@albinard: Funny, the list of system requirements say otherwise. Then again, they are not always on the same level, nor to be trusted. For some reason, in the distrowatch search, when you select 'beginner', 'netbooks' and 'old computers', the first ones to appear, are Linux Mint and Ubuntu!

@rokytnji: The live sessions are a bit problematic, if the machine is located in your neighbors house. ;-)
Also, running from CD/DVD doesn't really give you a good idea about possible sluggishness of the installed distro. All distros are more or less sluggish when run from optical drive. It's just hard to tell the degree of speed difference to distro installed onto the hard disk.
That's when people with first hand experience are irreplaceable sources of information.

For Linux Lite 2.2 it says:
for Zorin

I'm still inclined to try Linux Lite first...
NOT regardless of your commants... ;-)

Also, it looked like antiX doesn't support Finnish.
(Or does that only apply to the installer?)

1 members found this post helpful.

In the case of Puppy Linux, the system runs quickly because it runs from memory. It can store the session on a local disk, or a thumb drive so as not to disturb your neighbor's PC.

I used to have puppy (LuPu) on a desktop for a couple of years. Too exotic.
I also made the mistake of making it full install. A LOT slower, and couldn't
install most SW (Full install can't handle SFSes, only PETs, and the helper made
SFSes to install, but you couldn't uninstall them. Should have made frugal install.

Now I have racy 5.5 on a memory stick.
(Oh, I guess I'd better update the distributions in my profile.)

http://i.imgur.com/TakKMwk.jpg

I can't speak for the live session but with a internet connection you can change it on the fly before the install I bet. Because the installer has a save changes from live session during thew gui install process. It is just checking a box.

I mention live session not for speed. But for layout and ease of use.
But what do I know?

I am just a scooter tramp that runs Linux.
I'm burying my 18 year old shop cat today that has been a perfect bikers shop cat.
So I am outa here for awhile.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes. For those the live sessions are good.

A cat hanging around your workshop?
18 years is quite high age for a cat. My condolences. A couple of years ago our 20 year old cat died. Last year we lost both of our middle-sized dogs. one was 15.5 years the other 14.5 years, and about 6 months ago my wife died.

To be fair, the installer clearly recommends the frugal option. Running from optical media or thumb drive has its advantages. Simply replace the media to upgrade, or remove the media for normal boot.

-Ben

LuPu WAS the normal boot (and the only boot) on the desktop.

UGH, neither Zorin nor Lite works. The kernel obviously doesn't support the wifi (notorious rl2500pci). Also *buntu 14.04 doesn't, but 14.10 supports again.

Funny that 64-bit Lite and especially Zorin are much heavier as live than 32-bit Mint 17.1 xfce. Even 64-bit Mint 17.1 xfce was lighter than Lite or Zorin. I didn't really try Zorin, because the live boot took more than double the time that 64-bit Mint took. Didn't wait Zorin to get booted. And with live 64-bit Mint opening firefox took about 4 minutes.

Any comments on Sparky? Looks promising.

After let alone for over an hour, Sparky became irresponsive,and the memory usage had gone to over 90. I wonder if it's the machine or Sparky's instability...
[edit] Oops, forgot: left alone with Synaptics running idle and Iceweasel with 3 tabs open.
[/edit]
Or maybe I should settle with 32-bit distros...

Man, this is an amok!

Tried 64-bit Mint 17 (live), 32- (live/installed) and 64-bit (live) Mint 17.1, 64-bit Zorin (live), 64-bit Linux Lite (live), 32-bit antiX 14.1.1 (live), 64-bit Sparky (live/installed) 32-bit Lubuntu 14.04 (live) and 64-bit Lubuntu 14.10 (live).

Next try seems to be Lubuntu 14.10 (installed) First 64-bit, and if that doesn't work, then 32-bit. If that doesn't work either, I'm running short of ideas.

And the requirements were:
1) runs tolerably on the machine (64-bit Athlon XP 3000+, 512 MB ram, 40 GB HDD)
2) supports also rl2500pci wifi-card
3) translates (mostly) to Finnish
4) usable for a person with limited computer overall knowledge and never used Linux
5) usable for basic home/office stuff
I'm in a ...

I have done at least 30 installs of mint 17.1 mate in the last year. I used this to take people off XP who did not want or could not afford a new computer. Most of these people are > 60. I love Mint, but Ubuntu Mate is faster then mint mate in the real world. I have also installed sparky on a dell mini because it was the only distro that worked out of the box for that wifi. 1 gig ram and a atom processor.

I use puppy all the time running on a little usb key. Puppy is not great for the general public, but you can get most packages to run on it these days. Not just pets. It is an awesome little distro and runs great to this day on a lenovo t20 thinkpad with 256mb ram.

I have tried lubuntu but it is laggy with low ram.

Mint is the way for a solid install for older hardware, my 80 plus year old customers have no trouble adapting to it. But it needs 1gb or ram. I have installed every OS mentioned in this thread trying to get old hardware working.

My experience is that in not-so-high-spec machines 64-bit Mint is heavy. And the 64-bit versions of the distros I tried generally. 32-bit versions seem to run better - in fact, before Lubuntu, my first choice was 32-bit Mint 17.1 xfce.

I selected Lubuntu 14.10. It seems to run well and without problems.