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You should be able to run a relatively new version of Mac OS X + SSD and your computer should be good.
But to answer the question, i'm usually on Ubuntu Distros, so in this case, Lubuntu and Xubuntu tends to be my Go-To for Older machines and it has yet to disappoint.

Available Here: https://lubuntu.net/ https://xubuntu.org/
Hope this helps

Awesome! How can we turn off ALL data collection? Show us THAT link and we are golden...

Here it is.

And a bonus one!

Why can't we turn it off entirely?

But you can!

XUbuntu is very easy to install and maintain. It has a familiar Windows-like file manager and toolbar, and does away with the horrid UI that comes by default with Ubuntu. I've used that on a daily-driver development machine for a number of years. Download at http://xubuntu.org/

Systemd is kind of like the glue between applications and the kernel. It has replaced the init system that was the standard on many popular linux distros. You don't need to worry about that, this is the core of the linux OS and will do everything it's supposed to do on its own. You don't integrate this with an existing linux system, it's a standalone. Also, since you're a linux noob, you should just stick to Linux Mint or maybe one of the versions of Ubuntu that doesn't ship with Unity, like Kubuntu or Xubuntu. You can find them here --> Kubuntu http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubu... Xubuntu https://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu... If you have a working Windows or Mac computer, you can use virtualization software like VirtualBox to set up a VM of pretty much any distro you want, running in a window (or full screened) on top of Windows or OSX. It's a great way to test out a full install without hosing your primary partition. This project (RSL) is not for beginners, so stick with an established desktop distro instead.

How about xbuntu?
http://xubuntu.org/
Here is a whole list of options
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu...

I think it means three things: "Why do people use Mint when Ubuntu is better in every way? Some people think the only answer is 'Cinnamon' . Ubuntu should port that over so they are the awesome and Mint can die"

I agree with your interpretation. I even (unlike you, probably) kind of agree with the original author's point. I would be pretty happy if the Ubuntu team offered Cinnamon as an alternative of Unity. But of course they never will, because they specifically developed Unity to replace Gnome in the first place, thus creating all this demand for Cinnamon and Linux Mint.

There are a variety of different Ubuntu 'flavors', which is basically Ubuntu+Alternate DE. So why couldn't Linux Mint be like that rather than a much larger project that's harder to maintain?

What does Xubuntu 15.04 leak back to Canonical or any other "home base"?

Xubuntu 3.10 released

The only Ubuntu announcement that I would be interested in is if they decide to use MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, or KDE for their desktop

You're in luck. Ubuntu uses Xfce.

--
Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

What specifically do you need to do that Linux does not do? MS Office isn't an answer, it is a specific application suite. The functions it does can be done by OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

While I don't "work" in IT, I am disabled and have disability income, I volunteer for Freegeek Twin Cities. There we take in donated PCs, test them, and build new PCs from good parts that meet our minimum standards. We then install Xubuntu 12.04 and sell them at low cost to those who can not otherwise afford PCs. As of yet I have not come across a software need that Linux can not do. The closest I know of is editing photos and graphic design. If Blender, CinePaint, GIMP, or Inkscape can not do what needs to be done then it is possible to install Photoshop CS5 using WINE.

Ooh, I just thought of something, run XCode to develop for iOS.

Falcon

Gnome? I won't let a lawn ornament stand in the way of my clean PC. I just did sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop and set it up the way I wanted.

I think the MyCleanPC spam went away soon after I started to push Xubuntu as a solution for really keeping a PC clean yet usable for web surfing.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

I realize you already likely know this, but in case there are any who would prefer something that isn't Unity, you can install one of the other Ubuntu variants. I discovered I rather like XFCE, so Xubuntu is treating me very well.

# from http://xubuntu.org/upgrading/ ...
$ sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Anything that presents the familiar desktop experience to the end user. Unfortunately, this rules out the current versions of Ubuntu.

Um, Xubuntu is a current version of Ubuntu. My elderly and not-technically-inclined parents are using it.

This is not something I would expect a novice to do though.

Note that 'novices' don't install operating systems, either. In practice, everyone who's not a techie leans on someone for tech support - family, friends, the neighbor's kid who's "good with computers". Windows sure doesn't maintain itself.

i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this

You don't need to. My clean PC runs Xubuntu.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

Yeah, but will it speed up the gigabits in my router?

i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this

You don't need to. My clean PC runs Xubuntu.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

Computers nowadays don't come with a Windows CD. So if a virus messes up my computer, what am I to do?

Install MyCleanPC, which doesn't get Windows viruses.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

Computers nowadays don't come with a Windows CD. So if a virus messes up my computer, what am I to do?

