I used to have Ubuntu on my old Compaq computer but got rid of the
computer due to broken keyboard.

Last year a friend of mine gave me his Acer Aspire 7720-6569 Model ICK70. It uses Window Vista Premium, yep really old. It has DualCore2Duo 64bit (i think) 1.66GHz (wish to upgrade) I upgraded memory to 4MB. Small 160GB HD. I use laptop for small thing, nothing biggie. I have desktop computer (Lenovo ThinkCentre boring)

What would you recommend which Linux or Ubuntu to download. I think Linux Mint?
Thanks

With 4GB RAM, it should perform acceptably with just about any distro.

I find Mint an excellent choice, but lately, among the *buntus, I lean more towards Ubuntu MATE. But that's just a matter of taste. I also quite like Mageia.

Be forewarned, if you ask ten LQers to recommend a distro, you will likely get twelve recommendations.

I would recommend Xbuntu or lubuntu for a lightweight alternative to ubuntu for your hardware if you want to stick with something based on ubuntu.

I would recommend Linux Mint for its simplicity and the fact that a bunch of things work out of the box. For instance with Ubuntu you need to run some commands to get NTFS (or was it a fat format? regardless, it was some format that most external HDDs, SSDs and USB sticks come in) as opposed to Linux Mint which already supports them. I find settings to be much more user friendly on Mint. I would suggest installing the XFCE version on Mint to be as light as possible if you are running on 4GB of ram.

Your choice of GNU+Linux flavor does come down to personal preference, but this is my humble opinion. As long as it is something light and Debian based (as Ubuntu or its derivatives) you should be okay.

Mint Mate is likely to be the most comfortable for a hardened Vista user. Runs fine on less than greatest hardware.

Working our way to 12 ...

Edit: I missed your mention of having been a Ubuntu user ...

If used on the internet, that processor will keep it slow, but usable - I used to use 2GB netbooks, slow but worked OK.

Any lightweight distro should work OK - I used AntiX on my old ones, but you might like to have a look at Raspberry for PC, it's quite a fast distro.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/software...ry-pi-desktop/

Thanks peeps,
Just found out that Acer laptop uses 32 bits OS.
I'll read up on Xbuntu, Lbuntu and Linux lightweigh, Mint.

Ubuntu no longer does 32bit, the 2 that I mention do, & a few others, but are becoming rarer by the day.

This is a common question with a common answer:
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&status=Active&category=Old+Computers


32-bit = x86

https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&status=Active&category=Old+Computers&architecture=ix86

(Though 32-bit OS doesn't guarantee 32-bit system, but you'll note the top results are still the same.)

Just because it CAME with a 32-bit OS does not mean it is RESTRICTED to a 32-bit OS . It MIGHT be, but this is worth researching or testing. I would just load a live image onto a USB key and see if it boots. If a 64-bit image boots from usb then you can load a 64-bit Linux version.

If it turns out you are restricted to a 32-bit OS, there are other suggestions we can make.

If you've already got a 64-bit live USB, seeing if it boots is an easy way to check.

If the machine currently boots to Windows, CPU-Z is only a 2MB download and will identify the exact CPU (and other hardware) and so avoids potentially having to create a live USB twice. (For 64-bit CPUs, it will include "EM64T" or "x86_64" in the Instructions field.)

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According to the published specification, that computer does have a 64 bit processor:
Acer Aspire 7720-6569
Mint Mate will be the easiest and most reliable choice and should have no trouble with everyday tasks.

When 64 bit systems first came out, the majority had 32 bit windows installed on them.

I agree test a modern amd64 dvd.

The processor is supposed to be 64 bit but some of the early ones didn't have full chipset support for some unknown reason.

My (at the time) company had me using one of those. The CPU was 64-bit, but a 64-bit OS would bork. I was able to get shed of it when they did the Windows 10 migration, because Win10 would not support the video system on that platform. (One of the very FEW times I was grateful to Microsoft since Windows 2.0 came out!)

A quick boot test with a 64-bit image of Puppy or Tinycore will be pretty definitive.