Debian vs Ubuntu vs Damn Small

[sp_key]

Hi all,

First of all, happy new year to all of you, I hope Santa got you what you wanted!

I need a new OS for my old laptop as it's getting extremely slow to do basic things. I have already read the poll about slower machines, the problem is, I don't have an understanding what IS slow specs-wise. My specs are the below:

Intel(R)
Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
704MB of Ram (2 sticks)

XP Home Edition Pack SP2 does not work! I cannot even surf the web! Can I get away with something such as Ubuntu or shall I go with something more basic such as Damn Small?

Btw, I need my new OS to be simple to use (never done anything with Linux before). I'll be doing basic things such as using Open Office, surfing the web, and viewing videos/pictures.

Many thanks in advance!

[rokytnji]

Ubuntu,Debian,Mint,Mepis, all the larger distros will run fine with your specs, and probably faster than XP. Everything that you stated is included in the distros, you may probably have to install codecs in Ubuntu for watching movies in your dvd player though. Here is a link for doing just that after install.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

If you wish, you probably have room on your hardrive to set up a dual boot Ubuntu and Damn Small Linux setup. I recommend while doing a install to make sure your Laptop is hooked up to a land line instead of counting on wireless. You can enaable wireless later after you establish a internet connection using landline.

[rokytnji]

By the way, Live cds are a great way to see what boots up and works right out of the box before a install.

[smolloy]

Rokytnji's right -- try liveCDs first, since they'll give you a really good idea as to how fast or slow a particular distro will run. To be honest I'm surprised XP struggled with that hardware, and I suspect your machine might have been infected with something. I think you'll do just fine with Ubuntu (which is also a good choice for a newbie).

Good luck, and welcome to the forums!

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

I think most users will find Ubuntu or Debian slightly easier to use than Damn Small, but some users might find it the other way around. If none of these work well for you, there are several hundred other options that might work well enough. Check the link in my signature for lots of good information on getting started with Linux. You'll find a couple of quizzes there that might help you to pick a few distros that will work for you.

Hope you have great fun with Linux, and can visit the forums often.

[Bemk]

My laptop runs a 1.4 GHz Celeron M and 512 MB Ram, Ubuntu works fine here, I must admit, Things are faster on my friends quad core, but still, it works properly, and I don't miss anything. (Don't tell Microsoft, but my Notebook runs better under Linux than it does under Windows)