Hi :) I would probably go with Lubuntu for first time Gnu&Linux users on very low-spec machines.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lubuntu LxDE is very much lighter than Xfce and suddenly rose from obsurity about a year or 2 ago to became popular and widely used in a lot of distros. Lubuntu and Xubuntu (based on the Xfce DE) use Gnome Office by default instead of LibreOffice / OpenOffice so it's only got AbiWord and Gnumeric (a bit like Calc) the advantage being that they are a lot lighter-weight than even LibreOffice. There are plenty of other excellent distros made for low-spec machines http://distrowatch.com/ but Lubuntu is almost in the Ubuntu family which even has articles in fairly mainstream magazines and a massive community so it's fairly easy to get help and find tips&tricks. Puppy is kinda fun to try but it's a bit difficult to install programs or configure so there are a lot of "Puplets". I prefer sliTaz because it's not compressed so it still works like proper Gnu&Linux. There are plenty of others to choose from especially if you want non-English / American (sliTaz is mostly French). If there is a reasonably powerful machine available on that then a better option might be something like this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX or if both are on a Lan then maybe something like this http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ltsp LxDE probably looks a little like Win2k or Win98 but feels more like Xp or even Win7. It would be more instantly familiar to Windows users than Xfce. Regards from Tom :) ________________________________ From: David Nelson <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, 19 August, 2011 16:04:41 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] question on Screen Resolution quote on web site. Hi, On such old hardware, you might usefully consider using Linux with the XFCE GUI, because you will undoubtedly get better performances than with XP, and won't need the antivirus software. If you really need some kind of antivirus, you could try receiving all files through a webmail provider such as Gmail, because it will do the antivirus checking for you, instead of having dedicated antivirus software running permanently on the computer and hogging resources. Keeping only a low number of fonts might help, too. Having a low res like 800X600 is going to mean that you'll have a lot less screen real estate. icons will be bigger, toolbars will take up more space, etc. I'm assuming that LibO will indeed run at 800x600, because I've never tried it myself... If you really need Corel Draw rather than opting for GIMP, you will probably get it to run quite well under Wine, especially if you use the enhanced Crossover Office solution. I think you'll want to allow for a large spill partition when setting up Linux, as there will certainly be a lot of swapping out happening... But likely it'll be less than with XP with the same hardware configuration. Again, I'm assuming that all your software will run. It's been a long time since I worked on such a machine. But, undoubtedly, Linux plus XFCE is your best bet... If you have the possibility of adding memory, that will certainly feel like a God-sent improvement in performances. HTH. -- David Nelson -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
