compguy2133
New Member
Looking to switch to linux from windows xp. what would the best linux to use for a dell d630 latitude 4gb ram and 256 soild state drive 6gb/s
What Linux Should i use on an old Dell D630
- Thread starter compguy2133
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I don't want to suggest a specific distro but one that's a lightweight distro would work best, but you could do just fine with a more robust distro - assuming you tailor your expectations to suit.
So, on the lower end you have stuff like Lubuntu (suggesting only more mainstream stuff).
If you want to push things, you can install Linux Mint.
There's maybe a 'golden' area for you. There's Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) that's fairly lightweight and does a pretty good job. You won't have 100 open tabs in your browser comfortably, but you'll have a good experience.
I'd suggest that you don't use my response as a specific distro but rather a family of distros. It would be in your best interest to do some research and make this choice on your own based on your expectations. You can always try things in a live environment (for many distros) where you can make sure that your hardware works and get comfortable with the desktop environment.
So, on the lower end you have stuff like Lubuntu (suggesting only more mainstream stuff).
If you want to push things, you can install Linux Mint.
There's maybe a 'golden' area for you. There's Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) that's fairly lightweight and does a pretty good job. You won't have 100 open tabs in your browser comfortably, but you'll have a good experience.
I'd suggest that you don't use my response as a specific distro but rather a family of distros. It would be in your best interest to do some research and make this choice on your own based on your expectations. You can always try things in a live environment (for many distros) where you can make sure that your hardware works and get comfortable with the desktop environment.
Antix, Linux Mint, Lubuntu, Linux Lite, Peppermint OS, there are a lot of other choices as well.
Good starting point........ https://distrowatch.com/
Good starting point........ https://distrowatch.com/
Condobloke
Well-Known Member
G'day compguy, Welcome to Linux.org
Asking that question....(which Linux for me) is a bit like the song..."Never Ending Story"....it goes on and on !
It is all about perception....yours is different to mine...and always will be.....and that is a good thing.
I think the smart way to answer the question for yourself...is to make a bootable usb stick with a few different distros and try them out. In this way, they do NOT install. you can give them a try and if one doesnt impress you?...you just give it the flick and try another. No harm done
you can use Ventoy to make a usb with multiple OS's/distros on it....that will make your life easier, and quicker.
4GB of ram is fairly minimal, but you have an SSD which brightens things up a bit....it is a Dell and that is always good.
Tell us what you use the Dell for.
Asking that question....(which Linux for me) is a bit like the song..."Never Ending Story"....it goes on and on !
It is all about perception....yours is different to mine...and always will be.....and that is a good thing.
I think the smart way to answer the question for yourself...is to make a bootable usb stick with a few different distros and try them out. In this way, they do NOT install. you can give them a try and if one doesnt impress you?...you just give it the flick and try another. No harm done
you can use Ventoy to make a usb with multiple OS's/distros on it....that will make your life easier, and quicker.
4GB of ram is fairly minimal, but you have an SSD which brightens things up a bit....it is a Dell and that is always good.
Tell us what you use the Dell for.
OP
compguy2133
New Member
Thanks the issue is that non of them so far have worked im trying mint now to see how it runs on this old pc. im clearly very new to this ive tried this once before and it didnt run as well as i would have like it seemed like xp ran better.
Brickwizard
Well-Known Member
Welcome to the forums
OK so you have a latitude from around 2010 with the T series intel twin core CPU, this is almost identical to my insperon of the same age [which unfortunately died ] without going too lightweight I found the best distribution to use for me was Mint LMDE, it also ran well with both Parrot home edition and MX-linux
Brickwizard
Well-Known Member
the HOW DO I INSTALL in my signature [below]should work for you as its the same routeen i regularly use
the short boot key for the Dell is F10, if booting from a USB use the primary port [on that machine its the one nearest the CD player, if using a DVD then write the ISO as a bootable disc ON A SLOW SPEED [I will not go faster than x3]
I develop Xanmian, a distribution based on Debian with the latest Cinnamon and other improvements and it works perfectly on my D620. If you dare to try it you can download it from https://www.xanmian.com
Regards.
Brickwizard
Well-Known Member
ok i expect it will have a Broadcom 43* series wi-fi card [run inxi -Nn to check]with the dongle in, go to your software repository and download BCM 43 -fcutter, it should automatically build the legacy drivers for you, I am assuming it still has the Broadcom 43* Wi-Fi originally fitted
If it has a different card then give us the name /mode and we can look.
hi good morning Brickwizard
antix did install the BCM4311 driver, and it sees my wifi card. but connman doesn't except my password,
i have dd-wrt installed on my router and i don't think g is set for my WiFi.
i didn't think at the time i would need it with all newer devices on my network.
so i opted to use a usb WiFi RTL8188CUS 802.11n.
witch even though i had to install compile the driver i works great.
note arch/arcolinux does have the driver compiled against the kernel they use.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
antix did install the BCM4311 driver, and it sees my wifi card. but connman doesn't except my password,
i have dd-wrt installed on my router and i don't think g is set for my WiFi.
i didn't think at the time i would need it with all newer devices on my network.
so i opted to use a usb WiFi RTL8188CUS 802.11n.
witch even though i had to install compile the driver i works great.
note arch/arcolinux does have the driver compiled against the kernel they use.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
Snort McDork
Member
Seeing the suggestion to try Mint has me a bit confused. I changed to Cinnamon 2 years ago because I got notice that Mint support was ending. I kinda liked Mint. Being that I don't have any friends, even someone who is tech savvy, I made the change without consulting anyone out of a panic. Would not mind going back if it is still functioning OS.
