Linux distro for my dad?
 

Although my dad has a tablet with a separate Bluetooth keyboard he still prefers to use his old Netbook for writing letters emails etc. Trouble is it's an Intel Atom N450 with Windows 7 and it's soo slow. For £50 I've bought a cheapo SSD and an extra 1GB and I'm going to put a light weight Linux distro on there. I was thinking of Lubuntu, and not delving much myself with Linux I didn't know if this is a good choice?

I'd probably go with Linux Mint myself.

Or if you're looking for something with a more familiar windows-like interface, you could try Zorin (the 'Lite' edition is free).

Thanks Mark for that suggestion +++

Now checking out Zorin OS

No problem.

Another option I've just remembered, that a fellow techie recently suggested, but one I'm yet to try myself, is LXLE. Apparently it's based on Lubuntu but uses the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, since it's the choice of DE that matters more than the choice of distro when you're looking for lightweight Linux OSes.

I have no idea what you're talking about! :Confused:

Clearly a generation thing. :)

Nah, you're the same generation as me Jim, give or take a few years. I think it's more of a vocation/interest thing. For me it's a bit of both; I've worked and played with IT and electronics all my life (though I've only really dabbled with Linux). I've got some older customers who understand the IT they use very well and I've got some younger customers who barely understand the basics. I think, like anything else, you have to find it interesting to be able to understand and learn it.

Surprise. Surprise
Mark, I did not realisethat you were into the black art :ROFL:
I find that I am losing my skills, memory loss is my bugbear :D
Next time we meet we will have to have a more intelligent chat.

We will! :lol:

I could sit and chat about technology or science all day long.

How about quantum entanglement? .... now THAT is a fascinating subject! :D

Is that the new James Bond film? :D

:ROFL:

No Neil, but that would be a good title.

Xubuntu or Lubuntu are good "out of the box" options. I use Xubuntu on my Asus EeePC which is Atom based too.

Thanks guys for all the input and suggestions. The beauty of Linux is that I can try them all for free and see how they perform before handing back the laptop +++

how about quantum robins .... that sounds REALLY interesting !

but in response to your original question i would say none ...for the moment
first I would suggest reserving a free download of windows 10 available next month , see if he likes that
if that doesn't suit , by all means linux in some form
but if you install linux first you have burnt his boats...no free install of 10 !

There's no reason he couldn't go back to Windows 7 later (and then accept the Windows 10 upgrade), assuming there's a readable COA sticker on the machine, or the key is extracted and saved before reformatting. However, Windows 10 will require similar resources to run (if not a little more) as Windows 7/8, so it will still be slow, especially if the netbook has only got 2GB of RAM.

Ah, yes, the discovery that some birds appear to utilise quantum mechanics for navigation. Yeah, I remember hearing about that recently; that IS interesting ...

Windows 10 actually runs pretty well on ancient hardware. We've been playing around with the preview at work on a number of dual core laptops with just 1GB Ram and 250GB HDD and it actually runs pretty good. Far better than Vista and 8 did on the same hardware. The new version seems to be less demanding on hardware than 8.1.

word is that some slimming down has been taking place , not hard seeing that windows has always been some of the worst written software ever [ ok , not compared to what the NHS paid billions for !]

but with the size of HDD fitted to a netbook dual OS just isn't going to work , and as microsoft are having a peek at the fitted OS before permitting the free upgrade download [ or even making a reservation ] having a sticker ain't going to cut the mustard I presume ; as 10 is an upgrade , if the old OS isn't there it won't be able to install one presumes ; don't forget a netbook comes without a DVD player or a system disc ; hastle ,hastle

For now ...

Windows 7 was the same on release, and it's been the same story with most versions of Windows. If you install an early release of 7, without any service packs, it too will happily run on older hardware with just 1GB of RAM, but now it's middle-aged and it's gained some weight. Without putting it on a diet by identifying and removing a heap of non-essential services and features, it struggles to run efficiently at anything less than about 3GB of RAM. I reckon Windows 10 will be looking podgy in less than 12 months.

Some netbooks come with relatively large HDDs (~320-500GB), but you can easily upgrade that or replace it with an SSD, as Matty is doing, so dual boot isn't an issue. In fact, I have a netbook of a similar vintage that I configured to quad-boot at one time.

No need to dual-boot it though. If you have the key (either from the COA on the bottom, or by recovering and recording it before reformatting), trying Windows 10 later won't be an issue. It's simply a matter of reinstalling Windows 7 first then performing the upgrade.

As for the lack of a CD/DVD ROM, I can't remember the last time I used an optical disc to install an OS; it must be a good 5 years or more. For at least 10 years, it's been the norm in the IT industry to boot and install the OS from USB storage devices. At the server-end of the IT world, which is where the majority of my work is these days, optical drives have been obsolete for years, but even down at the residential end they're being omitted from newer systems now.

so format the HDD , try a linux distro , probably quicker
but maybe I would like 10 better ?
format again , download 10 , try
actually I think linux was better
format again , install linux

personally I would just wait until next month ;actually , come to think of it , that's exactly what I am going to do ! 10 is bound to be an improvement from reports I have , if and when that gets overloaded , linux will undoubtedly have improved so will changed then !

Well this is an interesting article, the second paragraph reckons that upgraded Win 10 users will be able to do a clean reinstall of Win 10 from ISO. That will be great if true.

So far only my work PC (win7pro) is showing the Get Win 10 icon, all our home PCs are 8.1 / 8.1pro.

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...ws-10-upgrade/

Interesting ...

Gabe does however state that: Suggesting that the upgrade will still be necessary, initially at least. Which makes sense, since they somehow need to verify that you have an existing eligible version of Windows installed. I suspect what he's saying is, that once you've performed an upgrade, you'll be able to extract the licence key in order to perform subsequent clean installations.

So you'll still need to re-install Windows 7 first, if you decide to try 10 later, in which case make sure you make a note of the Windows 7 key.

as someone who has grown old using windows [ anyone want to have 3.1 installed ? just drop in ] could it be that matty's dad would prefer the devil he knows and that he would be happier with 10 even if linux is faster ?

Nah, 3.11 ('for Workgroups') is the one to have, with it's networking features :D

I actually managed to get 3.11 running in a VM not so long ago.

I've still got the installation discs somewhere, on 3.5" floppies.

well , I 've clicked on the ...reserve a download of 10 ...box and got a response ..suitable system and reservation made ; so they clearly check if you have the appropriate windows installed

Linux Mint gets my vote
 

I use this for my main OS as I'm a UNIX/Linux sysadmin by trade. Having said that, I've persuaded some of the people who I've fixed laptops/PCs for in the past to have Linux installed as a backup in case it all goes mammaries. Two out of those five people now exclusively use Mint. It came in very handy when one person's PC wouldn't boot and their daughter had some important stuff to submit to school for homework. They were able to boot into Linux, mount the Windows partition (easy under the file manager application) and then open LibreOffice to edit/save the document.

You can also run Linux Mint as the main OS in the background and use VirtualBox to install whichever Windows client OS you want. Works extremely well. When run in 'seamless mode', it appears to be a Windows desktop and you can't tell the difference.

That's worth knowing. Are you available for freelance work (paid, of course)? :)

My daily work is with Windows-based business networks and servers, though I'm an electronics design engineer and programmer by trade.

I dabble in Linux, but I know a lot less about it than I'd like, so I tend to avoid using it in mission critical environments. I do sometimes use it for some set-and-forget type of systems, like NVRs, but presently not for anything that requires me to support end-users.

Free from my desk...
 

Due to work commitments, I tend to be kept rather busy but I'm always open to questions. If you need to, send me a PM.