help choosing distro:

[stuart]

hi I'm new,
I have used Xubuntu before but not for a very long time,
I have been trying to research,
which system is the best but cant seem to get
to grips with it,
And for some reason it seems to be very hard to work it out,
so need help and guidence choosing distro"
for my HP G62 Notebook PC
Running Windows 7 Home Premuim.
intel P6100 @ 2.00 GHz
64 bit operating system with
3GB Ram.
Thanks .!

 

[70 Tango Charlie]

@stuart
Greetings and welcome,
At first I wondered if my oldest son was posting here.
Anyhow; on to your subject.
I have found that the easiest distro to get up and running for a Windows user is Linux Mint - the latest version is 19.3 Tricia.
It's easy to install, comes with everything you need right out of the box.
You can find it here - https://linuxmint.com
Once again - Welcome and enjoy your stay with some nice people.
Old Geezer
Tango Charlie

 

[warlockk]

Welcome to the club. I'm glad you prefer linux. This link can help you:

Slant - What are the easiest Linux distributions for Windows users to get acquainted with?

Mint, Manjaro Linux, and Linux Lite are probably your best bets out of the 19 options considered. "Familiar user interface " is the primary reason people pick Mint over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.

www.slant.co

 

[Vrai]

I have been trying to research,
which system is the best

"best" is quite subjective. I think you would need to define what is meant by "best".
What features are you looking for? Speed? Reliability? Newest, bleeding-edge software?
'Eye-candy'? Stability? Accessibility? Most 'Windows' like'? Ease of use? Etc.

That's one of the wonderful things about Linux - lots and lots of choices!
Unfortunately it also makes it rather difficult to choose - so I just try 'em all

 

[stuart]

"best" is quite subjective. I think you would need to define what is meant by "best".
What features are you looking for? Speed? Reliability? Newest, bleeding-edge software?
'Eye-candy'? Stability? Accessibility? Most 'Windows' like'? Ease of use? Etc.

That's one of the wonderful things about Linux - lots and lots of choices!
Unfortunately it also makes it rather difficult to choose - so I just try 'em all

I want it for Speed? Reliability but,
doesnt have to be the Newest,
not sure what you mean by bleeding-edge?
software is a yes Stability is a must
accessibility yes and similar to Windows,
doesnt have to be exactly alike
and yes I like Ease of use.

 

[stuart]

Welcome to the club. I'm glad you prefer linux. This link can help you:

Slant - What are the easiest Linux distributions for Windows users to get acquainted with?

Mint, Manjaro Linux, and Linux Lite are probably your best bets out of the 19 options considered. "Familiar user interface " is the primary reason people pick Mint over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.

www.slant.co

do I get
Speed? Reliability but,
doesnt have to be the Newest,
I'd like to run specific software too and Stability is a must have
accessibility and similar to Windows,
doesnt have to be exactly alike windows
but I do like Ease of use.

 

[Deleted member 58530]

I suggest LXLE.

Small footprint very low resource and works OOTB on every computer I've installed it on.

LXLE Review: A Hassle-free Linux for Older Hardware

Brief: LXLE is a lightweight Linux distribution mainly focused on older systems. John takes it for a test drive and shares his experience in this LXLE review. If you visit It’s FOSS often, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of Arch-based distros. In fact, most of

itsfoss.com

Revive that old PC! < The LXLE Desktop

LXLE Linux, Revive your old PC. LXLE is a remastered version of Ubuntu/Lubuntu LTS releases, using the LXDE desktop interface. LXLE provides a complete drop in and go operating system coupled with style, speed and capability. It's light on resources and heavy on functions.

lxle.net

What is it? < The LXLE Desktop

About LXLE Lubuntu Extra Life Extension

lxle.net

Since you only have 3.0 GB of memory I'd recommend lowering the level of swappiness for a minor speed increase since memory is less than 4.0GB.

This is easily done by following these commands open the spoiler and have a read.

