Okay guys, here's your chance! I am in possession of a 15 year old laptop. What Linux OS should I put in it?
It's been about 8 years since I gave Linux a real chance. I have an Sony VAIO PCG-3D3l Laptop which was abandoned by it's previous owner.
I have no real plans for it, except to install Linux, and if I get comfortable with it, it's probably what I will end up doing my banking on, because as much as I love Windows, I can't say I ever feel secure using Windows.
What are your recommendations? I consider myself an advanced user with most forms of technology (Have an A+ certification that's older than this laptop), but not on the level most of the people reading this are probably on.
Just about all Linux distros will have comparable performance.
I suggest focusing instead on which desktop environment to use. LXQt or Xfce might be worth a try, or a plain old window manager if you want to get really lightweight and can tolerate some extra work. Get a live USB image and test drive one.
(For those who don't know, most distros have a variety of DEs and WMs available in their repos. You don't have to use the one that's installed by default.)
This answer has a lot of wisdom. It would have helped me greatly at the beginning of my Linux journey if someone had explained the difference between a distro and a DE, and how they both work. Choosing a DE is probably more important than choosing a distro for most beginners imo
There's a reason why Linux Mint gets recommended a lot because not only is it built upon a stable base and the distro is good (at least lmde), the cinnamon de is easy to use as well.
Most would do, especially if it has a dGPU. Almost any distro you pick will have very low minimum requirements. Linux is good like that!
Depending on your configuration, you may want to tweak some settings.
Pop_OS! and Linux Mint are very popular for beginners. Pop_OS! especially if you have an Nvidia GPU because they have a specific install just for that. Both are based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian.
Others might recommend Fedora, which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or OpenSUSE. They’re also simple, stable, and reliable like the others, but a bit different under the hood.
i use it on a 18 year old i7 PC of mine with no issues. it's fine for me. I use the Nvidia install, as i have a 960 GTX, which may affect the performance.
as i said, it really depends on the config. Mint may be the better option.
Agree with everything except about the dgpu. Personally ran into problems due to kernel compatibility with the proprietary drivers that are no longer being maintained with older models like the NVIDIA NVS 5400M on a thinkpad t430 and had to switch to nouveau. Its fine for what I use it for but does have screen tearing on external monitors so a beginner might get frustrated and since the display I/O is often using the dgpu you can't use integrated graphics. So yeah not everything will be seamless for OP if they do have a dgpu
Well tried for Mint Xfce, but it wouldn't take. Two installs and the same repeating error over 10,000 times and counting when I last shut it off. So decided to give Debian a try and I'm pretty sure I went with Xfce as well. And no issues as it booted successfully. Good times!
Maybe I'll do the newbie thing and keep trying out different distros, I'm not sure at this point, but I will say it is nice to have a computer that doesn't matter to me to mess with.
I guess im diving right in. I also have a laptop of my own, with better specs I'm installing linux on now as i type. This one im going to experiement with more, and leave the other one as my banking PC.
And don't try using a webbrowser with modern websites on that thing. I mean how much RAM does that Vaio have?
(You can also try more modern distros. Just don't install the latest desktop environment and expect it tr run smoothly. LXQT or LXDE, XFCE or some slim desktop might be better suited for something old.)