Joined today, need advice on choosing the best distro for my hardware

Folks! Looking forward to some powerful computing by joining the Linux community. I have had some exposure to Linux in the past and used Linux Mint for a year and I can navigate around in Linux desktop environment easily. I am using a Dell Inspiron 6000 (bought in 2005) with Linux Mint with the following hardware:

Memory - 2.0 GiB
Processor - Intel Pentium(R) M Processor 1.6GHz
Graphics - Intel 915GM x86/MMX/SSE2
OS type - 32-bit
Hard Disk size - 80GB

I want to switch from Linux Mint to another Distribution that allows downloading more applications and is user friendly, basically allows me to enjoy Linux. Any suggestions??

You will find it difficult to get another distro more user friendly than Linux Mint.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu so you should be able to access PPAs.

Are there any particular apps you want/need that you can't get from Mint?

Thanks arochester,

I'm just looking for basic functionality right now. For that Mint is sufficient I believe. Would definitely like to try out software like winamp etc. I was just wondering if there is more variety out there. Any links you recommend I should check out for GUI?

I usually get slower performance on my laptop. Do you think the limitation is because of the hardware (check above)?

I'm thinking longterm, I would want to use this system as a server in my home and access pictures and videos using other PCs and Macs.

With 2Gb of RAM you should have no bother running almost ANY distro.

What might cause some problem is the Intel Video.

Winamp is a (no surprise) Windows program and not a Linux program. There are apps on Linux that support Winamp skins. (Search in Synaptic for this)

The most versatile player is probably VLC.

cool! thanks for the info arochester

Hi PAKeagle, try Ubuntu, you can download and install ALOT of free apps, im currently running it in a old Dell Optiplex P4 3.0Ghz, 512MB Ram, 40GB HDD.