My computer is an old Dell Inspiron 3646 Small, with Intel Pentium 2.41GHz ~ Silvermont 21nm, Celeron J1800 Dual-Core, running Win8.1 with 8GB RAM, and I can no longer update some applications because MS ceased support for 8.1, so I would like to install a Linux OS. I had Debian, then Ubuntu on an even-older machine that died more than a decade ago, and my knowledge of Linux is antique, so I would appreciate a recommendation.

Welcome.

If I read correctly, the Celeron J1800 is 64-bit. The 8GB of RAM is plenty for the OS itself and for most applications though the web browsers are all pigs now.

If it is the case that your machine is 64-bit, then you have your choice of distros and the "right" one then depends on your goals. A generic recommendation would be to use one of the Linux Mint editions, either as-is or heavily modified. It's up to you.

What do you plan to do with the machine?

Better for you to review information yourself as we don't know what you want or what your uses for the computer are. You don't indicate what type applications you can no longer update. Take a look at the site at the link below which gives some information on the more commonly used Linux systems as well as links to the various sites for more detailed information and ability to download.

https://distrowatch.com/

Try some distros running 'live' - then install the one you like best.

You can put several onto a single pendrive with Ventoy - https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

My personal distro is Devuan/XFCE - https://www.devuan.org/

That computer will run any Linux. I'd recommend Mint as user-friendly (unlike Debian) and with a traditional interface (unlike Ubuntu).

If there are any Windows program that you must have, it may run on Linux using Wine. Try the live version of Mint and see if there's any task that you can do with Windows that seems to be lacking in the installation and in the Mint repository. If so, see if there is a Linux alternative to the program using https://alternativeto.net/. You may find everything you need is available as native Linux programs. If you can't avoid Wine, Mint doesn't actually provide its own version: it directs you to the Wine site and they install the Ubuntu version. It generally works better if your distro has its own Wine, like Mageia or PCLinuxOS.

https://www.linuxliteos.com/index.html

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/

But that is just me. Good for beginners and Ubuntu based like Mint.

I run antiX so not plugging mine.

If wanting Debian Based

https://mxlinux.org/

https://mxlinux.org/manuals/

There. 2 XFCE distros that should be easy to use. MX forum is real friendly usually.

I would second the suggestion to boot to Live CD/USBs of distros you are interested in, then pick one that feels comfortable.

Regarding Ubuntu, I would add the standard Ubuntu (with the default Gnome desktop) takes some getting used to (and I am not a fan, but that's just me), but you can get other flavors of Ubuntu with more conventional DEs, such as MATE and Cinnamon. There's also a spin with the Plasma desktop known as Kubuntu and with the LXQt desktop known as Lubuntu.

The guys as goinglinux recommend Ubuntu MATE for new users.

A few thoughts: Linux (any distro) on your 2017 8GB PC will probably run as fast as Win11 on a 2022 32GB PC!

Maybe Slackware because helpful_LQ is it's Forum

IF there's any chance you might want to run some of your old M$Win stuff, consider dual-booting.

Another way you could try many disrtos is http://OSboxes.org/virtualbox (un-7z & 'Use Existing' that .vdi)

Enjoy & let us know how it goes.

I recall it was billed as "32/64-bit".
It originally had 4GB and struggled a bit, so I doubled it. Runs fine now.
E-mail, photo-editing (with the GiMP), news vids, old movies, nothing special.
I am a penurious elderly scholar (i.e. "cheap old bastard") so I don't want to replace this computer if I don't have to.

I have more than a dozen 64bit multiboot PCs older than yours, with as little as 2G RAM. All are able to run Debian, Fedora, Mageia, Mint, openSUSE and the various *buntu flavors, though I have nothing installed with Gnome. My installed DEs include KDE3, TDE, KDE/Plasma, Mate, Cinnamon, XFCE and IceWM. Distrowatch is good for snapshot looks of the distros and DEs available. Pick a few, put them on a Ventoy USB stick, and give them a try in live mode before installing anything on your internal "disk".

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You have received plenty of good suggestions already. One more is Mageia Linux. It has Live editions so you can test it before installing. It has a variety of display managers, Gnome, KDE, Xfce. Once installed you can test many more. It should run fine in your computer. Good luck!

Thank you all for your recommendations, I sincerely appreciate your responses. I intend to do the "Live" running distros (which I have not done in the past) to decide which may be best for my meagre needs. [Schwarzenneger_voice]I'll be back.[/Schwarzenneger_voice]

My favorite for old tired computers is peppermint OS.

It's based on Debian, so you can easily add Ubuntu repos if desired
- but on light weight machines, I tend to avoid doing that.
It used to be Ubuntu based (which is Debian based itself).
But, they decided last year to cut out Ubuntu and stick with the Debian base, which I like,
as Ubuntu can be a bit taxing on old hardware with less ram and cpu horsepower.
Although 8G ram and i7 chip - that's actually a good desktop/laptop. You can pretty much run what you want, and if desired - add more ram for running virtual machines, or containers (if that's something you're wanting to fool with).

https://peppermintos.com/

2 members found this post helpful.

You can try (all) the easy Unix-like systems.

Easy difficulty
PCLinuxOS -- https://pclosusers.com/communityiso/...qt-2023.11.iso
ROSA Fresh Desktop -- https://mirror.rosalinux.ru/rosa/ros...86_64.uefi.iso
mageia -- https://www.mageia.org/fr/downloads/
OpenMandriva -- https://www.openmandriva.org
GhostBSD -- https://www.ghostbsd.org
Clear Linux -- https://www.clearlinux.org/downloads.html
Mint -- https://linuxmint.com/download.php
EndeavourOS -- https://endeavouros.com
ALT Linux -- http://nightly.altlinux.org/sisyphus...est-x86_64.iso
nobara -- https://nobaraproject.org

When you have more experience or more skills you will be able to use more dificult systems as well.

Intermediate difficulty
openSUSE -- https://www.opensuse.org
Void Linux -- https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/l...30628-xfce.iso
Alpine Linux -- https://www.alpinelinux.org/
OpenBSD -- https://www.openbsd.org
Artix Linux -- https://artixlinux.org/download.php
Devuan -- https://devuan.org