I'm trying to help my parents who have an old laptop connected to their TV through HDMI. They mainly use it for three things: watching YouTube, making Zoom calls with family, and occasionally playing DVDs. Right now, it's running Windows 10, but it's super slow. I thought about trying a live Linux build from a USB stick to see if they'd switch. I used to recommend Puppy Linux, especially Bionic Pup, but it seems outdated now and the version of Zoom I could install was too old to work properly. I'm pretty new to Linux myself. What would be the best Linux version for their needs that works well from a USB drive on really old hardware? Is there a better Puppy build now, or should I consider something like Linux Mint? Thanks for any advice!
1 Answer
It really depends on the laptop's specs. If it’s 64-bit and has enough RAM, you have a lot of great options. I'd recommend going for a stable distro where you can easily set up automatic updates. Something lightweight like Linux Mint with XFCE could work well if the device has good specs!
Good point! The laptop has an i3-3120M with 6GB of RAM, so it should be able to handle quite a few options.