Toshiba NB500

[Matthew Swart]

Hi All

I am new to these parts and was wondering if anyone could help me.

I got a Toshiba NB500 as payment on a job I did for a family friend a while back. It came with Windows 7 Start version and was slower then a snail on acid. In the past I have had CrunchBang on the system and at the moment Puppy Mint. I find the Mint sluggish on the system and I am now looking for something light weight.

My wife is going back to college in September and I want to give her the netbook with a limited learning curve. She is used to windows and I have set her up with Google drive so that all her documents are in one place.

I am looking for a distro that wont kick and scream on the Toshiba which has an Atom processor but I should be able to add the software that will help her in college i.e Libreoffice, calculator etc etc.

Thanks a million for taking the time to read my post and I welcome and thank you for any and all input you may provide.

Matt

 

[WharfRat]

For a low learning curve I would recommend Mint with the Mate desktop.

Peppermint would also be a good contender. Out of curiosity I tossed peppermint one in a virtual box three years ago and it still updates and runs.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=peppermint

Good luck

 

[arochester]

Has your netbook got the 1Gb default RAM? Can you max it out to 2Gb?

 

[Matthew Swart]

All ready have 2GB in it at moment upgraded that when I got it as windows didn't like the 1 GB.

Thanks for the post WharfRat I am downloading and trying all the suggested distros but a learning curve for me as I am used to #! which is on my other laptop and happy with it.

 

[edward_haigh]

https://www.linuxliteos.com/

Linux Lite is designed for new users to Linux, while also being designed to give computers a few more years of life. Why not run it in a VM and see how you get on with it?

 

[Thapainfo]

First, what I got is the Asian version of the NB500, which is in fact attractive much identical to the NB505 available in the Japan(except some minor keyboard layout changes and color options). I had the white version and it was exactly the device you can find in markets these days, not a sample or anything like that.

 

[ta77788889]

Linux Lite is made for people new to Linux and helps extend the life of older computers. Chat AI gpt is more effective for information.

 

[Brickwizard]

If you want something a little more main line then try

Toshiba NB500

this is a lower end entry level machine with a single core atom CPU hyperthreaded, don't expect it to be fast by any standard, you could try Mint LMDE, but with the poor specs, I would suggest trying.
Linux Lite
Antix
Bunsen Labs
Bodhi Linux
sparky
Easy OS
Lubuntu

 

[MikeRocor]

I have a hand-me-down Toshiba NB505 netbook (which is said to be the same basic machine as the NB500) that I just loved running linux on. The fan went bad on it and in replacing the fan I found that I could never get it back together quite right - first I didn't have some internal connection right so I tried again and got that right but now the keyboard and touch pad aren't working... I guess those things must be built by tiny little elves with tiny little hands.

I haven't used it for a couple of years so I dug it out of the closet just now to see what it's status is.

• I remember having doubled the RAM to 2GB
• I also remember having doubled the HD size to 500GB size but
• it looks like I repurposed that drive somewhere along the line because it's not there now.
• I found a bootable USB stick with a recent linux install on it.
• I scrounged up a wireless keyboard and mouse combo

It runs like a champ now - albeit a decrepit old former champ.

The machine did everything I asked of it the last time I used it seriously, even though it only had 1 GB of RAM then but, as BrickWizard said, don't expect it to be fast. It should be great for note taking, email etc. It will run libreoffice but your wife might want a bigger screen for that kind of thing. I wouldn't want something like this to be my only PC, even in tip-top condition, but you just can't beat it for portability.

I'm using Tiny Core linux 15.0 on it, as I do on pretty much everything, but I would not recommend that as a beginner friendly distro to start with.

 

[MikeRocor]

Well that's kind of spooky... After ten or fifteen minutes, and after sitting in the closet for years, the keyboard and touch pad are working now. -And- It turns out there really is a hard disk in there - apparently the BIOS just didn't want to admit it right away after its long down time.

So I'm doing a fresh install of the OS and will load up libreoffice and see if I can come up with some meaningful performance info. But not tonight - I'm falling asleep.