I'm trying to help my parents who have an old laptop connected to their TV via HDMI. They mainly use it for three things: accessing the internet to watch YouTube, making Zoom calls with family, and playing DVDs. Right now, it's running Windows 10, but it's super slow. I'm thinking of trying a live version of Linux from a USB drive to see if they'd prefer that. I used to use Puppy Linux years ago, specifically Bionic Pup, but it doesn't seem to work well anymore. I got an old Firefox running, but the version of Zoom I installed won't work. As I'm not very experienced with Linux, I'm looking for recommendations on a suitable Linux distro that can handle those tasks on older hardware. Is there a newer version of Puppy I should consider, or would something like Linux Mint be a better choice?
5 Answers
You’ll need to install Linux on the laptop itself since the TV likely can’t boot from a USB. You didn’t mention the laptop’s specs, but if Zoom calls are a priority, maybe consider getting a budget laptop with 8GB of RAM and a USB DVD player instead of wrestling with the old one. As Zoom gets more resource-heavy, the old laptop might struggle, Linux or not.
I'd suggest starting with a Linux flavor that you are already familiar with—unless it's Arch, I’d go for XFCE or Mint!
Definitely check out Linux Mint's XFCE or Cinnamon editions; they are user-friendly and should work nicely on older hardware.
Just a heads up, Linux isn’t always the best for Zoom—it can be tricky to get working well.
If it's really old, hardware specs are important. If the laptop is 64-bit and has enough RAM, you should be fine with many options. I'd recommend going for something stable that can handle automatic updates effortlessly.
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