What version Linux for old laptop?

I have an old IBM ThinkPad laptop, running Windows 7 very slowly. It was designed for XP but came with 7.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to switch it to Linux, so I'm looking for a version that will run smooth and nicely on this older machine. Also, it needs to be fairly simple/intuitive to use. And, reasonably supported with necessary updates and what not. It's used for browsing the web mainly, well, almost exclusively.

Can anyone suggest a version that will be suitable? I appreciate all sugestions, help.

 

Linux Mint (Ubuntu based); it has the largest hardware database so you will mostly have drivers for your old machine and its UI is very similar to win7.

 

Mint is a great option for newer machines; but, in older machines, in my opinion, it's quite "heavy". Mint will work, but again, my experience was that it was slow and ran out of memory quickly (I have an older system with 1 or 2 GB of RAM.) I've found Peppermint and Puppy to run great on older machines. My personal favorite on older machines, however, is Linux Lite. It runs well and updates quickly and has lots of software options/choices.

 

used XFCE with it, was quite light imo

 

I'm really attracted the Ubuntu LTS (because of 5yrs of updates so no reinstalling/fresh install after 6mo-1yr) & their offspring. So far I don't like XFCE but would recommend Lubuntu instead, personal preference.

 

Elementary OS. Extremely light, and beautiful. Perfect for a laptop\netbook.
Give it a try
http://elementaryos.org/

Installed it on my girlfriends netbook - 1gb ram and intel atom ? ?1.2ghz? ? something like that, anyway. It's buttery smooth

 

Which model Laptop is it ?

 

Depends how much RAM you got and the CPU. Windows XP SP1 will probably run faster and better than most Linux distros you throw at it.

 

NGRhodes: I don't have it with me at the moment to give you the model.

matt: I don't have an XP disc, anyhow I want something up to date, and light.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm now looking at Lite, Puppy, and elementaryOS

 

Ok. Let us know what works out for you.

 

I have always used a ubuntu flavor with Thinkpads. Those two seem to go together fine as far as drivers. In fact using Ubuntu right now on a ThinkPad and the keys are more crisp than with the 7 OS it came with.

 

Just throw https://www.debian.org/ or https://fedoraproject.org/ on it.

I wouldn't get held up over looking for a lightweight distro. If the laptop is at least 8 years old it should run anything fine.

 

Thanks for the suggestions and input. After some homework, I've decided I'll put Linux Lite on it. That seems the best one to me.

 

Linux Lite is fine, however, it's not "light" in terms of running well on older hardware, it's "light" because it comes with a very minimal number of apps and is very minimalistic in that regard. It's based on latest Ubuntu, which isn't that light, and therefore won't be much better. But try it and see how it goes.. it IS Xfce, so that's a plus. But it wouldn't really be any "lighter" than Xubuntu or any other Xfce distro.

 

I see the decision have been made. Here my input anyway.

I run PCLinuxOS on an old Toshiba, designed for XP laptop, it runs quite well. It is used by my daughter. I also run Slackware on another older Toshiba also designed for XP, this one I use. I prefer Slackware