which distro would be good for a beginer
 

I was just given a Dell Dimension 3000. It is running XP. I wish to put some form of Linux on this. It is to be used as my daughter's high school computer. I use Libre Office on my Windows 10 set up. My daughter uses this. She mostly uses this system for school work, email, browsing, chatting and some light photo editing will be in her future. Since I will be tech support for her I will need to know how to load programs and find documentation. Thanks for any help with this matter.

Martin

Member response
 

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Look at the sticky; Newbie alert: 50 Open Source Replacements for Windows XP which has links & a short description.

Your choice of a Gnu/Linux would be highly dependent on your hardware specifications. More memory or max out the current memory footprint will enhance your experiences. Of course the hardware specs will dictate which Gnu/Linux will fit the legacy hardware. If you have issues with a install then you can post to the distribution forum within LQ's Linux - Distributions

If your problem is a general question then post to Linux - General

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

That computer shipped with a Pentium 4 or Celeron, 256 or 512 MB RAM, and no graphics card. The latter means that you can take about 64 MB off the RAM, since that will be reserved for graphics use. The setup is similar to this computer, except that I have more RAM.

The first thing to do is to discover the RAM size. I would strongly advise you to get some more, whatever the answer is. You can get 1 GB of PC2700 RAM for about $10 or 8 at Amazon. If you install extra RAM, go to the BIOS editor and see if you can increase the amount of RAM allocated to video.

If you have 256 MB and don't add any more, you need Antix: that will run well on smaller and slower computers than yours. If you have 512 MB, then go for the MX version of AntiX. If you upgrade to 1 GB, then you have a much greater choice, but you don't want a flashy user-interface because you don't have hardware video acceleration. I'd recommend the Mate version of Mint.

All of those will come with a web-browser, email client, word-processor, media player, and graphics editor. For some idea of the extra software available
http://linuxappfinder.com

Hi.

Like Pokemon: catch them all, free to try and learn. ;) http://distrowatch.com/search.php?os...&status=Active

Best wishes and have fun! :)

I ran Lubuntu LTS about a year ago on an old Compaq laptop that had 512MB of RAM shared with the video card. I was surprised at how fast it was.

Installing software is easy in Lubuntu using the "sudo apt-get install" command. Software updates are easy too, using the "sudo apt-get update" command. The LTS means long term support.

Sorry, was watching it with the nephews... :D still try n see.

any of these with Mate, LXDE, or XFCE desktop:

Debian, Lubuntu, Mint

LXLE (based on Lubuntu) http://www.lxle.net/