I have a 32 bit laptop with 120 gb harddisk & 1 gb ram. I am looking for a Linux distro which contains all the basic software for a normal user & also which must be stable. I tried linux mint but it is too much power & memory consuming, result in hang. Ubuntu also hangs when multiple little heavy applications opens. Also Ubuntu doesn't contains mp3 support. I am looking for stable distro with basic user needed softwares. Is there any such distro available ??

What you say about Stella since it is based on centos ??

The reason of all troubles is a small amount of RAM -- only 1 GB. It's really small so you will be unable to run any modern game or powerful professional program at any distro. For ordinary home usage (browsing web, viewing documents and editing text) I can recommend you somethink like Puppy Linux, Sparky Linux or even Lubuntu (it's an Ubuntu with LXDE -- other desktop environment which main goal is be lightweight and working on old and weak machines). If you feel yourself enought confidence you can try Slackware with Fluxbox, FVWM or any other simple window manager (in this case you don't need KDE or any other DE and can save some memory resources for applications).

P.S. If Ubuntu can't play mp3 from the box doesn't mean it doesn't support mp3 at all. For additional information how to enable it you could look here and here.

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Hi.

http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ca...=Old+Computers
https://www.linux.com/news/enterpris...-linux-distros
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/sof...istros-1295034
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* You will get a lot of opinions but can try most distros free before installing... best to go minimal (e.g netinst) then add as needed.

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I would look into Linux Mint XFCE or LXDE versions as they will likely fare better on an older machine. Having only 1GB of RAM and a 32 bit processor does suggest to me that the processor isn't likely that modern either so it's definitely worth looking at the link jamison20000e posted as most "normal" current distributions will be slow on hardware that old.

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1GB is not that bad. Did you test Mint and Ubuntu with installs to hard drive or in liveCD mode? LiveCD mode is subject to random long stalls for almost any serious action.

Other than the default choice of desktop (or window manager) there isn't significant performance difference between one distribution and another. If your processor isn't fast enough for what you're trying to do, a different distribution won't change that. With even less than 1GB getting a lightweight desktop and a collection of applications that share libraries is important for decent performance. But 1GB is enough those factors should not dominate.

So maybe a distribution with a lighter weight desktop will help, or maybe the performance you're seeing is just what you can get from an old slow processor.

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Unless you can't afford anything better, I would replace the laptop with something that is more modern.

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Hi Harshit_24

I would suggest you give Debian with xfce a go.
If you do the base install it is very light weight, you can then add whatever software you need via apt-get.
You can download a small USB net installer and have it running in 10 minutes.
Definitely worth a try, I always come back to Debian

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I have an old 32bit laptop with only 512MB.
It's stable running LXDE.

You will find that (in general) that limited memory comes with limited graphics and limited CPU.

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Ignore these people with the latest-gadgets fixation. This computer is 10 years old and my laptop is 12! With a browser and word-processor running, I'm currently using 800 MB including buffers and caches.

The MX version of AntiX would probably suit you:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...page/15/sort/7
As you see, it would run on a smaller computer than yours and it comes ready to use. After installation, any extra software you'll ever be likely to need can be installed from the Debian Stable repository (the largest there is).

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