I'm looking to breathe new life into a family member's old laptop, a Toshiba Satellite L855-C2M with 8GB of RAM and a decent i7 processor. They want to use it normally, so I can't go for anything too minimal. I'm considering options like Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint, but I've never used those Linux distros myself, especially on older hardware. Ideally, I want something stable, user-friendly with an app store, and a nice straightforward GUI. The laptop's integrated graphics aren't the best, so I'm not looking for anything too flashy. Any suggestions on what OS to install? Thanks for your help!
2 Answers
I’d say go with Linux Mint! It’s beginner-friendly and you won’t need to mess with the terminal much, plus it runs pretty well on older machines.
You might want to try running a live USB for a few different distros. See which one runs better on that hardware and which he feels comfortable with. I've known people to love Mint, but some prefer Fedora or even openSUSE. It really depends on how the distro performs on the laptop. I've got a bunch of old laptops and they all react differently to the same OS, so test them out!
That's actually a great idea! I completely forgot about the live USB option, thanks!