What's the best Linux version for an old laptop?

[SickBeast]

My sister is giving me an Acer Travelmate 4000 that she doesn't use anymore.

I want to run Linux on it, preferably a version with great battery life that will run well on very limited memory (512mb).

What would you guys recommend? Would some upgrades be worthwhile (memory, hard drive)?

Thanks.

:beer:

Oh yeah: some specs:

Intel Centrino 1.5ghz (single-core)
512mb ram
40gb hdd (4200rpm w/ 2mb cache)

 

[Gamingphreek]

Xubuntu or perhaps Slackware would both run admirably. I have a 256mb Athlon 64 based HP laptop based laptop that struggles with Xubuntu so you should be fine with your specs.

-Kevin

 

[Nothinman]

Any distro can be made to run ok since they all have the same software available. I personally would start with Debian and see what runs ok. If you want to use Ubuntu that would be fine too, if Gnome is really too heavy for it you could always install XFCE from Synaptic and try it.

No matter what you choose you should consider more memory and possibly a faster hard disk although that'll probably hurt battery life.

 

[thedarkwolf]

my 1.8ghz athlonxp 1gig of ram laptop runs xubuntu just fine. If you want to go lean and mean try tinyme. Unlike a lot of the other small builds tinyme still looks nice and is fairly easy to use. It runs prety well on my old 1ghz box with only 256megs of ram. Haven't really fooled with it a lot though.

 

[Rottie]

Xubuntu is worth for old laptop or desktop pc and it runs great

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
...perhaps Slackware...

Definitely! And, get a hold of an old distro from about the same period...

I'm running a web server on Slackware - a 386 sh!t box actually. Hasn't been booted in like 3 years - and that's only because we had an extended power outage.

LoL!

That poor thing took like 2 days to fsck - couldn't believe it came back up...

Slackware has always been rock-solid... even today!

 

[SpeedEng66]

im using dsl linux for a really old lappy (p2 days lol) and it's quite zippy

 

[degibson]

Slackware to the rescue.

 

[thescreensavers]

Vista 7 seriously. Works speedy once loaded on 256mb of ram 4mb vid card.. dont know about battery life

 

[Nothinman]

Vista 7 seriously. Works speedy once loaded on 256mb of ram 4mb vid card.. dont know about battery life

Someone specifically asks for an opinion on what Linux version to use and you recommend a beta release of Windows? Just wow...

 

[Fox5]

Xubuntu if you want something easy to use, full featured, and relatively light. (though to be honest, it's not that much lighter than ubuntu, and the farther you get from mainline on any linux the more problems you have, so it may just be better to go ubuntu)

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Vista 7 seriously. Works speedy once loaded on 256mb of ram 4mb vid card.. dont know about battery life

Someone specifically asks for an opinion on what Linux version to use and you recommend a beta release of Windows? Just wow...

Yep, thats thread crapping, albeit SickBeast probably doesn't realize it since he does the exact thing in reverse in Windows threads all the time.

 

[benzylic]

I ran Ubuntu 7.10 on my desktop with an Athlon 1700, 256mb ram, and a Geforce 2 mx 400. Ran perfectly fine for me.