How much RAM? My go-to would be a light Linux install, ideally Debian w/XFCE if you think it has enough oomph for that. Otherwise, there are lighter distros that will still feel nice and snappy.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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4 ram slots with 1gb each. Looks like I could go up to 8gb maximum with 2gb sticks. They have core2 quad q6600 I think.
With 8GB, you could run any DE without worrying about RAM usage. 2GB DDR2 DIMMs are dirt cheap on ebay, so I would recommend maxing it out while RAM is still readily available. That CPU will still run most modern software at a reasonable speed.
Oh yeah, in that case I'll echo the other commenter that suggested Mint.
mint works beautifully on these. i have several of this class
Agreement here. Mint XFCE runs fine on a Core 2 Duo with 2GB DDR2. It's not snappy, but all the normal stuff runs. A core 2 Quad with four guys will be fine.
the last old systems (vista, early 7 era hardware) i setup were with peppermint for desktops, and dietpi (native pc build) for 'server' type stuff (pihole and similar).
I’d stick with XP. Most software written for windows 95 and up will run on XP, and it’s still new enough to connect to modernism file shares to download files. There’s a ton of games and hardware that works best with XP.
As soon as you install Linux on a machine like that it becomes just an old boring PC.