

Never had any issues whatsoever and the guys over at the #! forums are extremely helpful if required.

Some of the Waldorf packages might be slightly out of date but that's the nature of Debian and can easily be changed in the repos.
 
Rickster said:
All three i listed are Distro's

Source
Click to expand...
Never argued that, you still didn't read.

Rickster said:
Ubuntu:

Code: 
700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB RAM (system memory)
5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Internet access is helpful

Linux Mint:

View attachment 43798


CentOS:

About the same as Ubuntu

OP should be able to run any Linux Distro....
Click to expand...
The post wasn't asking how to push a low end laptop to the limits, it was to have something that runs fast/quick and perform great on older hardware. It also wasn't asking what the minimum requirements are.

You really just gave bad advice, and coming over as something thinking they know it all, without helpful advice.

Understanding that I am not trying to bash you, but skimping, you shouldn't post if you advice is not helpful.

Either way, the OP at least found a distro suiting his needs.
 
ponder said:
Kuk! Those would run like molasses if you knew anything and yes I have tried. They are beginning to quote minimal specs like they do for windows and games, meanwhile it's a exercise in futility.
Click to expand...
Too true, you might get Ubuntu 7 to perform on those specs :)

Here's an interesting take re current low-end specs for modern linux, in this case Chrome OS.

Chromium OS uses the Linux Kernel. Historically we stayed on a 2.6.32 Ubuntu-based for the first several releases, but have since then moved on to track the upstream mainline kernel directly, applying our changes for the features and stability we need on top of it.
Click to expand...

source: wiki

Hardware Requirements

What are the most basic, bare bones requirements of a Chrome machine? What sort of stresses does Chrome OS put on the hardware involved? If Chromebooks are anything to judge this by, the OS doesn’t really put any terrible strain on the system. To be safe, we’ll set the lowest benchmark for the system at 2 GB of RAM and at most, a 1.7 GHz dual core processor. Minimum processer benchmark, I’d say somewhere around 1.4 GHz. Hard drive space, we’ll set at 8-16 GB minimum.

Rather low end as far as custom builds go, and pretty easy to come by. Not particularly expensive too. So, as far as base hardware requirements, Google’s Chrome OS is looking like a good choice. Also, your system pretty much has to support OpenGL. That’s a given. Ah, but there are other things to consider.
Click to expand...

source: http://www.thechromesource.com/building-a-chrome-os-pc-yourself-is-it-worth-the-effort/
 
The Thug said:
Some of the Waldorf packages might be slightly out of date but that's the nature of Debian and can easily be changed in the repos.
Click to expand...

That did bother me initially but then I thought about how I never even bothered running updates when it was running some version of lubuntu. I rarely use the laptop anyway but it does come in handy at times and when I do use it I would like it to be snappy. #! seems to do the job, very polished. I'm also sure there are some services I could stop but I can't be bothered right now.
 
I swapped the HDD with #! in my laptop out with another one on which I installed installed Manjaro Openbox Lite RC 0.85 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarodev/files/testbuild/0.8.5-rc2/) and I'm kinda torn. The Manjaro one has a few niggles but my heart lies with Arch based systems, #! is overall better though, #! is the de facto openbox distro as far as I'm concerned and they have perfected it over time. Strangely #! also feels a bit 'snappier', dunno why that is.
 
Can't believe I haven't really done anything to my desktop pc at home since Nov 2011. I clean installed Fedora 16 then (from Fedora 15) and then just did a dist upgrade when F17 came out, tempted to move to F18 now that it's been out for a while.
 
ponder said:
I swapped the HDD with #! in my laptop out with another one on which I installed installed Manjaro Openbox Lite RC 0.85 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarodev/files/testbuild/0.8.5-rc2/) and I'm kinda torn. The Manjaro one has a few niggles but my heart lies with Arch based systems, #! is overall better though, #! is the de facto openbox distro as far as I'm concerned and they have perfected it over time. Strangely #! also feels a bit 'snappier', dunno why that is.
Click to expand...
I agree, Crunchbang is definitely the go to openbox distro. Now for interest fact, I added the repo for the Liquorix Kernel repository, and that seemed to make Crunchbang slower. Ok I thought, lets try out systemd, and that wasn't faster either on bootup, where a clean debian install converted to systemd was much faster for my XBMC setup. So either way I look at it, Crunchbang is not only polished in looks, but also with optimization for bootup and general speed. Its super snappy in all regards.
 
Linux Mint XFCe

or

Windows 7
My wife has a Lenovo Ideapad S10e with a 1.6 Atom CPU and 512 MB ram and she's running Windows 7 smoothly, it came out with Windows XP and she tried Linux Mint for a while, but didn't like it (I actually thought it was great). So I had to install something else and tried Windows 7, to my surprise it worked great.
 
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