this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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44
Which Linux distro for beginners (with requirements) (self.linux)
submitted 13 hours ago by chraebsli to c/[email protected]
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A friend of someone related doesn't have a laptop nowadays, but needs one. Now we have 2 old laptops at home, and we want to give her one so she can do some things on it. Since she isn't used to laptops and the old laptops wouldn't run a Windows 11 (I don't want to install a Win10 because of end of support and lacking security features), I guess installing a simple Linux is fine. Now comes the big question: Which Linux distro should I install? (see requirements below)

Laptops:

  • Acer Aspire ES 15, AMD dual-core E1-7010 @1.5 GHz, 4GB RAM, 1000 GB HDD
  • HP Pavilion 17-e030ez, Intel Pentium @2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM, 10000 GB HDD (I'd choose this)

Tasks:

  • Office Stuff (I thought about OnlyOffice)
  • Internet surfing
  • Banking via Web

Requirements:

  • needs to have full German support
  • needs an easy software installation center
  • should be easy to learn
  • optionally, her friends (which probably use Windows/ Mac) should be able to help her (since she never had a laptop before)
  • eventually German forum/ German Guides

I'm using Linux/ Manjaro for myself but don't have any experience with beginner-friendly distros. I used a KDE neon for some time and also have used Ubuntu, and to be honest, they seem beginner-friendly too.

Please let me know your opinions, thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Anything will be fine. I’d try a xfce/lxqt desktop, but even on old dual cores the newest kde is good.

Everyone says mint, but suse has a huge German community because it’s from Germany.

Another person said you should upgrade to ssd and maybe add more ram, and I agree with them. Usually I spend $40 to do that to laptops and it makes real dogs run great.

Post the model numbers on the bottom of the laptops and I can give some pre-gifting upgrade advice with actionable links. Both seem to take 2.5” sata ssds so that’s good and cheap, but there’s different models of the aspire es-15 which take different memory sizes.

If you do take the cheap ssd replacement route, give them one of those usb hdd enclosures with the old big rotational hdd in there. They’re like seven bucks and it means they have a place to hold a backup of their data if the gift laptop dies.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

That's a pretty weak machine. Linux Mint is my #1 recommendation for new Linux users, especially former Windows users. It's what I moved my parents to on their very old computer and it works great.

Try the default Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop first, but if it seems really slow, go with the XFCE version.

You really need to use an SSD in that laptop if possible, it will speed things up to a usable level. Also, if the RAM is upgradable, you should put 8GB minimum in it. DDR3 laptop sticks are dirt cheap, you can get them online for $20-$30 for 8GB sticks.

Same with SSDs, get a 1000GB brand new SSD for $50-$60, it will make everything much more responsive.

[–] chraebsli 8 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, it's an old laptop. She doesn't have much money for a new laptop and since she won't use it often, it's enough to check mail, e-banking, ... And we have some old laptops at home nobody uses, so we thought we could give it to her as a gift.

Eventually, she'll buy a new ~400$ laptop later with some good specs but that's not in the next few months. But thanks for the tips.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Regarding Specs, I'd choose a lite DE.

  • Xubuntu
  • Linux Mint with Mate or Xfce

You can even use an LTS version for longer lasting editions.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Linux Mint with Mate +1

Linux in general has good language support.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Linux in general has good language support.

I've yet to find a distro with NZ English 😆. I'd love to just start a new dictionary and add words to it for all the spell checks, but I've never worked out how to do this. I'm not sure there's even system level spell check.

[–] 0x0 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

a distro with NZ English

Not nit-picky at all...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Haha I get that I can't really expect better than "English", or maybe "US English" and "UK English", but having a system wide dictionary I can add words to by right clicking and choosing "add to dictionary" would be nice.

As I understand it, each program keeps their own.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I'm curious now, what's a NZ English word that's unique to NZ?

And yes, there is no system wide spell check, but I think windows/macos also don't have this.

The only system I know with system wide spell check are smartphones.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 minutes ago

I can easily search up people talking about both the Windows and MacOS system wide spell checks. While for Linux you just find people talking about how dumb it is everything uses different implementations: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/hu4ktg/does_systemwide_autocorrect_and_typo_flagging/

As for NZ English words, it would mostly be words that have come from the Māori language including place names and people's names.

In theory having multi-language spell check would solve most of the issues, but I've never seen Māori as a supported language on Linux.

For some examples of words, there are place names like Taranaki, Te Anau, Te Awamutu. People's names like Hone Harawera or Apirana Ngata. And common words and phrases that have made it into English like Kia ora (mostly used in English as a greeting) and Aotearoa (a name for New Zealand). There will also be company and product names as well.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 13 hours ago

There are lots of choices, but personally I would go with Linux Mint as something likely familiar and packaged with pretty much all the basics for the use case you outlined.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago

Linux Mint for sure.

It's more welcoming to newbies than even Windows.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

I'd also recommend Mint with Mate or Xfce. They have a German forum too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

I have similarly basic needs, and I stopped distro-hopping when I found Q4OS a few years ago. It seems to run well on most hardware and, while I can't speak as to how well-supported it is in German, its community is based in Germany.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I put antiX on a 2 Gb HP 1 x core Atom a little while ago. It's used for notetaking at meetings with LibreOffice, internet browsing through wifi. Not particularly heavy usage but it runs suprisingly well. As your hardware is a bit restricted, perhaps try that. Edit: spelling

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

New user that didn't exactly choose to try Linux, I'd go with Ubuntu or Mint just for the sake of being compatible with pretty much anything you'd find when looking up "how to X on Linux". On those specs I guess I'd go Xubuntu or Mint Xfce edition.

I'd try a few Wayland compositors and X11 WMs on the thing and see what performs the best. Depending on the graphics situation and drivers, Wayland can be faster or slower. At this vintage I'd guess the best will be Xorg with no compositor at all, just plain 2D acceleration, but sometimes even the crappiest OpenGL can be surprising.

If you put Waydroid on it, it'll also double as a shitty Android tablet. Almost all bank apps will refuse to run because it's not a certified device, but it will be some common interface their friends are more likely to be able to help with.

I guess there's also the option of just installing ChromeOS on it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

Pop! Os

Imo.