What is a good OS for 32 bit laptop?

[shanper]

I have this 32 bit laptop which runs Ubuntu 12.04. Most of the packages are outdated.

CPU: Core Duo
RAM: 3Gb
HDD: 120Gb SSD

I want to find a Linux OS for this.
This will be used for Web development and some other simple programming tasks.
I don't won't anything too fancy. Because It is very important that it won't eatup my mear 3Gb RAM and 120Gb SSD.

Appreciate your help.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums
If its a core 2 duo then it is most likely 64 bit enabled,
this one I am using at the moment is a 2008 del, and happily runs Mint LMDE, have also run MX,Peppermint,Debian+driver pack, parrot home and several others on it,
if by some fluke yours is only 32bit, then my 2000 acer runs MX=32 bit it has also run Peppermint respin,debian 32bit, and Antix
download any 64 bit and try it, as support for 32 bit is rapidly declining and is likely to come to an end in the next couple of years

 

[shanper]

@Brickwizard thank you for your warm welcome.
Actually the CPU is a 32 bit Core Duo which I learned that is different from Core 2 Duo.

Out of the OS's you mentioned, according to your knowledge which one gives a good user experience for a novice programmer? Let's say with a good package manager, stable OS, a good community, less resource use, etc...

 

[Brickwizard]

novice programmer?

You can learn programming using any Linux distribution, it's more a question of which you like the look and feel of, of those I mentioned, Peppermint is probably the most newbie friendly
I doubt your machine is USB bootable, as long as it has a DVD/RW [or a DVD player and you have access to another machine with a DVD writer] you will need a few DVD-r discs [RW can cause problems] for your installation medium you should be OK

 

[KGIII]

I know nothing about that CPU. I must have missed it at the time it came out.

I did some digging and it looks like you can actually run a 64 bit OS and that you can address more than the 4-ish GB of RAM with that CPU? I might be reading it wrong, but this is one such page I found:

https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Is-Core-2-Duo-64-bit/td-p/2432400

 

[Brickwizard]

I know nothing about that CPU.

i think it the intel T2400 in which case it is only a 32 bit. it was the only one in the range:

EDIT
that would make it a 2006 machine

​