Hello, and thank you for the reply. Unfortunately I'm not very tech savvy so please bare with me. What distro would you reccommend for a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro 7010?

https://icecat.co.uk/prefere/gb/p/fu...10-126239.html
these should be the specs

When I put "auto" it now doesn't give me the USB option at the Boot Menu (F12), it only gives me Hard Drive and CD/DVD ROM.

If yours only has 0.5GB or RAM, that's going to limit how much stuff you can reasonably do with it. I would seriously consider using it without X - just text console mode.

As for my specific suggestion - I prefer Debian Stable, and if you want a GUI then I recommend choosing XFCE desktop (the Debian installer lets you choose during install).

For some perspective, my Fujitsu Lifebook T5010 has 474MB of RAM usage with MyPaint running right now. I haven't done any memory optimization (it has 4GB of RAM, so no need). But that's the sort of RAM usage you can expect with Debian Stable + XFCE desktop + one relatively lightweight GUI application running.

That's why I say 0.5GB (512MB) is pretty tight. There are ways to shave off RAM usage, with some Window Managers a bit smaller than XFCE4. But you're not going to get around the fact that most GUI applications will just plain want more RAM than that.

Bizarre specs. I had a HP laptop from the period. Only 2.0Ghz turion, but 4G of ram. Vista was out at that time, and required >3G to run.

One to keep in mind is damnsmallinux which does exactly what it says on the tin. It's more a boot stick built on µClibc (with only en_US locale)but small in size and memory.

Yes we're talking exactly 512MB RAM, and the specs i assume are similar to yours. By XFCE desktop do you mean Mint XFCE? Isn't that 64 bit? Forgive me i'm a total noob and not very knowleadgeable with terminology or procedures, I merely follow tutorials while i try to understand by learning on the go. How do I install Debian Stable and/or XFCE?

yes it really is a dinosaur Thank you so much for the input, I will definitely look into that one. The real issue is going to be how to install it as the live USB method doesn't seem to work, might have to try burning on a CD/DVD and see if it boots from there.

The XFCE desktop environment is available for almost any linux distribution. However Mint XFCE by default installs the XFCE4 Desktop Environment (only), and you have the option to later install a different one.

Debian is one of the nicest linux distributions in this respect, because the installer lets you choose which desktop environment(s), if any to install. This isn't a big deal for a seasoned linux user (it's easy to install later), but it's nicer for someone new.

As for your question about which system management & initialization approach and there in how fast your system or GNU/Linux distribution you choose. I've used both Xubuntu and Lubuntu as well as Debian with all Three of the LXDE,LxQT and Xfce desktop environments I personally switched away from from the cumming based derivatives on Debuan and other base or point of origin distribution for instance Oracle,Fedora and other distributions are based on REDHAT Linux.

Use the full sysvinit iso. Better chance of hardware working.

On the subject of desktops, you need to know that Linux desktops are not closely integrated with the rest of the system as the Windows desktop is. Instead, the desktop rests on the underlying command-based system like a hat on a head. You can put on a different hat if you like, or go bare-headed. Most Linux server machines don't even have a graphical desktop installed.

Most distros have a default desktop which is installed with the system to make life easier for newbies. But all distros have access to all the available desktops through their software repositories. If you don't like the default desktop, it's easy to install a different one.

Ubuntu is unusual in that it provides installation images with different default desktops and gives them different names (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu...). I think that this has probably caused a lot of confusion among newbies.

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AntiX Base is likely a good choice, others might be Tiny Core Plus, or SliTaz.

32bit systems are a dying breed, but there are enough, so that you should be able to find something suitable.

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With only 512MB RAM user isn't going to be able to do much in a graphical environment.
What exactly do you want to use this laptop for?

with just 2GB of ram, only slitaz or maybe oldie any linux (means not linux of today, but 2GB ram was 2010 period, any linux of 2010 will work fine, except for going on the internet)

or if you want internet, maybe haikuos is a nice choice for something light

with 512MB you can run easily slitaz 3 or slitaz 5 with old firefox

just forget multimedia and video streaming things, just do non-JS web browsing, it will work perfect.

internet with JS = 4GB minimum of minimum today. Ten years ago 512MB was not that hard, 1GB was nice. Not anymore. Web never finish to eat..

Running an old Firefox is a really bad idea. Too many security holes.

It would make more sense to run a VNC client to remotely use a more powerful computer running a current web browser (with actual current security updates).