Good distro for tech illeterite mom on slow laptop

[sudodus]

Lubuntu or Xubuntu but try them on a USB live and see which one suits you first. Remember a lot of live USB ISO to try and we are here to answer your questions on the way.

+1

You need not go to the extreme with such a computer. I think Xubuntu needs less tweaking, but Lubuntu will be faster.

Try Ubuntu (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, ...) before installing it

[coffeecat]

Not a technical support question.

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[thetrickster]

Linux Mint runs just fine on some > 10 year old Dells that I have at home. It might be a bit more intuitive for somebody not very good with computers for the same reason as Xubuntu.
The interface is more similar to Windows XP/Vista/7 than Ubuntu and she might have used computers like it before.

[SeijiSensei]

Adding another 2 GB memory stick would improve the performance of that machine with any distro, and Windows, too.

[stalkingwolf]

i have a couple hp minis with similar specs that run mint 13 mate quite well. I add a panel and use the "custom menu" the old style applications places system

[endlessinstant]

Big thing will be to help your mom configure the applications to her liking. This is as easy as just preloading the software for her and giving her a quick run-through. If she's kind of sloppy with how she stores files, you'll want to give her a quick tutorial on the /home/ folder but if she's like my parents, she's never installing any software on her own anyway so it's no big deal. LXDE will give her a very recognizable desktop with a minimum of fuss but that laptop ought to be able to handle Xubuntu quite easily as well. I'm an Xfce fanboy myself so that's the route I'd go but as long as you set your mom up beforehand and give her a couple quick lessons, you'll be fine either way.

Make sure to find out what software she uses and select appropriate Linux equivalents.

[speedwell68]

Lubuntu 14.04, it's a fabulous OS. I'd run it on a top end machine.

[quadrplax]

Based on the responses, I think I'm going to try Lubuntu and possibly Xubuntu.

Lubuntu - 6
Xubuntu - 4
ElementryOS - 2

[Mike_Walsh]

I WOULD have suggested Puppy 'Wary' or 'Precise' (they both run completely in RAM, less than 400 MB all told); but since you posted your specs I, too, will say go for Xubuntu, or Lubuntu. Lubuntu will suit your mum down to the ground, and it will work well with your configuration. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop (12 yrs old) with 1 GB RAM, and Intel 'Extreme' built-in graphics chip. It came with Win XP, and ran V-E-E-R-Y slowly. I installed Lubuntu 4 months ago, and it's like a new machine; it flies.

It's wonderful the way the Puppies cram so many apps into so little space, but they can be quite awkward to set-up, in terms of getting them working with peripherals like printers, or scanners. Depends how adventurous you are; they're nice distros.....they just need a bit of research to get the best out of them, as they seem to use a number of specialist file formats that many other Linux distros don't appear to recognise.

Regards,

Mike.