Advice on flavour of Linux/Ubuntu etc for my spec machine please

theMusicMan

Hello everyone!

Pretty new(ish) to Linux - the only experience I have is a recent installation of Ubuntu on an old MacBook, which worked fine.  What I am after now though is advice on which flavour of Linux I should install on another machine, this time it's a Laptop PC.

I have a wonderful old Dell Latitude C840 laptop which I powered up for the first time in over a decade this evening, and apart from having to use a password reset tool (as my memory has faded - you try remembering a 12 yr old password!! haha) it booted perfectly into XP. 

The spec of the Dell is not brilliant, 1.8GHz, 800MB RAM with ample HDD space.

So what would your advice be please as to which flavour of Linux to install on this machine? I am happy for it to be a Linux only machine and don't mind if I lose everything off the Dell.

Hope someone can help, many thanks

John

dday35216

I think any of the "lite" versions of Linux would run fine for you. I have loaded a number of them on old Dell machines and haven't had any issues with things like the trackpad, volume buttons or even the specilized email/browser buttons that one of them had working. If possible though, I would upgrade the RAM on that machine. According to the specs on that model, it's max is 1gb split between 2 512mb pc2100 modules. Those can be purchased for under $40 for pair and will help on the performance.