Install MyCleanPC, which doesn't get Windows viruses.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

I haven't heard of CleanMyPC, but I've heard of MyCleanPC. If you back up your files, wipe everything off your PC, and install MyCleanPC, your PC will be clean. Then you can install thousands of free applications and reinstall many applications that are already your favorites. The last time I cleaned a relative's PC that had about three fake antiviruses on it and embedded deeply, I did just that: wiped it, installed MyCleanPC, and moved a couple things around to make it look like it used to, except cleaner. It ended up even cleaner than it was when Dell sold it to her.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

I haven't heard of CleanMyPC, but I've heard of MyCleanPC. If you back up your files, wipe everything off your PC, and install MyCleanPC, your PC will be clean. Then you can install thousands of free applications and reinstall many applications that are already your favorites. The last time I cleaned a relative's PC that had about three fake antiviruses on it and embedded deeply, I did just that: wiped it, installed MyCleanPC, and moved a couple things around to make it look like it used to, except cleaner. It ended up even cleaner than it was when Dell sold it to her.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

I haven't heard of CleanMyPC, but I've heard of MyCleanPC. If you back up your files, wipe everything off your PC, and install MyCleanPC, your PC will be clean. Then you can install thousands of free applications and reinstall many applications that are already your favorites. The last time I cleaned a relative's PC that had about three fake antiviruses on it and embedded deeply, I did just that: wiped it, installed MyCleanPC, and moved a couple things around to make it look like it used to, except cleaner. It ended up even cleaner than it was when Dell sold it to her.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

I haven't heard of CleanMyPC, but I've heard of MyCleanPC. If you back up your files, wipe everything off your PC, and install MyCleanPC, your PC will be clean. Then you can install thousands of free applications and reinstall many applications that are already your favorites. The last time I cleaned a relative's PC that had about three fake antiviruses on it and embedded deeply, I did just that: wiped it, installed MyCleanPC, and moved a couple things around to make it look like it used to, except cleaner. It ended up even cleaner than it was when Dell sold it to her.

Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.

If you think your LTS starts getting stale, take a look at the various PPAs. For instance you could keep a current stable Firefox (v6 atm), by adding the firefox-stable ppa to your Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

I personally switched to Xubuntu (XFCE) because i don't like gnome3/unity/kde4, had no problems using 11.04.

If your computer is old or slow, I suggest Xubuntu which I've switched my old P4 to after the regular Ubuntu got a little too GUI intensive

Xubuntu (Ubuntu with the XFCE window manager) is very Windows-like, quick and very reliable. A couple of years ago I installed it for my brother (who can barely work out how to use a TV remote control) and since then he's been very happy with it. Then again, the only thing he's used it for is eBay and porn so maybe he's not the best example.

Personally, I've found Ubuntu very useful in situations where I couldn't do any dedicated partioning for linux and only a bootable version would do. They're not the first or the only distro to offer a bootable linux kernel, but they typically provide a nice desktop interface and fair driver support. There's also an incredibly active community, with forums, where news posts are usually not even required (your question has been asked and answered countless times over, accessible via search).

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.kubuntu.org/
http://www.xubuntu.org/

In the event she's looking to do some more serious introspection on linux, I would suggest Arch Linux. CLI from the start, and certainly not for the weak of heart. I started with Arch Linux years ago, because I like a challenge, and it definitely paid off in the long run.

http://www.archlinux.org/

I assume this is going to be 99% of the suggestions. If your computer is old or slow, I suggest Xubuntu which I've switched my old P4 to after the regular Ubuntu got a little too GUI intensive. Here's the link to VMWare.

Start by giving XFCE a try.
Open you horizons, as stated in a number of previous posts.

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

http://xubuntu.org/

You're welcome ;)

...does it run anything besides linux?

Is there something people want to run besides Linux?

And is anyone unable to run Linux?

No, seriously. Install VirtualBox on your Windows system or whatever, throw Xubuntu on a virtual machine, do whatever you want. The software doesn't cost a dime, you can do it with the hardware you have, and it's not even that difficult for a person of moderate geekiness. Okay, so it takes a lot of hard drive space, but gone are the days when you need to go drop a few hundred dollars on another computer or futz around with dual-booting and accidentally trash your MBR if you want a Linux system in addition to your current setup.

The most interesting thing to me about Gnome these days is that it's memory footprint is still ridiculously fatter than Xfce's, even though Xfce has caught up with Gnome's basic features.

My "family computer" has been running default Ubuntu with Gnome, and my non-technical wife has been happy with it. However, it's starting to show its age, and with each major software update it gets a little slower and slower. So for the hell of it last month I thought I'd experiment with Xfce and see if I could postpone the next computer purchase until the holiday season.

I might postpone a lot further out than that! Thanks to Canonical's packaging of Xfce, it looked pretty much the same as Gnome right out of the box. After 5 minutes of tweaking the panel icons and theme settings, it was almost indistinguishable from my machine's previous setup. My wife didn't notice at all until three weeks later when she went to copy some files from a USB drive, and noticed that the file manager was Thunar rather than Nautilus. She turned out to be happier with Thunar though, because it doesn't randomly freeze up during drag-and-drop operations.