Attachments
{/s} Why is it that nobody suggests Fedora. What do you guys have against it? Is this a group of Mint elitists? {/s}
I will suggest Fedora to you but you will want the lxde or another lightweight desktop for it.
Fedora is very well supported and one of the favorites of our founder.
You won't go wrong with Fedora.
I will suggest Fedora to you but you will want the lxde or another lightweight desktop for it.
Fedora is very well supported and one of the favorites of our founder.
You won't go wrong with Fedora.
CaffeineAddict
Well-Known Member
I guess Fedora is not popular.
And people tend to recommend what they themself use.
@compguy2133
Here you can choose a distro tailored for you:
Distrochooser
The Distrochooser helps you to find the suitable Linux distribution based on your needs!
distrochooser.de
Brickwizard
Well-Known Member
Mint Hasn't stopped, changed or gone away, Its a shame you panicked how long ago was this? For the last few years [I came across it when upgrading from Mint 19 to mint 20, that would have been mid 2020], Mint have used their own auto upgrade app, when a new LTS version comes out.
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Without recommending any distro, I think some of the following observations may suggest why people have been turning away from fedora, or not recommending it.
Red Hat's restrictions on source code affected some users because they disapproved of such restrictions and because Red Hat is the primary supporter of fedora. See here:
Silverblue SIG - stepping back as organiser
Hey all. I’m going to be honest, the layoffs at Red Hat alongside the recent clamp-down on source code access has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I don’t want to contribute to Fedora anymore. At least, not for the time being. I haven’t contributed much in the first place, but as I recently...
discussion.fedoraproject.org
Although fedora is a community distribution, it is very dependent on both Red Hat developers and the commercial viability of Red Hat, and then of IBM which now owns Red Hat. The sort of community distro that fedora has become differs from many other community distros that don't have such deep associations with commercial interests. That's not to say that fedora is completely beholden to commercial interests, nor that it would disappear if those commercial interests disappeared, but the links appear to be far deeper than many other distros which can, rightly or wrongly, raise suspicions about fedora and feel less free in some respects, for example, doing the bidding for a commercial imperative. Feelings can matter a great deal in decisions about which distro one might choose.
From a more objective point of view, fedora is no less capable nor any less sophisticated a distro than any other and has been a trailblazer introducing new technology and software before other distros who followed in fedora's footsteps. The list is quite extensive and includes systemd, pipewire, selinux, flatpak and btrfs. Red Hat had an interest in supporting those developments in using fedora as its test bed. It's effective R&D.
Personally I began with Red Hat 6.0 as a main distro and used each release through to about fedora 29 before I changed to debian as a main distro, but my reasons were quite different to those mentioned above. The users of the LUG I was a member of mainly used debian and there were several debian developers in the LUG and they spoke "debian" which influenced me. It was a situation, sort of, when in Rome do as the Romans do
Brickwizard
Well-Known Member
For my daily drive I use Mint but unlike the many, I prefer the LMDE version without the Ubuntu bloat, I was put off, Arch and Fedora when I started as I found the forums obnoxious, and the members overbearing in their attitude, so I started with Debian, since I retired I have run them again on my test rig, as working distributions they are fine, although I would still never consider Arch as a beginners' distro [IMO].
I try not to recommend any distribution but may suggest five or six when asked, or if someone has old kit I will say that on my old similar spec machine Mint LMDE worked just fine, and as my post "which is the best distribution" ends
What is best for me or any other member, Is not necessarily the best for you,
ONLY YOU CAN CHOOSE
That Distrochooser is a great little site for beginners and probably a better place to start than Distrowatch for a beginner. Thanks for that.I guess Fedora is not popular.
And people tend to recommend what they themself use.
@compguy2133
Here you can choose a distro tailored for you:
Distrochooser
The Distrochooser helps you to find the suitable Linux distribution based on your needs!
@Brickwizard 's answer says it all and I quote.
"I was put off, Arch and Fedora when I started as I found the forums obnoxious, and the members overbearing in their attitude,"
Fedora is an okay Linux distro although just ain't for new to Linux user imo.
I hate the Linux Mint forum so I don't use Linux Mint although will recommend Linux Mint to anyone wanting to migrate from Windows to Linux.
I had the old D630 - which "expired" last September (cracked GPU connections!) - for well over 2 years. Had the misfortune to snag a lappie off eBay with an Nvidia GPU built at the time the industry was switching to lead-free solder.....and which had a tendency to run as hot as a furnace into the bargain. (The inevitable extreme thermal cycling with 'dodgy' solder led to an unavoidable conclusion. But I didn't discover all this till well after I bought it...)
That said, I dual-booted a brace of Puppies while I had it. Ran like a dream...and was a revelation after ye anciente P4-powered Inspiron 1100. (Which ran Puppies as well.....just a lot slower!)
The replacement Latitude - an E6430, which I'm typing this on - is an order of magnitude better still. But don't get me wrong; so long as you don't try running anything too "heavy" on the D630, it'll cope quite happily. Keep it "light", and it'll repay you with gratitude...
Mike.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That said, I dual-booted a brace of Puppies while I had it. Ran like a dream...and was a revelation after ye anciente P4-powered Inspiron 1100. (Which ran Puppies as well.....just a lot slower!)
The replacement Latitude - an E6430, which I'm typing this on - is an order of magnitude better still. But don't get me wrong; so long as you don't try running anything too "heavy" on the D630, it'll cope quite happily. Keep it "light", and it'll repay you with gratitude...
Mike.
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