What is a good distro for a tiny laptop?
 

I have a really small Dell Latitude D505 laptop. (1.4 GHz cpu, 1 GB RAM, 40GB hard drive (I actually doubt it's that big.)) I just want to use it for word processing, so I'd like to get the latest version of libre office on it that will work. It doesn't have to be 5.0 but just the latest or close to it. Thanks.

I ran Debian Sid with XFCE* on an EEEPC 1000 and it worked fine. One has to be careful when dist-upgrading (which is the only real way to update Sid) but it can be a good day-to-day OS.

*MY choice for any system, as it happens.

My fav is AntiX 15 with it's /usr/local/bin scripts running jessie or testing repos.

My 2 touchscreen 9 inch netbooks love it.

My non touchscreen saddle bag 9 inch netbook rolls OK with Carolina Puppy Linux.

Those are what I am comfy with. Everyone has their druthers.

You could actually do Debian stable with backports. Not sure if it's 5.0 or 5.1, but it's definitely 5.something. Although 1 GB ram Libreoffice is going to be a little slow.

Antix MX would get you a good jump-start. Designed around older, lighter-weight pc's in mind, but basically just a pre-customized Debian, it's a friend of mines go-to system for anything older.

There's lots of other possibilities, but since 273 started with suggesting Debian, I'll throw those 2 Debian solutions out there.

Or, Openbox, Window Maker, JWM and a plethora freed to try*;;; :D I like a netinst, my T20(from a thrift store $10) runs 8.3 GUIs well and with 1/2 that RAM &c... ;)

Salix Fluxbox or Slackel Fluxbox would like your hardware also. If you want to try learning slackware with a package handling system like Ubuntu that you are used to.

https://forum.salixos.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6131

https://forum.salixos.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6551

My druthers is I like Slackel over Salix. Though both are the same.
I just prefer the default fluxbox setup Slackel comes with and I gotta say.

Both forums are very helpful and knowledgeable. With friendly team members. I like small but mighty distro teams myself. Not the Ubuntu jungle forum. Or Debian "rtfm" forum members you can run into from time to time on a bad day.

The ultimate RTFM members are always Arch Linux. Even if you DID read it, they'll simply tell you to re-read it. Least tolerant forums I've ever seen in my life of someone who might not understand what they read.

Thanks 273. Yeah, when I had Xubuntu it was so slow there was no question of upgrading. Good day-to-day is just fine with me. Can I bug you for a link to the Debian Sid?

Thanks rokytnji, I checked out puppy linux before but there were so many possible downloads I didn't know which to choose. Got a link for the Carolina Puppy Linux?

Thanks Timothy. I have LO 4 something on another laptop (running MX14) and although the computer is slow the LO is not. I would love to get LO 5 anything. At least give it a try. But I would really need a link as the way you described things I'm sure (LOL) I would never be able to find them on my own.

Thanks jamison.

Ha ha. Thanks rokytnji. You're always challenging me. (You got me to try Tiny a while back.) But in this case I just want the laptop as a word processor so I'm not up for learning anything. (My brain is too stretched as it is!)

https://www.debian.org/releases/sid/
https://techtuts.info/2014/04/instal...-unstable-sid/

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/we...amd64/iso-dvd/

Pretty much any distribution ever released can be found at http://distrowatch.com/ with links to reviews, the distro's homepage, an overview of the distribution, and links to download (assuming it's still actively developed...).

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=81312

for apps outside of ppm <puppy package manager>

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=83391

Plus if you cruise and start from the last 119 page going backwards on the iso link thread. Geoffrey makes packages also. Plus more current info on what is going on with Carolina.