Hello from a newbie
I've been a windows user all my life. I'm a senior now and getting ready to ditch my desktop Windows 7 due to its upcoming EOL. Windows 10 doesn't interest me.
My processor is an AMD Athlon II x4 645 3.1 GHz 4 cores 32bit
4G Ram
My main use is browsing, streaming, word processing, spreadsheets. pictures, email. (senior stuff).
I would appreciate any advice on what distro would be advised for my aging but well-working processor.
Thank you in advance.

You might want to read this: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ro-4175623119/

I would not characterize that as "senior stuff," even though I'm probably older than you are. That's fairly standard user stuff for someone who's not a coder or web designer.

The one issue you might face in picking a distro is the "32-bit" aspect of your computer specs; some distros are starting drop support for 32-bit machines, so, when you visit a distro's website, double-check that it offers 32-bit support. Otherwise, your computer is quite capable of performing well with any distro for the tasks you mention.

My own favorites are Slackware, Mageia, and Debian. Larry at GoingLinux is a big fan of Ubuntu MATE, which is, indeed, a nice piece of work. GoingLinux, by the by, is an excellent resource.

Welcome to LQ.

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1 correction, The athlon II x4 645 is a 64bit processor, so literally ANY distribution for amd64 (x86-64) would work on that.

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Nice catch, Timothy Miller!

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Hi,

probably any of the big desktop style distros would work for you. I'm guessing you are not interested in always having the "latest and greatest" software so probably going for something that has a long support cycle wold be best. The hardware you have should be ok for most distros and desktops environments.

I think the bigger decisions will be working out what programs you want to use to do your
Assuming you were using either chrome or firefox you should be fine: both are available. If by "streaming" you mean in the browser this should be ok too.

For "word processing, spreadsheets" you have a number of options. libreoffice is probably the big one but there are others like those that come with the Gnome and KDE graphical environments. Then you also have the option of using Googles offerings in your browser.

For pictures you also have cloud options and a number of desktop options. What is best for you will depend on what you actually do with you pictures.

Finally, email. This will depend on what email provider you are using. Do you want an actual desktop app or do you prefer to do this in your web browser.

Evo2.

P.S. as has already been pointed out presumably the OP is just running 32 windows on a 64 bit machine.

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I used to be treasurer for a nonprofit organization.

LibreOffice sheets (actually, it was Open Office at the time, because it was before LO became a thing) worked like a charm for my massive treasurer's workbook with 26 linked spreadsheets.

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Thank you frankbell, evo2, Timothy Miller
Your replies were extremely useful and I'm quite impressed with the helpful advice LQ provides. Now the real work starts. I'm excited.

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I use MX Linux presently, I'm 69, & mainly use it for internet, forums, music, videos, images, email, etc. works very well, even on my dual 1GHz/2GB ram netbook, if a little slow online.

https://mxlinux.org/

P.S. Yes, I do have other better specced computers too.....

For your requirements I would suggest MX Linux or Mint (XFCE) desktop. Either sould work for you.
There will be a learning curve no matter which distro you uses. Most of them offer live .iso images that allows you to try them out before you install so try a few for a few days each and see which one fits your needs best. But remember that a live session will not be quite as fast as and installed one, because it has to uncompress files on the fly.

Good Luck and enjoy the process.

There are literally more than a DOZEN excellent options. I might recommend ELEMENTARY LINUX. It is easy, fast, solid, and has a bit more "Windows" look and fell than some of the others. I installed it for my son when he was using Linux in High School and it served him well.

annabelle82,

Welcome to LQ.

Your AMD Athlon II x4 645 3.1 GHz is rated at 3468, so it is by no means slow:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php...+X4+645&id=174

You also have 4 GB of RAM, so basically you have a whole world of choice of Linux distributions.

Since you will probably be more at home with a distribution whose layout resembles W7, I would recommend the highly popular Linux Mint 19 in either MATE or Xfce, not Cinnamon which can sometimes present problems.

Linux Mint has produced an excellent installation guide:
https://linuxmint-installation-guide...est/index.html

There is also nothing wrong with Ubuntu MATE, MX-Linux and many other distros.
The choice is up to you. Your hardware has more than enough firepower to run Linux.

+1 for Mint. It's very polished, tend to just work, and is also pretty user friendly. It's based on the latest Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) so it's also stable and you don't have to upgrade too frequently (as opposed to regular Ubuntu which releases twice a year; or "rolling" distros which upgrade constantly, and in my experience require a certain commitment to keep them working).

My guess is that MX is also an excellent choice. I never used it (maybe I will), but I used both Mepis and AntiX (his "parents") and they were damn good. In a way, they were to Debian what Mint is to Ubuntu, if that makes sense.

RE: Desktop Environments (Cinnamon vs. Mate vs. Gnome vs. Xfce vs. whatever): keep in mind that you can install and try all of them post-install, you're not forced to commit to the choice you make when you download the installation iso.
I'd suggest you to at least give a glance to Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce, which are conceptually (if not aesthetically) quite similar to each other and to Windows.
Gnome is quite different, and a bit heavy on RAM and CPU (although, to be honest, as soon as you start a modern browser, Gnome pales in comparison). KDE is a monster to install and configure, many people love it, but it never appealed to me.

sid netinst

Two points are worth mentioning. The first is that you can run most distros from their installation medium, whether USB or DVD, so you can try them before you commit yourself to installing. The second is that you get to choose your GUI, unlike Windows where the choice is take it or leave it. The four best-supported, most-stable, and least-unfamiliar are

KDE. Very flexible and configurable and full of eye-candy. Some people say "wow", others find it all a bit too cluttered and busy. Probably best obtained from PCLinuxOS.
Xfce. Very traditional and plain, although just as flexible. Critisc say it looks old-fashioned, users say it always works. Best obtained from Xubuntu.
Gnome. Make your computer look like a smart-phone! You either love it or loath it. Get it from Ubuntu.
Mate. Middle of the road and perhaps the best choice for a Windows user. Get it from Linux Mint. (Not the Cinnamon version of Mint, which is not so reliable).

Another vote for Linux Mint as the the easiest of the popular distros to get started with. For a Desktop Environment, I'd recommend either MATE or XFCE; both are reasonably complete yet sufficiently lightweight that they won't tax your system with overly fancy graphical effects.