Hello! What Linux version should i get if i want to revive an old laptop? Im talking about a Dell Inspiron 1501, with a Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3500+789 MHz, 448 MB RAM, running on Windows XP 2002 professional edition. Thanks!

Your choice, really. I would say to avoid bloatware, and do not be ambitious about gaming. That's plenty of resources to do everything if you avoid bloatware (e.g. kde, & gnome, seamonkey, mozilla preferably) Also be careful about silly things like using a perl script to run a python script which runs awk which runs sed whuich runs gcc. My point is, you can fill up with libraries that way very quickly Red hat and clones used to be very messy in starting X from runlevel 3, and mandriva likewise.

Slackware offers an xfce option which I like.

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Hello:

Be warned: I don't know a heck of a lot about linux.

I think that your limiting factor is the 448 MB of RAM and may be your processor - its a 386, I think.

If that is true, I think you need to look through Distrowatch to find a distro that will play nice with what you have got. May be SliTaz or Puppy but there are others.

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Which distro are you using?
Every distro will do, as long as you use a lightweight WM

Kind regards

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Thank you Im already looking for a solution @distrowatch!

You can either try some of the ready lightweight distros like slitaz , puppy, macpup, Vector, Antix or preferably give it a shot at installing a minimal version of a flexible distro like Debian and use a lightweight desktop enviroment on top of it such as XFCE.

I've just finished setting up a pentiumIII, 256MB Ram, 40Gb drive, nvidia geforce2 gpu, for a friend and it is running lighting fast with Debian 6.0 as base and XFCE as DE. Only 68-72Mb of ram usage at idle state!

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Thank you! It seems like Debian is going to do the trick. Ill let you know!

Hi,

First thing would be to max the memory. Speed for the 'Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3500+' is 1.79Ghz not 789Mhz.

You should still be able to run a modern Gnu/Linux with the Dell 1501. DE or WM woudl be dependent on the memory footprint, that's why I suggest to max it.

Which GPU does your 1501 use? That will be another factor.

Look at 'The LiveCD List which is a very good list to select a LiveCD to test drive and see how it fits. Good idea to try the LiveCD and see what is recognized and which drivers/firmware are necessary to get things good to go.

Thanks: Apparently i have the integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 graphics. The general info of windows tells me that the processor is running at 789Mhz but i dont trust windows for anything hehehe. Im about to try it with Devian 6.0 and see what happens.

Hi,

Try a LiveCD as suggested.

AMD specs for that processor is 1.79 Ghz. I've got a Dell Inspiron 1501 w/AMD Turion64x2 and works great with anything that I've installed. I use Slackware 13.1 X86_64 and it's sweet. Sure the memory is maxed at 2GB plus a Intel SSD x25-40GB drive. I've got newer laptops but the feel on this one fits my needs for day to day work. Keyboard fits my big mitts so why change. Most newer laptop/Notebook keyboards are getting to small for my use.

Side note: I purchased a Netbook for the wife. That keyboard is way to small for my typing, she loves it but she has smaller hands.

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