Looking for Some Advice on Linux Distro Choice

[Edi]

Time to ask the esteemed computing sages of SDN for some advice. I know my way around various flavors of Windows well enough, but Linux is more or less a very unfamiliar environment for me. I have not had occasion to use it and every time I've intended to put it on an old machine while getting a newer one, the old hardware has given up the ghost and ruined my plans.

However, before advising my parents to shell out a few hundred euros for a new machine once Windows XP support ends, it would be nice to try a Linux variant on their machine since it will only cost me the time it takes to set it up. They only use the computer for web browsing and email (Firefox and Thunderbird), generic writing stuff (Open Office) and online banking (again, browser). No need to get anything fancy for that.

The problem is that their hardware while in excellent condition, is old, so I don't know which distros will be compatible with it.

The hardware specs:
Model: HP Pavilion t3210.fi
CPU: AMD Sempron 3400+ (Palermo), 1.9 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Motherboard: MSI (some custom model for that HP build, has latest BIOS)
Graphics: Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1200
HD: 500 GB SATA

Of that, the RAM and the HD are replacements for original parts that broke down, everything else is in excellent shape despite being from late 2005.

My main problem has been that I'm not quite sure if the CPU is PAE compatible (since most Linux distros these days seem to require PAE capability). I expect that that version of Sempron is, but I just tried (and failed) to revive another Sempron machine (my uncle's old laptop from 2004) and the only things I managed to use to boot it with were Puppy and Bodhi 12 non-PAE. Too little memory (384 MB RAM, or which 256 MB available after the GPU takes a cut) to actually install Bodhi, or else the CD drive failed and it's running out of CMOS battery in any case, so to the electronic waste recycler it goes.

So I'd rather not spend several hours or days finding out what I need to use by trial and error. Advice would be much appreciated.

[Zaune]

My distro of choice right now is Lubuntu. It's apparently been tested as functional -if marginal- on a Pentium 2 with 384MB of RAM, and I'm running it on an Intel Atom netbook that's got half as much RAM as the one you're working with. The UI is also pretty Windows-like so there's not much to unlearn. You'll want to put OpenOffice or LibreOffice on though, the default word processor isn't very good.

And I can't find any specific information about PAE compatibility either, but I think it's a reasonable supposition given the age of the processor, and if not there's a workaround.

[TronPaul]

I've been using Linux Mint and it's a nice looking Ubuntu derivative without the Amazon integration. It's default serach engine is Yahoo, which is kind of annoying, but I can understand the reasoning. I have some problems running the default Cinammon variant on my Eee PC, but the xfce version should run on pretty much anything.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I've played around with Mint some and it seems nice enough. If you don't want to do a hdd reformat you can get it to run inside Windows without much trouble, or set up a partition on the hdd if there's enough room to run it. You can also run it from the usb, supposedly, though that'd be hella slow. If it proves to run decent like that then you can go ahead and do a full reformat. The UI is fairly similar to Windows, mostly. Though there are, of course, differences. It can take a bit more tech savviness than Windows, but if their primary uses are gonna be just stuff that requires a web broswer and word processing then they shouldn't have much issue.

So my advice is basically get a partition set up with Mint or maybe Lubuntu as Zaune suggested and let them play around in it and see if it works for them. Linux is pretty devoid of bloatware, unlike the paid OSes or there. I've got Ubuntu running flawlessly on my fiancee's netbook and it's got pretty pathetic specs. Mint isn't much different from Ubuntu, beyond the GUI.

[Zaune]

Personally, I'd say try it from the LiveCD or flash drive before you start messing around with partitions, we don't know how much of that hard drive they're using and I wouldn't be altogether surprised if XP and/or the proprietary BIOS threw a wobbly about the existing partition being resized. (Unlikely, perhaps, but I favour erring on the side of caution when you can't guarantee everything's been backed up properly.) Besides, compared to Windows XP on the archetypal relative's clapped-out beige box I can't imagine the performance being that much worse.

[Edi]

Thanks, everyone. Much appreciated and the advice you have given is running much along the same lines I've already been investigating.

I've been looking at both Mint and Lubuntu as the primary choices, with Bodhi 2.4 as backup option. It has a non-PAE version that will be supported up until 2017 and if nothing else will run, that will. My uncle's machine would not run anything but the Bodhi and it's otherwise similar enough in specs (though one year older) that it made me nervous.

Hard drive space usage is no problem, my parents only use maybe 10-15% of the hard drive. The old HDD in that machine was 80 or 120 GB and died three years ago, so I had to put in a new one and reinstall XP from scratch (no factory reset, just straight up install from CD) and it worked just fine. So the BIOS is not going to throw a fit about partititions.

The couple of times I've tried Mint on a significantly newer machine, I've used a bootable USB stick and it has run fast enough from there (all things considered), but haven't tried it with an old, AMD architecture based machine. I suppose I'll find out in the next month or two, as I've got CDs of Lubuntu 13.10 and Bodhi as well as a bootable Mint stick.

Naturally, I'm going to back up all of their stuff before I do anything permanent.

[Edi]

Laptop is done, works nicely with Puppy, would refuse to run anything else. Though with the CMOS battery dead or as good as, it can't maintain BIOS settings and needs to have them reset every time it's booted. Whee! At least it was a good learning experience.

Time for round two, which is the important one: The HP desktop I talked about in the original post.

It has enough hardware that it should be able to run almost any variety of Mint, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and similar. So, for users used to Windows XP, which choice would be best?

I've been considering both Mint KDE and Kubuntu, though if those need a lot of customization, then something that is more similar out of the box (MATE, perhaps, or XFCE?) might be the better choice. Advice would once more be welcome, given the leeway the hardware gives me (unlike with the laptop).

[Zaune]

Again, I'd lean towards Lubuntu, or at least LXDE. By default it's basically a recoloured XP desktop with a single-column Start menu that (my one real complaint) can't be navigated by keyboard.