so i have this ancient laptop that isn't really good for windows anymore, so i am wondering if i can find a good distro for it, while it does have a DVD drive i do have the requirement it can fit on a CD since i only have CD-RW's at the moment, being capable of dual booting with XP would be a plus but is not required

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix

Fits on CD also.

Hi...

Welcome to the forum

If you can get a hold of a DVD-R or RW, Zorin OS 9 Lite might be a good one to try.

Regards...

I have fedora 22 and Xfce on a Dell Latitude 620 and it is pretty usable (slow but OK). I don't do a lot of gui stuff with it other than running a browser though.

What are the specs of that machine, particularly RAM and wireless chipset (if there is one)? That information will make for more informed suggestions.

The reason I mentioned my laptop is that the d620 and d810 are part of a similar family of Dell laptops from that time, around 2006 or 2007. The d8xx series has similar specs but a larger screen.

That machine could run just about any Linux distro adequately, especially if you use a lighter-weight desktop, such as LXDE; if would not be the ideal machine for, say, editing video or running massive databases. If you search LQ, you will find many threads discussing what would be a good first distro.

No one can tell you what would definitely be the best first distro for you. I would tend to recommend Mint MATE, because I like it, then install and use the LXDE desktop, which is quite light-weight and nicely put together.

Burn some Live CDs of distros you are considering and try them out; then pick the one that most appeals to you. I would recommend for consideration Magiea, Lubuntu, OpenSuse, and SalixOS. I would recommend against distros whose main claim to fame is eye candy desktops--they usually use heavier-weight desktops with added CPU cycles.

This tells us nothing. Dell-branded wireless chips are OEM from other manufacturers, and I've experienced little success in searching to web to find out what chipset is inside a particular Dell wireless card. Dell tends to favor Broadcom, but be prepared to use a wired connection until you are confident the wireless is working properly. If you boot to a Live CD of something Linux, you can then run the command lspci (list pci devices) in a terminal; the output will include the actual wireless chipset.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=quirky

http://bkhome.org/quirky/

Fits on USB also.

The OP asked about picking a distro for a Dell Latitude d810, and for me fedora 22 with xfce works well on a similar laptop.

BTW, I don't know or care what the chipset for the wireless adapter is in a Latitude d620, setting up wireless when booted from a live fedora 22 usb is merely visiting the network manager applet and choosing my wifi connection. No fiddling required.

You might be able to run ubuntu on that beast. And think it snappy relative to XP.

I tend to put debian on my older laptops (and my new ones). Mostly because debian has less stuff running by default. And the net install lets you save bandwidth by downloading only that part of the distro that you need. And even more bandwidth savings if you run debian stable which only updates for security (for the most part). On newer hardware I need a newer kernel, but the old stuff runs the stock kernels. About the only customizations is when adobe flash has an update (oh look, another one two-ish days old).

There are some very small, fast distributions that would FLY, but that machine is not that limited. IT will support any of several distributions. May I recommend you try SPARKY. It is somewhat cutting edge DEBIAN based with some very nice enhancements, a bit of style, and more recent kernel than most. I am running it on an old HP laptop quite like your DELL, and it is very nice.

I did have to run wired until I installed the broadcom driver module for the version 4 kernel, but that was fast and easy.

Hello,

Have a try using linux lite. This is very light weight and performance is really awesome.
=========
REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATIONS:

CPU: 700MHz processor
RAM: 512mb ram
RESOLUTION: VGA screen 1024x768 resolution
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image
PREFERRED SPECIFICATIONS:

CPU: 1.5GHz processor
RAM: 1024mb ram
RESOLUTION: VGA, DVI or HDMI screen 1366x768
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image
=========

Linux Lite 2.6 32bit - 1st September, 2015
===========
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linu...t.iso/download
===========

Linux Lite 2.6 64bit - 1st September, 2015
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/linu...t.iso/download
======

Thank you,