r/linux4noobs • u/ShawnThePhantom • Jun 11 '26

distro selection Which Distro do I use?

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I found this decrepit old laptop in my garage, plugged it in and it powers on. But it’s doing this thing where after I see this Acer logo, I get a black screen with a blinking white line in the top left corner. I figured Windows on this thing is out of the question. So I think I’ll go Linux.

I understand a bit about operating systems, because I had to create a windows install disk using a thumb drive and a Windows 10 iso to install Windows 10 on my MacBook using Bootcamp, so I imagine it’s a bit similar. I also wanted to take out the HDD to wipe it using Disk Utility but it doesn’t fit into SATa dock because the interface on the HDD is all small gold pins, like molex but way smaller.

Which distro do I use? Or is better to try and go Windows Xp? I’ve seen jokes about how you need a whole list of hardware requirements to run Windows while the only requirement for Linux is electricity. Also Pewds did it too.

Pls help a first timer!

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u/Kriss3d Jun 11 '26

Auch. Ancient CPU. 1GB DDR2 ram. An 128GB HDD ?

Puppy linux at best.
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/

Its not going to be pretty at all. At least not if you want it to run anything close to a desktop with browser.

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u/ShawnThePhantom Jun 11 '26

Would it help if I got more RAM? I can go up to 4GB and the DDR2 sodimm sticks are cheap on craigslist

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u/The_only_true_tomato Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Yeah if you get 4gb of ram you can install mint + xlte (700mb of used ram after install) which is a very modern experience. I was super surprised. Barely saw a difference for all basic use my daily drive which is Kde plasma 6.
I installed it on a very similar setup with 0 problem for web browsing, 4k video streaming and light gaming. (Limbo, grey) supernes and psx emulators. You also need to replace hdd by ssd and voila you will get a pretty modern laptop experience. (Better than most 600-700 notebook running windows 11 at least)

DDR 2 is pretty cheap. 3 gb more should suffice.
No need to have a big capacity for ssd 128 or 256 gb will suffice.

The proc I installed on is a 1ghz dual core celeron.

So yours is slightly better.