beginner question - Best Distro for needs

cully4299 · 18 Apr 2016 at 12:05

have a old dell PC fixing up for selling and need a distro.
what is the best disto for simple web browsing, office based applications and general browsing?

mint or Ubuntu? or is there something else would be cleaner and more efficient

its a athon 64 x2 5400 2.8ghz dual
onboard graphics chip.
ram ( not labelled and not finished cleaning etc to check)
500gb sata

lamboman · 18 Apr 2016 at 13:23

Personally not a huge fan of Mint; Cinnamon is unpolished and a little tacky for my tastes, and I don't see the point of yet another layer of abstraction from Debian when Ubuntu covers virtually every other major DE. My choice would be Ubuntu MATE.

cully4299 · 18 Apr 2016 at 13:44

lamboman said:
Personally not a huge fan of Mint; Cinnamon is unpolished and a little tacky for my tastes, and I don't see the point of yet another layer of abstraction from Debian when Ubuntu covers virtually every other major DE. My choice would be Ubuntu MATE.

thanks that's what I was thinking. used Ubuntu a couple times before and I seems to be decent for what it is need for

joeyjojo · 18 Apr 2016 at 13:58

As above with old hardware the distro choice isn't as important as the desktop environment it comes with, some are very resource intensive.

You should go for one with MATE, LXDE, XFCE, or similar. Search for comparisons e.g. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-lean-linux-desktop-environment-lxde-vs-xfce-vs-mate/

I'd suggest Lubuntu.

yashiro · 18 Apr 2016 at 14:47

Just try a few out instead of accepting what random internet people tell you. Go to Distrowatch and have a poke around.

Craig321 · 18 Apr 2016 at 14:49

Ubuntu should be fine on that or as suggested above, Lubuntu might run quicker.

cully4299 · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:13

yashiro said:
Just try a few out instead of accepting what random internet people tell you. Go to Distrowatch and have a poke around.

just asking for suggestions

cully4299 · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:14

Craig321 said:
Ubuntu should be fine on that or as suggested above, Lubuntu might run quicker.

ty will check out

cully4299 · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:14

joeyjojo said:
As above with old hardware the distro choice isn't as important as the desktop environment it comes with, some are very resource intensive.

You should go for one with MATE, LXDE, XFCE, or similar. Search for comparisons e.g. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-lean-linux-desktop-environment-lxde-vs-xfce-vs-mate/

I'd suggest Lubuntu.

thanks

cully4299 · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:15

lamboman said:
Personally not a huge fan of Mint; Cinnamon is unpolished and a little tacky for my tastes, and I don't see the point of yet another layer of abstraction from Debian when Ubuntu covers virtually every other major DE. My choice would be Ubuntu MATE.

mint is so so had a bit of use with ubuntu and seems decient

Woden · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:16

Like everyone has said, the Ubuntu flavours. They are well made and tend to have the best community support.

If you want to get your feet really wet, take a look at Arch and a tiling window manager

abdidas · 19 Apr 2016 at 00:38

I prefer mint, it's the closest you will get to the Windows layout.

stopper · 19 Apr 2016 at 22:00

cully4299 said:
what is the best disto for simple web browsing, office based applications and general browsing?
------------
or is there something else would be cleaner and more efficient

I always thought an Ubuntu based distro was the best since it is the one always recommended. After a few years though I found there are much better ones.
I would recommend ROSA 7 right now.

lamboman · 19 Apr 2016 at 22:33

stopper can you explain why?

Don't see anything particularly outstanding on their home page however you must have your reasons.

stopper · 20 Apr 2016 at 22:26

Well, most people recommend an Ubuntu distro because it's usualy the only one they have ever used properly, or only one they have ever used.
I recommend ROSA7 because I have used a lot of different distros in the last 2 years and this has been the most comfortable one I have come across.
And don't go listening to people who say "this is the closest feeling you get to windows" etc, because the idea of using Linux, is to get away from Windows.
My advice, is to follow yashiro's advice.