best user friendly Linux distribution for old Fujitsu Siemens laptop
 

Hi all,

I want to install a Linux distribution on a very old Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 1705 (specs below).
Personally I'm a big fan of Linux Mint because it is user friendly for non tech users, but the latest Mint won't go on this one I'm sure.
The machine will mainly be used for web browsing and office applications by a non tech person.

Which distribution do you recommend I install on this machine?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Fujitsu-Siemens AMILO Li1705
Processor: Celeron M 1600 MHz
Processor Model: 520
Number of Cores: 1
The system bus: 533 MHz
Chipset: VIA VN896 + VT8237A

Memory: 2048 MB DDR2

Display: 15.4-inch, 1280x800, Widescreen
Graphics Controller: built-in
Graphics Chipset Model: VIA Chrome9
Graphics Memory: SMA

I'd give Anti-X a look.

Small; lightweight; easy on resources.....and based on Debian. So stable as a rock.

Can't go wrong with it, really. Or, if you want to stick with Mint, give 17.2 a try. It's still supported for quite a while yet.


Mike. ;)

I don't get out much, but the most "user friendly" install I ever did was fedora. Albeit an annoying distro with not much use without non-distro extras. But the installer was baller and almost brain dead. Maybe not as brain dead as debian has been for over a decade (push enter a couple dozen times). But the resulting OS has a nice gui with nice defaults versus here's a terminal, good luck.

Mostly I run debian. But I'd hardly call it "user friendly" if you're not a person well versed in the *nix world. But it'll run on most anything with access to most everything without venturing outside of the distro. Albeit dated for usefulness on extremely NEW hardware, or people that need the latest versions of things to function.

Thanks, will have a look

user friendly == hungry for resources

I thought about that, but there's a Celeron in there and I'm afraid it will be too slow... Maybe I'll make a dual boot of both

That sounds like my old IBM Thinkpad: same processor and memory. I run Salix with Xfce well enough on it, although AntiX would probably be faster.

All I know. Old corporate Fuji laptops are funny animals. They have their own way of protecting their gear. A old dog in south Texas < Ted Dog> on Murga forums posted a lot of good info on old fuji laptops.

It will be up to you to follow up on what I said, If you care. All I can do is provide a hard to follow link. Nothing specific.

Link

These specs are plenty for running Debian 9 (the current Debian Stable) with XFCE4 Desktop Environment (or any of the other lightweight DEs or WMs). You want the 32 bit install (not the 64 bit install). I run Debian 9 on slower machines with much less RAM (512MB and 1MB). They do quite well with XFCE4 desktop, idling with only 100MB RAM usage (with a few things running).

Using Debian Stable rather than a distribution based on Debian is generally a better idea, unless there is a specific killer feature of the downstream distribution that you absolutely must have. You generally get better security, better support, more stability, and much better ability to smoothly dist-upgrade from one version of Debian to the next.

For some people, the "killer feature" is the removal of all systemd and systemd compatability features. Do you have an irrationally extreme hatred of systemd that burns with the heat of a thousand suns? Then use AntiX or Devuan or whatever. Do you not really care? Try Debian first.

With 2GB RAM, you could like use any general purpose distro you wish, as long as you install and use a light-weight desktop (LXDE) or window manager (Fluxbox is my favorite).

If you want to go with the default desktop, you might take a look at Lubuntu.

best user friendly Linux distro for old Fujitsu Siemens laptop
 

Hello, i just ran into this thread, and I too am trying to give new life to an 20+ year old Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V7010. I haven't checked the specs but I'm assuming they are similar. I am on the antixlinux website and there are 4 different type of ISO files: full, base, core, net. All of which are available in sysVinit/runit versions.
So my question is which do I choose and why?
Thank you in advance for your kind attention

I wouldn't recommend either core or net if you are a newbie. They require you to install a lot of what you need over the internet, which means you have to know what you need before you start. As regards full or base, I think it depends mainly on what kind of input devices your machine can use. Will it boot from a usb stick? From a dvd? Or only from a cd?

For normal lightweight stuff, 2G is ok. 4G is better, but I'm using 1.1G ATM. Put a big swap file.

The celeron is a cheapskate 64bit pc, using a 32bit bus and that gobbles speed you haven't got. Most distros will let you do basic stuff. You'll slow up so much doing fancy stuff you'll not be encouraged anyhow.

best user friendly Linux distro for old Fujitsu Siemens laptop
 

Hello, and thank you for the reply. I'm a total noob so technical jargon isn't my strong suit, I limit myself to following tutorials online.
Accessing the BIOS by pressing F2, under Advanced the USB BIOS Legacy Support is Enabled; when I access the Boot Menu by pressing F12 I have 3 options: Hard Drive, CD/DVD ROM, USB Storage Disk. When i hit Enter on the USB is says Missing OS...this is true for 3 different Puppy distros that should be able to boot up and have done so on pretty old devices. So for now I have 2 predicaments:
1) which is the best distro to install
2) how to install it, or at least boot it as ideally I would like to keep the old Windows XP (potentially upgrade to 7 if the specs allow it) and thus be able to have a dual boot (also unsure as to whether that is at all possible on such an old machine.
Thank you for your assistance, really appreciate the input.

I don't think "legacy" is what you want for a modern usb stick. Have a look at this. Looks like "auto" is what you should choose.
I doubt if you could get Windows 7 to run on such an old machine. You can keep XP if you can shrink the partition enough to make space for the new install. Most installers (certainly the AntiX one) will allow you to specify which partitions you want to install on, or whether you want a Windows partition shrunk to make room for Linux. Most modern distros boot with GRUB and that can boot Windows too.