For years now, Gnome's "niche" has been with those who want something more feature-rich than Fluxbox, yet simpler and more lightweight than KDE. However, Gnome's basic functionality has been pretty stagnant for a long time, and lighter-weight desktop environments are catching up with the core expected feature set. Right now, I don't know of any compelling reason to run Gnome other than wanting to use a lot of Compiz visual effects, and Xfce is almost caught up with that too.

ClamWin, ClamAV are fine for remedial action. The best remedy, as in all things, is prevention and that can be accomplished by moving to systems that are resistant to malware. Here even the consumer unions fall flat on their faces and fail to mention the Linux distros. Most mainstream distros are years ahead of Windows as far as ease of use, maintenance and speed. The main weakness of real systems (non-M$) is that Web 2.0 script crap.

Here you sound like a troll. There are no sources for any of your claims and they are false.

Here are the sources, try any one of them:

• Fedora w/KDE default
• Fedora w/GNOME default
• Ubuntu w/Xfce default
• Ubuntu w/KDE default
• Ubuntu w/Gnome default

XSS? Search Google.

Note, different than Windows, easier to use and worlds easier to modify and customize. KDE passed XP in usability years ago. It's not 1996 anymore.

What you are not seeing here is that older versions of xubuntu required 64mb ram. The latest release has a recommended requirement of 256mb. So you did not need to upgrade your computer because you are not using the newest version of the same software. You switched to something leaner and more importantly, less featureful, in order to keep using the same hardware.

Try Xubuntu, the minimum RAM requirement is 256 MB.

Xubuntu doesn't use GNOME, but if my options were either to stop using GNOME or to stop using a computer all together, I would chose to stop using GNOME.

Xubuntu 9.04 was released today, check it.

The decision of a Linux distro for old hardware is somewhat dependent on the age of the old hardware. I've been pretty successful at using PuppyLinux (and MacPup isn't too bad) on a very old Toshiba laptop with 192mb RAM. However, I have found that the "random incompetence" factor is an issue with it, as well as some laptop quirks (X refuses to come back if you close the laptop lid, and you then have to power it off, X doesn't start up on boot, and you have to type "startx" at the command line and chose xmesa or xorg...).

Xubuntu is actually not too bad from the resources side... I tried it on an old 256mb ram/celeron computer. It was pretty slow, though.

gOS also isn't too bad. It's geared towards getting online and using Google stuff... gmail, google docs, etc. It booted faster and the liveCD was faster than Xubuntu, for me.

Another one that I haven't used a whole lot but looked pretty good was TinyME (based on PCLinuxOS I think).

Also, why did you go with an Eee Ubuntu and not Xubuntu ... which I guess would be more widely supported?

Actually I did on my 901. That went perfect. I followed the very simple instructions at http://www.array.org/ubuntu/ It took the installation of one .deb, a reboot and wireless, sound, bluetooth and wifi were all working. Afterwards just added the array.orgs repository, installed the extra scripts through that repository and even the Fn keys and special keys in the laptop worked perfectly.

This weekend I however installed the eeepc version of http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/release-notes/8.10.02#cruncheee_eee_pc_edition To me that's even better. Everything works out of the box and you can use the Ubuntu repositories for nearly everything you may want to install later. It responds really well. I even watch divx in the train, with the eeepc on powersave mode. They do use openbox which I have quite some experience in and really like. But if you like Vista you probably don't like openbox.
Only downside to me is the interface, which in my view is a little to dark.

EeeOS is designed to be a minimalistic Custom Debian Distribution that provides a base system (drivers, system tools, Xorg) and nothing more. The idea behind such a release is so that users of Eee Linux OS can configure and build their own Eee experience ... an EeeXperience if you will :P While systems like Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse and Xandros are all amazing in their own right, they often come pre-configured and with a lot of bloat. Some power users prefer to have complete control over their systems and it is with these users in mind that Eee OS was created.

I was going to go on a lengthy explanation about how you could use Slackware or Gentoo to provide the optimal configuration you are interested in but after reading your summary, I doubt you're interested in this sort of devotion to squeezing your eeePC like a lemon over your enemy's eye.

... though I've been told with great enthusiasm that it actually works "out of the box."

Ubuntu has worked "out of the box" for two of my DLink WiFi cards. It worked on a no name CompUSA brand rebate PCMCIA card on my laptop but there were ... annoyances ... with lack of encryption options.

Also, why did you go with an Eee Ubuntu and not Xubuntu ... which I guess would be more widely supported?

I've used Xubuntu as a live CD and it works great. Its going to be going on my next box.

I run Kubuntu 8.04 on a Compaq Evo N410c, which is a 1.2GHz P-III with 512MB memory. It's just fine.

