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Linux for older laptop

post #1 of 9
10/20/12 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
Hey OCN! My mother's laptop got a bad virus, and so she sent it to a computer repair person, and her hard drive was wiped. It was an old lappy running either XP or Vista. all she really does on it is browse the web and use word. what would be a good flavor of linux for her? I need something light and wont sap the battery.
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My First Rig
(17 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD A6-3650 F1A75-M PRO AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series Samsung Wonder Ram 
RAMHard DriveCoolingCooling
Samsung Wonder Ram WD Caviar Blue Coolermaster hyper 212 CM R4 Sickleflow X3 
CoolingOSMonitorKeyboard
Artic Silver 5 Windows 7 Professional  Samsung Syncmaster SA10 18.5" Logitech K520 
PowerCaseMouseMouse Pad
CM xTreme power 500w Thermaltake Commander MSI Logitech M310 Some generic mousepad.. 
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Logitech Z313 
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post #2 of 9
10/20/12 at 6:05pm
  • Shrak
  • (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
A little more specification may help. An old laptop running XP and an old laptop running Vista are two vastly different things. XP can run on 256mb of ram with no problem ( a little laggy, but still runs ) whereas a vista machine will likely have a somewhat modern cpu and 1gb+ of ram which means it could pretty much run any modern distro.
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post #3 of 9
10/20/12 at 6:06pm
Thread Starter 
it was running vista, and i think it had 1gb of ram
My First Rig
(17 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD A6-3650 F1A75-M PRO AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series Samsung Wonder Ram 
RAMHard DriveCoolingCooling
Samsung Wonder Ram WD Caviar Blue Coolermaster hyper 212 CM R4 Sickleflow X3 
CoolingOSMonitorKeyboard
Artic Silver 5 Windows 7 Professional  Samsung Syncmaster SA10 18.5" Logitech K520 
PowerCaseMouseMouse Pad
CM xTreme power 500w Thermaltake Commander MSI Logitech M310 Some generic mousepad.. 
Audio
Logitech Z313 
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My First Rig
(17 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD A6-3650 F1A75-M PRO AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series Samsung Wonder Ram 
RAMHard DriveCoolingCooling
Samsung Wonder Ram WD Caviar Blue Coolermaster hyper 212 CM R4 Sickleflow X3 
CoolingOSMonitorKeyboard
Artic Silver 5 Windows 7 Professional  Samsung Syncmaster SA10 18.5" Logitech K520 
PowerCaseMouseMouse Pad
CM xTreme power 500w Thermaltake Commander MSI Logitech M310 Some generic mousepad.. 
Audio
Logitech Z313 
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post #4 of 9
10/20/12 at 6:31pm
  • Shrak
  • (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
So you should be pretty much good to run anything ( maybe not KDE though, but it's possible ) tongue.gif
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post #5 of 9
10/21/12 at 6:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrak View Post

So you should be pretty much good to run anything ( maybe not KDE though, but it's possible ) tongue.gif
are there any specific versions you would recommend? i would like something that is easy on the battery, and over all easy to use
My First Rig
(17 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD A6-3650 F1A75-M PRO AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series Samsung Wonder Ram 
RAMHard DriveCoolingCooling
Samsung Wonder Ram WD Caviar Blue Coolermaster hyper 212 CM R4 Sickleflow X3 
CoolingOSMonitorKeyboard
Artic Silver 5 Windows 7 Professional  Samsung Syncmaster SA10 18.5" Logitech K520 
PowerCaseMouseMouse Pad
CM xTreme power 500w Thermaltake Commander MSI Logitech M310 Some generic mousepad.. 
Audio
Logitech Z313 
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My First Rig
(17 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD A6-3650 F1A75-M PRO AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series Samsung Wonder Ram 
RAMHard DriveCoolingCooling
Samsung Wonder Ram WD Caviar Blue Coolermaster hyper 212 CM R4 Sickleflow X3 
CoolingOSMonitorKeyboard
Artic Silver 5 Windows 7 Professional  Samsung Syncmaster SA10 18.5" Logitech K520 
PowerCaseMouseMouse Pad
CM xTreme power 500w Thermaltake Commander MSI Logitech M310 Some generic mousepad.. 
Audio
Logitech Z313 
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post #6 of 9
10/21/12 at 11:02am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thepoopscooper View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrak View Post

