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!
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-$60, it will make everything much more responsive.
Yeah, it’s an old laptop. She doesn’t have much money for a new laptop and since she won’t use it often, it’s enough to check mail, e-banking, … And we have some old laptops at home nobody uses, so we thought we could give it to her as a gift.
Eventually, she’ll buy a new ~400$ laptop later with some good specs but that’s not in the next few months. But thanks for the tips.