sony laptop which linux

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Seb

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I have an older sony vaio laptop that I wanna try to install linux on which one OS would be good to use. 2.0 ghz intel core duo t2450 with 2gb ram. Model pcg-7y2l. I am new to linux which one would be easy to install and to learn on.
 


Well, what do you like to drive? Ford? Chevy? Dodge? Kia? Honda? Nissan? Hyundai? Volkswagon? Fiat? Subaru?

Linux gives you even more (way more) choices than that. Try some. Try MANY of them. Download some ISO's and burn them to DVD or USB stick and boot 'em up. Play with them awhile. See which one does (or does not) detect your hardware, especially WiFi. See which ones look visually appealing to YOU. We can't pick out your car, and we can't really pick out your Linux. They are all different, yet they are all similar... like they all have an engine, and tires, but thank goodness there are no Windows! :D

Google for some of these... just the tip of the iceberg:
Lubuntu
Linux Lite
Bodhi Linux
Puppy Linux
LXLE
Zorin OS
Simplicity Linux

These will probably all run pretty well on older hardware. But don't expect a Ferrari or Lamborghini either. Be prepared to learn stuff along the way. Linux is different, and that's a good thing. Welcome aboard!
 
Back in early 2000's I ran redhat for a bit then I lost interest in computers. I heard Sony vaio's aren't always the best laptops to use Linux. I'm really interested in trying Mint so ill see if I can boot it live from disk and check out if everything works esp the wifi. Bought a book for Linux commands just to read and learn. Any other advice for a newbie?
 
Back in early 2000's I ran redhat for a bit then I lost interest in computers. I heard Sony vaio's aren't always the best laptops to use Linux. I'm really interested in trying Mint so ill see if I can boot it live from disk and check out if everything works esp the wifi. Bought a book for Linux commands just to read and learn. Any other advice for a newbie?

I like Mint (I use it myself) and it will probably run okay also, but it may be a little slower than the others I listed. If you go with Mint, I would suggest either the MATE or XFCE desktops, rather than Cinnamon.

I think the Vaio will be okay. The absolute biggest hassle I run into is with new computers that were "designed for Windows 8" because the old "BIOS" firmware has been replaced with "UEFI" which is much more difficult to work with. Not impossible, but every OEM does UEFI differently, and it's a pain.

Redhat is now a pay-for subscription, mostly for businesses. The free variant is called Fedora. It is nice too, and it might run on your Vaio, but it might also be slow with your hardware.

The command line is always good to know a bit about, or at least not be afraid of it. You'll be fine there. But most anything you need to do these days can be done with a GUI.

So, besides running the live DVD, which run a little slower... you might even want to do full installs instead. They are all extremely easy if you let it install to the whole hard drive and blow Windows away. You can do a full Linux install with just about any version in under 45 minutes. Startup and shutdown will be much faster. And you can start learning (or re-learning) how to install a few other programs when you have it up and running. Every distro has a "Software Manager" or "Package Manager" to make installing new programs a snap... no more compiling from source. Well, hardly ever, anyway.

I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised how far Linux has come since the old Redhat days. Jump in with both feet!

Cheers!
 
I have Linux Mint Cinnamon on an 8 or 9 year old Dell D620; 2.2 GHz core 2 duo with 4 GB of memory and a 500 GB, 7200 RMP disk. I have a lot of development tools on it, including MySQL. I rarely go above 2 GB of memory, even when developing in Emacs with a SVN client running, Chrome with 8 or 10 tabs open, a VPN, MySQL client, and a handful of terminal windows open.

The laptop runs fine, although bootup is a bit slow; between booting and logging on, it takes 20 to 25 seconds. Once it is running, it runs well. Sure, Chrome take 5 to 10 seconds to load, but it is quick and responsive for the most part (sites with multiple videos running tend to load up the CPU a bit).

If lightning fast boot times are not a concern, Mint, or even Mint Cinnamon will work fine. If you are looking to use Linux, do some surfing, and use this as a learning tool, it will probably work just fine with whatever distribution you choose.

Just know that older laptops may need to have hardware acceleration shut off in browsers; I sometimes got "blackscreened" in some videos before I shut off hardware acceleration in Chrome.
 
Thanks for the info. Going to try a few and see what I like. Any good books to get. I will like to in the future learn how to program.
 
Thank atanere so much.
I have a Thinkpad T420; 2.2 GHz core i5 with 4 GB of memory and a 500 GB, 5400 RMP disk. Which version of Ubuntu is the best with mine??
 
mountain90 - with those specs, you can run any Linux you'd like. The most recent Ubuntu will work fine, or Linux Mint will be a good choice too. If you are new to Linux, Mint with the Cinnamon desktop is very easy to get along with. Ubuntu with Unity (default, "regular" Ubuntu) works well for a lot of people.

Your best bet will be to download a CD / DVD image, burn it, boot from the media, then see which one you like best before installing.
 
I'm running Linux Mint I tried a few and ended up with Mint. It was very easy to install and didn't have to get any drivers. So much easier then about 12 years ago. Very easy to use and getting back to command line wasn't to bad either.
 

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