So you should be pretty much good to run anything ( maybe not KDE though, but it's possible ) tongue.gif
are there any specific versions you would recommend? i would like something that is easy on the battery, and over all easy to use

Based on your needs Linux Mint Debian Edition Xfce should do the job
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Seagate Barracuda 1TB (ST1000DM003) Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB Seagate External 1TB LG DVD Burner 
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post #7 of 9
10/24/12 at 5:17am
  • Orn
  • *cough* Stock *cough*
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrak View Post

So you should be pretty much good to run anything ( maybe not KDE though, but it's possible ) tongue.gif

if by kde meaning plasma, then I'm sorry to say you are out of luck



when it comes to low range/old hardware I am a huge fan of Slitaz
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Titanic Jelly Hammer!!!
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CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
6400+ Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 Galaxy GTS 250 (8600gts physx) 4GB Patriot DDR2-800 
Hard DriveOptical DriveCoolingOS
2x 160GB spinpoints LiteOn DVD writer (sata) Thermaltake Blue Orb II Linux Mint 13 X64 KDE BABY! 
MonitorKeyboardPowerCase
17" Philips CRT!!!!!! Some chinese "stek" ps2 keyboard TT toughpower 600w Modified Delux case 
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logitech PS2 (My mouse has BALLZ!) a costco wholesale mousepad with a piggy bank Sound Blaster Live! SE 
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post #8 of 9
10/24/12 at 7:39am
  • Shrak
  • (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Quote:
Originally Posted by Orn View Post

if by kde meaning plasma, then I'm sorry to say you are out of luck
when it comes to low range/old hardware I am a huge fan of Slitaz

If he's got enough ram and a proccessor enough to run vista, it may be possible to do it fluidly. Seeing as requirements (minimum) were 1Ghz CPU and 1Gig of RAM, and most OEM's were using 1.6Ghz+ CPU's by then. Unless he gives more specs then there's no way to tell.
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post #9 of 9
10/31/12 at 8:58am
  • Orn
  • *cough* Stock *cough*
but lets not forget, when vista laptops were rolling out, the specs were noticeably under the minimum or at minimum requirements and we all know what happed to vista when meeting the minimum requirements let alone below minimum requirements.

Anyway its up to the OP to choose his/her OS of choice; I'm just passing gas.
Titanic Jelly Hammer!!!
(15 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
6400+ Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 Galaxy GTS 250 (8600gts physx) 4GB Patriot DDR2-800 
Hard DriveOptical DriveCoolingOS
2x 160GB spinpoints LiteOn DVD writer (sata) Thermaltake Blue Orb II Linux Mint 13 X64 KDE BABY! 
MonitorKeyboardPowerCase
17" Philips CRT!!!!!! Some chinese "stek" ps2 keyboard TT toughpower 600w Modified Delux case 
MouseMouse PadAudio
logitech PS2 (My mouse has BALLZ!) a costco wholesale mousepad with a piggy bank Sound Blaster Live! SE 
View all
  hide details  
Reply
Titanic Jelly Hammer!!!
(15 items)
  		  
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
6400+ Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 Galaxy GTS 250 (8600gts physx) 4GB Patriot DDR2-800 
Hard DriveOptical DriveCoolingOS
2x 160GB spinpoints LiteOn DVD writer (sata) Thermaltake Blue Orb II Linux Mint 13 X64 KDE BABY! 
MonitorKeyboardPowerCase
17" Philips CRT!!!!!! Some chinese "stek" ps2 keyboard TT toughpower 600w Modified Delux case 
MouseMouse PadAudio
logitech PS2 (My mouse has BALLZ!) a costco wholesale mousepad with a piggy bank Sound Blaster Live! SE 
View all
  hide details  
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