I am familiar with Linux as a developer but it has been a while. I need to reconfigure my Dell laptops to some version of Linux before my Windows7 disks die. My first venture will be on an old Dell D820 laptop before I move on to my newer machines (Precision 5510, 6700). I selected Ubuntu because Dell said a 5520 run 18.04. Is Ubuntu a good choice? Is it a good idea to take later versions or is support for the older hardware phased out of the release after a while? One older post said they installed 9.10 on their D820 with no problems but that is quite old. Any recommendations appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

With 64 bit system you have several choices with current distributions but probably the most limiting factor is the amount of RAM. I would try antix.

When did you develop on linux? If you were doing so pre systemd, you want slackware. If you were a developer post systemd: archlinux, debian , or fedora. If the linux developer thing is an exaggeration, Ubuntu.

With a pretty old laptop like your D820, the issue there might be about newer version having worse drivers might most likely be video drivers. Use live version on usb of recent linux releases to see if that is the case for you. Ventoy might be a good idea to check several quickly.

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Dell Precision 6700 will probably work better with any version of latest linux than windows. I am typing this on a Dell Precision 6800, and my previous laptop was a Dell Precision 6600. Only issue might be if you have broadcom wifi, then you might be worried because your wifi might not work at first, until you google the issue and find it is easily solved but you have to install the driver explicitly as an add on after initial linux install.
Dell Precision 5520, I have not laid my hands on, but it seems to be a kaby lake generation, and you say it ships with Ubuntu sometimes, so any recent linux should work.

Do you have one or two gigabytes of RAM in your old 32bit D820? (Tho it might have been upgraded to a 64-bit CPU, but you need to check which CPU you have)

I would try virtualbox.org (&OSboxes.org) on the newer machines (to quickly and safely try Linux, without disturbing M$Win10+)

My first bit of searching shows the 820 with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 which is as a 64 bit CPU.
But after a bit of more searching I did find some that did have a 32 Bit CPU.

antix has both 32 and 64 available so pick the one that matches your CPU.

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A few years ago I upgraded an Intel Core2Duo T6400 to a T9600 on an acer Aspire 6930G. Both are 64-bit CPU's. I expect the T7400 to have the same 64-bit instruction set. The link !!! gave refers to a T2600 CPU.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us...0-mhz-fsb.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us...6-mhz-fsb.html

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The D820 has 2 T7200 CPUs @ 2GHz, 2G of RAM and a 150 G disk. It is a 32 bit machine. I had an old 14.04 Ubuntu iso image and have live booted the D820 off of a CD successfully. I haven't gotten wifi working yet so that warning on having to reinstall the broadcom driver will come in very handy.

Me, I worked for 20+ years on various Unix-ish OS's from System V to Solaris, mostly doing drivers. I did mostly VxWorks ports to proprietary hardware and one Linux port - Debian, I think. But all of that was 10 years ago so I am coming back up the learning curve.

Thanks for the help.

My backup and portable computer is a 32-bit model with 2 GB RAM, but the processor is a Pentium M! In other words, your machine should be fine. For a current distro you can't use Ubuntu, since they've discontinued the 32-bit version. MX Linux and Sparky are Debian derivatives that still support 32-bit architecture (Debian itself can be problematic, excellent as it is for a server). For something rather different, you could try Salix (Slackware with added user-friendliness), or one of the spin-offs from the late-lamented Mandriva, like PCLinuxOS or Mageia.

It is actually a 64-bit machine that can still run 32-bit OS. All core 2 CPU's were native 64-bit processors. The original Core (duo, solo) were the last only 32-bit CPU that Intel made in the mainstream space. You are better running a 32-bit OS though, since with only 2 GB you won't gain anything from 64-bit OS. If it can be upgraded to 4 GB ram, you'd then actually have enough ram to make running 64-bit worth it if only for ease of finding distro's that would still work.

It is still better to run a 64-bit system. Any commands that are 64-bit are using less CPU cycles to process. On the downside, the system maybe using a bit more RAM but it should not be much, and negligible compared to the gains.

AntiX, Devuan, or MX Linux would be my suggestions....

Thanks to everyone for the help. I learned a lot. I was kind of surprised these are 64 bit CPU - I got that from Windows and not the BIOS. As a consultant, I paid for the highest level of Dell support. So this laptop was delivered with a 32 bit version of Windows. It is possible that the OS was reinstalled but I would have gotten Dell to walk me through it, again, selecting the 32 bit version. Maybe that was the only media I had?

Anyway, it seems there are a lot of favorite versions of Linux. I am testing with Ubuntu because I had an iso file. I am using that Ubuntu to setup Linux as I would like. I am keeping all of the comments and suggestions to guide me when I get to a point to really install my final version on the D820 before moving on to the Precision laptops.

Again, thanks for taking the time.