Spoiler

Swappiness
The swappiness setting determines when a system begins swapping data to the hard disk. A low value makes more use of memory and less use of the swap partition.

As memory storage is many times faster than hard disk storage this is what we want.

The default setting is 60, which makes swapping begin early. Lowering to, say 10 sometimes makes a significant improvement in speed, dependent on the hard disk type and workload.


Copy the command to the terminal and press Enter. You will now see the present value of swappiness.

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

After that run the command

sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10

in the terminal and press Enter and then enter your password and press enter.

After that run the command.

sudo sed -i '$ a\vm.swappiness = 10' /etc/sysctl.conf

to make the changes permanent.

The new setting is activated in next boot. In effect it moves workload from a slow, rotating hard drive to the memory modules, which are faster than a solid state drive, and it could be referred to as the poor man's SSD.

 

[stuart]

@stuart
Greetings and welcome,
At first I wondered if my oldest son was posting here.
Anyhow; on to your subject.
I have found that the easiest distro to get up and running for a Windows user is Linux Mint - the latest version is 19.3 Tricia.
It's easy to install, comes with everything you need right out of the box.
You can find it here - https://linuxmint.com
Once again - Welcome and enjoy your stay with some nice people.
Old Geezer
Tango Charlie

24 minutes ago

• New
• #5

This message is awaiting moderator approval, and is invisible to normal visitors.

warlockk said:
Welcome to the club. I'm glad you prefer linux. This link can help you:

Slant - What are the easiest Linux distributions for Windows users to get acquainted with?
Mint, Zorin, and Manjaro Linux are probably your best bets out of the 16 options considered. "Familiar user interface " is the primary reason people pick Mint over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.

www.slant.co
Click to expand...

do I get
Speed and Reliability and it
doesnt have to be the newest tech,
I'd like to run specific software too and Stability is a must have
accessibility and similar to windows,
doesnt have to be exactly alike windows with ease of use.

 

[Vrai]

I want it for Speed? Reliability but,
doesnt have to be the Newest,
not sure what you mean by bleeding-edge?
software is a yes Stability is a must
accessibility yes and similar to Windows,
doesnt have to be exactly alike
and yes I like Ease of use.

Excellent! Good to know.

"Bleeding-edge" software means the newest, most current version available. But often times the newest software has not had time to be well tested on a great many machines in a variety of scenarios. This can result in "bugs" popping up which were not known at the time and cause problems with the operation of the computer. Thus many people choose to use a distro which may not have the newest software but is well tested and does not "break" very often.

Some of the distros which are known for stability are also known to have older software. This is a deterrent for many users. The trick is to find a balance between newer software and reliable stability.

"Ease of use" will narrow the field of likely candidates down by a fair amount As will "similar to Windows".

By "accessibility" I was referring to use case scenarios for people who have challenges using a computer in the 'usual' fashion. Issues such as blindness, mobility, etc. Some distros are better at incorporating accessibility programs. There used to be one or two that 'specialized' in such.

 

[sp331yi]

I have owned similar machines and have found the following to suit my needs.
antiX 19.1, Puppy Slacko 6.3.0, Salix XFCE 14.2 (Basic install)

I also recommend that, unless RAM is increased (I suggest maximum capacity) and/or a SSD is installed, you stick with the 32bit versions of any distro chosen. Doing these two hardware upgrades increases the options as far as GNU/Linux distribution choice is concerned.

Best wishes!

 

[jglen490]

I agree with sp331yi.

I also think that if the OP is somewhat used to Windows, the best Linux is the one that does NOT say it's "just like Windows". WHY? Easy, nothing is "just like Windows". Some distros may bear some resemblance, but none of them work like Windows. Linux is not Windows, Windows is not Linux.

So if you don't have the expectation of Linux being like Windows, the exploration of Linux will be that much more rewarding. It doesn't take much time to learn, but you can learn for the rest of your life.