Indeed, it's not so much a matter of the distro but more of the window manager or desktop environment. I'm also generally using KDE. On one netbook, however, I prefere FVWM, simply because I use it for a few things and don't need *any* eye candy or fancy menus. However, as you get into weaker processors and smaller RAM, other desktop environments might be more enjoyable. Xfce and Fluxbox come to mind.

One fact that is not as widely known as it could be is that just about any distro can be modified through adding or removing packages and themes, and changing configurations, to be identical to any other. As an example, Fluxbuntu can be grown into Kubuntu by adding the package kubuntu-desktop.

From the top of my head:

- (X)Ubuntu with a default XFCE enviroment. Designed for very old computers and people who hate the Gnome/KDE slowpoking.

- Haiku OS. OSS BeOS variant. Lightning fast, designed with the GUI in mind. Sub-10-seconds booting is rumored.

- The Syllable OS. An OSS OS inspired by the proof-of-concept project Athena OS and some concepts implemented in BeOS. This one is actually quite interesting, as they've come quite far for a project that started from scratch without being a simple Unix rippoff. The site has demo videos showing Syllable coldboot into the Desktop under 10 seconds on older hardware and they've got quite a few apps ported to it allready, including a native browser using a pimped-out webkit renderer. Shutdown is sub 5 seconds (also important). They're working on a completely seperate server variant too. I consider this one a truely interesting alternate OS. You should check it out.

- Current Debian with a 2.2 kernel, Fluxbox or Windowmaker VM and a little tweaking should get you a very lightweight OS enviroment aswell.

Take any of the above and flash them onto a modern bios that you plug into your Mobo and your set for super-fast booting.

If you are looking for an easy install, Xubuntu will install on it, just burn and use the alternate install cd. I did it with an old laptop with 128, simple. Not sure about your games though, if that's all you use it for. http://www.xubuntu.org/get 98SE or windows2000 would be the way to go if you really need windows.

If you're interested in running a non-KDE desktop, have you considered Xubuntu? It's the Ubuntu variant with the lighter-weight Xfce desktop. I run it on a 600Mhz Pentium III laptop with 128MB of RAM, and it works quite well (be sure to grab the "alternate install" disk if you're running with as little RAM as I am).

I had no issues with the non-standard desktop components on my laptop working out-of-the-box, but of course YMMV here. Wireless, sound, etc.

If Xfce is not light enough, you can always install fluxbox, wmaker, etc, all available from the offical apt repositories.

Lightweight? Don't no nothin' 'bout Linux?
You want Xubuntu. The official Ubuntu variant using the XFCE Desktop. Monodevelop will use quite a bit of GTK stuff though, IIRC.
Anyway, it's faster then Windows, so no downside here. But if Mono isn't enough, then I'd recommend staying with Windows. Unless, however, you want to learn more of Mono to slowly shake lose of MS. Monodevelop looks a very fine and dandy OSS IDE and even makes me curious about this Mono stuff.
Good luck and welcome on board.

I decided to re-purpose a G4 powerbook that I wasn't doing anything with and decided that it was a decent time to give a newer *nix ditro a shot. I had recently used Ubuntu to create a headless fileserver and was pleased with it. On the laptop, not as much. Airport Extreme support - from the OS, _NOT_ the Ubuntu support forums - was really, really painful. I tried YellowDog, SuSE and a few others but no love from any. I went back to Ubuntu (actually Xubuntu) and spent a number of hours working through the Support Forums, which are really well categorized into different topics. I ended up getting wireless to work with _a lot_ of help from the numerous posts responding to Ubuntu beginners like myself. Was it easy? Nope. Was it doable? Yup, thanks to the great community support. I think that's the best answer to "What is it with Ubuntu." But as always, YMMV.

This got modded Funny, but it brings up a valid point. Isn't this "story" just talking about having something like, oh I don't know, GRUB installed and then a lightweight Linux distro (like Xubuntu, DSL-N, or Zenwalk)? It just seems like they're describing something that's neither news, nor particularly unique. Hell, the article even states that this "Splashtop" is based on Linux.

There is. http://www.xubuntu.org/

Or http://www.fluxbuntu.org/

pair-a-noyd's rant is seriously misdirected. Linux is whatever you want it to be. That is one of the advantages of having several hundred active distros.

Holy crap, how many versions of Ubuntu are there now? So far, I'm counting:

• Kubuntu
• Xubuntu
• Edubuntu
• Christian Edition
• Satanic Edition
• Muslim Edition

When is it going to be enough already?!!

I want to add that Xubuntu makes for a great clean desktop also. I am running dapper on my 350mhz Bondi IMac and do not miss OS9 at all.
 
i386 users have an even better choice in that they can run automatix2 on their Ubuntu and have one of the finest multimedia boxes around.