Hey everyone! My parents have an old PC from around 2007 (it's got an Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB of RAM with integrated graphics) that's running Windows 7. It's almost on its last legs, but my mom wants to keep it for watching YouTube videos and reading ebooks.
I'm looking for a Linux distro that would work well on older hardware. Ideally, it should be:
- Efficient on older systems
- Simple for someone who is used to Windows and is elderly
- Stable, with minimal ongoing support needed
- Has a decent repository of programs that don't require much tinkering (though the primary use is mostly just YouTube and ebooks)
I'm leaning towards Linux Mint, but I'd love to hear your recommendations!
3 Answers
Linux Mint with XFCE is a great option! It strikes a nice balance between being light and user-friendly. Plus, for ebooks, you could look at Foliate, and for watching YouTube, FreeTube could be a good fit.
You might want to keep in mind that no distro will magically make YouTube run flawlessly on old hardware. The CPU will struggle with the latest codecs instead of hardware decoding. Honestly, think about getting your mom a more modern device for a better experience. If you're really set on Linux, a distro with OpenBox as the Desktop Environment could work, but performance might still be iffy.
Check out MX Linux with XFCE! It's lightweight and should handle that old hardware well. Just a heads up though, adding an SSD could really speed things up since HDDs are pretty sluggish.
But if YouTube plays fine on Windows 7, why shouldn’t it on Linux?