Which Linux For Laptop

Hi Everyone

I bought a laptop a few years ago with Windows XP on it. It has rarely been used because Win XP is slow on this machine.
It has a mobile Pentium 4 Processor CPU 3.06 GHZ and 512 mb DDR Ram

Rather than dump the laptop, I just wondered if you experts feel that putting a light linux distro on it might just beef up it speed to an acceptable level. Or are the PC specs too inadequate?

If the PC can be rejuvenated which Linux distro for SPEED and user friendliness/simplicity.

Thanks VM

Terry

 

well i same kinda set up on my cousin laptop what i did is i add one more ram of 1 gb if possible and install ubuntu LTS best recomendtion


on your same setup you can go for puppylinux... bodhi linux or pclinuxos xfce very user friendly and fast distro's

or

lxde/xfce base distro's like xubuntu lubuntu mint xfce......etc

 

Since ubuntu is the only distro where suspend has worked reliably for me and it's a feature needed to work in laptops i'd say ubuntu with a so called lightweight desktop. Lubuntu perhaps? http://lubuntu.net/

 

Maybe Puppy Linux 5.0 would work. It's based on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

 

Puppy Linux or any Distro with LXDE desktop. XP shouldn't be slow unless you have many start-up items, memory hogging AV and GFX card that shares memory. You should add more memory and the thing should run most things good, Ram is cheap now-a-days.

 

Bodhi Linux might be just what you are looking for. It has a wonderfull desktop, is very light on resources, and easy to use (yes, is that good )
Check those:
http://www.bodhilinux.com/system.php
http://www.bodhilinux.com/gallerysystem.php
http://bodhilinux.com/quickstart/quickstartEN/
http://www.bodhilinux.com/download.php
http://forums.bodhilinux.com/

IMO Puppy Linux, because the way it works, fits better as a portable OS.
http://puppylinux.org/main/How NOT to install Puppy.htm

 

also one more thing i like to advice create your swap upto 2gb atleast

althou many recommend swap to be created double............but you can create more/less here in your case you have only 512 ram so creating more swap give you little help


swap

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

 

Lubuntu and if you need more adventure and even lighter, Crunchbang.

 

I would say Slax. Very light wheight and fast.

 

I suggest that you start with the system scanner here: http://www.crucial.com/
It shows you if an upgrade to more memory is possible, you don't need to stick with Crucial, you can buy any compatible brand.

Memory upgrades of laptops are fairly easy, usually you unscrew a small lid at the bottom and the memory banks are accessible.
You can search for instructions based on the brand and model.

 

Last updated version of Slax is over 2 years old (v 6.1.2 / August 4, 2009). I wouldn't recommend using it.

Op, stay with one of the big ones - Crunchbang is a nice recommendation.

Just stay away from KDE and GNOME, if all you have is 512 mb.