Best Linux for slightly old system of a non-tech person

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sakumar79

Technomancer
Hi all,
My uncle has a reasonably old system (1.4GHz P4 CPU with 768MB RAM, 80+40GB HDD). He is a non-technical person and is currently using XP Pro. He frequently gets virus problems... So, I am suggesting to him to install Linux side-by-side and try it out... He has agreed to check it out... His main needs are browsing, chatting (skype, yahoo), office work (OOo), and listening to music/watching movies...
I want to setup a distro which should be reasonably easy to use and be light-weight... I dont think Ubuntu will run very smoothly, hence I want some other distro...Will Fedora LXDE fit the bill? Does it have OOo pre-installed? What other distro would you recommend?

Arun
 
Flake

Flake

Linux User
Try Xubuntu. Its best for your machine's configuration. Solid sources and very good support.
 
OP
S

sakumar79

Technomancer
Last time I tried Linux Mint, it was even slower than Ubuntu... This was a couple of years ago... Is it lighter now?
 
Dark Core

Dark Core

Freak Beta 1
Go for Linux Mint - Sure its' a lightweight distro with lot of eye-candy features. XP Users should feel home using Mint. Ubuntu is good option too.

But I strongly recommend to start wth Mint Distro
 
krabhishek

krabhishek

Right off the assembly line
sakumar79 said:
I am trying XUbuntu now, and will post my comments and doubts after some time...
Click to expand...

Xubuntu uses XFCE desktop env. which is quite good in a sense, but a newbie might find it a little difficult.

Ubuntu 9.10 is impressive. It might be a little slow in terms of response times but fair enough.
 
F

FilledVoid

Guest
I know this is kind of an old thread but in case it doesn;t work and if your computer resources permit I suggest giving Sabayon 5.0 Live DVD try. It comes with the KDE , Gnome and Home Theatre Build I believe. At the moment Im using it on an Internet CXafe computer and Im quite amazed that it found every single piece of hardware on both this system and my Hp Pavilion dv6125 (not sure about Web cam didnt test it). At the moment I have 3 Nautilus Windows open. Firefox with 4 tabs, XChat and its using about 530 MB of RAM. It seems to be friendly enough but definitely I would try the Live DVD first and see if you can use it all. I haven't installed it on my system yet though.
*img706.imageshack.us/img706/6240/screenshotsystemmonitor.png​
 
OP
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sakumar79

Technomancer
As mentioned by some, I was having some difficulties configuring XUbuntu...While I have some experience with Linux (limited) and am very comfortable with computers in general, the actual user was to be a non-tech person, so I decided to ditch it... I tried out Linux Mint Helena and found it much easier to use... So, I installed it and have given it in dual boot with XP... So far I havent heard back from him regarding problems, so either (a) he has not faced any problems so far, or (b) he found it difficult and stuck to XP... Will check with him later...

Arun
 
Cool G5

Cool G5

Conversation Architect
Sabayon 5 is much better than Sabayon 4.2.

@FilledVoid - Which CPU does your system have?
 
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FilledVoid

Guest
The above screen shot was from a Sempron . but thats all I know about it I don't recall the exact speed. As far as bugginess is concerned I must be luck then since I have not yet experienced a single problem.
 
Cool G5

Cool G5

Conversation Architect
@FilledVoid - I have tried Sabayon at a friend's place via Live CD. I too didn't find any bugs. The 4.2 version was buggier & even threw unsupported hardware for the AMD Phenom II X2 550B.E processor of my friend. But the latest 5n is really good. Fast & works as it should. Sabayon is really a good distro but I never thought of installing it onto older PC's. Maybe your ram is helping you. My 512MB DDR RAM machine will definitely get bogged down.
 
Ecko

Ecko

Wandering In Tecno Land
Ubuntu or Xubuntu both are gud and will work fyn
Just dont try to customize dem wid compiz :D :D
 
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