linux for simple laptop

**tweak'e** · 30-01-2016, 11:28 PM

hi all
just wondering what linux disto is the best for laptop that will only be used for internet (to play internet radio) and music.
also would help to look like windows as much as possible.
sorry havn't got laptop specs with me. older one which originally came with XP, now had windows 7 on it and its annoying.

what ever happened to the windows lookalike distro's ?

**gary67** · 31-01-2016, 08:33 AM

I have a Atom powered HP mini110 with 2Gb ram. I was going to put Puppy on it but in the end went with Mint Mate edition runs very nicely better than it did with Windows. After upgrading it from Win7 starter to Win 10 the card reader could no longer be used, yet Mint can see and use it.

This would be my recommendation.

**KarameaDave** · 31-01-2016, 08:33 AM

You could try PCLinuxOS mate version, it is a bit like XP
and will run on older hardware
http://www.pclinuxos.com/get-pclinuxos/mate/

or you can check out numerous distros at
http://distrowatch.com/

**Agent_24** · 31-01-2016, 06:05 PM

If it was for XP, I'd probably use Lubuntu. Well supported being one of the Ubuntu family, but fairly lightweight. Or you could use Xubuntu if you prefer a more featured DE.

LXDE or XFCE from the aforementioned distros can feel quite similar to Windows, although by default Xubuntu is set to look like a Mac. Easy to change though.

I wouldn't bother with a Windows lookalike one though, there's no real point. Once you scratch past the surface to do anything more than basically just moving windows about the screen it becomes very apparent that it's not Windows.

**tweak'e** · 31-01-2016, 07:12 PM

ok. brain wave. why not install it on my old laptop at home here.
i chose PClinuxOS but the LXDE version as that should run well on old slow hardware.
downloading was a pain as it uses torrents but did find a link to a server that hosted files. small surprise is on that server was a light version.
thats kinda handy as this laptop is to old to boot from USB and i have no blank DVD. all i could scrounge up was one blank CD.
fortunately i could burn the light ISO to it.

only catch is trying to install all the things i need, which is not many. getting my head around the package manger.

while the lay out is not perfect copy of windows its close enough you can stumble your way around.

**dugimodo** · 01-02-2016, 08:32 AM

The thing about torrents, it's a superior way of downloading and does have legitimate uses. You could install Deluge which is small enough to have no real impact on your PC and then have the option of using a torrent to download the occasional linux distro.
The only gotcha to watch for with a torrent client (other than included rubbish with some) is to make sure it isn't set to run automatically on startup. Deluge is a good basic one with no adware- at least last I looked.

The real beauty of Linux is you can download multiple distro's and try them off the install CD to see which you prefer before installing, the disks can also be useful tools when you have issues with windows. I recently used linux mint to fix my windows host file after I screwed it up.

I've tried a few distro's and still think Linux Mint, either the cinnamon or mate versions, is the best one for people new to linux. Small enough for most systems, windows like enough not to feel totally alien, and including enough libraries and free software for most tasks. When I've tried "light" distros like Lubuntu I've very quickly found myself running into issues requiring me to sort out dependencies. For example one version had no Audio mixer and wouldn't let me choose the HDMI output for sound so I spent a couple of hours figuring out how to fix that with limited success. Installing MINT however fixed it immediately. It's not that it's better, just that they include most things you will likely need by default.

The full version of Ubuntu is also very good but the unity desktop is totally un-windows like and a bit off putting to some, we use it at work on a spare PC but I installed the KDE desktop on it as nobody liked the default. That's also an option, you are not stuck with the GUI it comes with unlike windows. That said Kubuntu is probably a good option also.

**KarameaDave** · 01-02-2016, 09:05 AM

I've never really liked LXDE, it can be a tricky one to configure.
It is soon to be LXQT which is the newer version
If you want that then the upcoming version of Lubuntu is supposed to have it when it is released in April
For older or slower machines I use MATE.
Puppy is excellent for older machines but requires sufficient knowledge to manually partition the drive with Gparted prior to installing.

**tweak'e** · 01-02-2016, 05:22 PM

well its all up and running.
manage to dig out some spare hardware.
got internet radio running on firefox. got task manager running to keep an eye on ram usage.
only got 400 odd meg which is why i went LXDE. so far its sitting around 200-300 meg in use.