what os should I pick?

Guys i was thinking about installing linux on old notebook from my parents so that they can surf the internet,youtube,facebook etc..Its a very old notebook with intel celeron and it has only 256mb ram and windows xp is installed on him but its so slow that it needs a ton of time to register what i clicked and open something.I think the main problem is only 256mb ram which is even for xp to weak.Can you suggest me some versions of linux which are easy to use(thats most important cause my parents dont like to tweak and research and like it simple) and its reasonable fast for 256mb ram?I will post the exact specs tommorow when i see more closely the notebook but i think its celeron D 1.6ghz 256mb ram and some integrated gpu(it has around 10years for sure).Any linux to suggest'?

 

I like Ubuntu as a Distro of linux, most hardware "just works". As far as the user interface (" the desktop") Ubuntu has some lightweight versions that are easier on older hardware. Xubuntu or LUbuntu.

I have done something similar to what you are proposing, and if you can buy more ram for cheap (eg secondhand on EBay) you should do that, even difference from 256 to 512mb was noticeable on one of my older Laptops.

 

Might be best to find a cheap laptop for them to use $200 -$300 should be enough to handle those programs.

 

What laptop is it to begin with?

Celerons from the Pentium M era will handle 1GB of RAM or more, and the applicable RAM is dirt cheap. Upgrading the machine for $10 and installing a "light" distro will breathe new life into it most likely.

 

Get more RAM. Ubuntu isn't some magic pill that'll make 256MB RAM fly. In fact, XP is probably more lightweight, not that I recommend it for any Internet-connected computer nowadays.

 

I agree. You should be able to max out the ram on that laptop really cheap. Post the laptop model number and we can tell you exactly what ram and configuration to get.

That being said, the only distro I would try using with that amount of ram would be Antix.
I would also recommend using something like Zorin Lite.

 

I'd also agree that you should buy more RAM in addition to thinking about which distro to use.

That said, for something different than the usual recommendations (which aren't bad), depending on your Linux knowledge you could start with a very minimalistic distro (Slackware, Arch, Gentoo for example) and only include parts that you need/want, leaving out the rest. But for a simpler solution I'd go for LXLE for something that looks nice.

 

For what it's worth, I installed OpenBSD 4.9 without X on a 166MHz CPU - 32 MB of RAM - 1.5 GB HDD machine a couple of years ago.
With some basic services running like sshd and sendmail it used around 5 MB of RAM.

With respect to your specs, your hardware is more than enough to run OpenBSD with X: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq3.html#FirstSys

And you will have parents that use a hardcore unix-like OS like OpenBSD, how cool is that?

 

Considering how most of my favorite distros are forcing systemd on their users, I might be switching to some BSD flavor as well. Dodn't know its running specs could go so low though o.o

 

Yes, I mainly did it for learning purposes and to experiment with OpenBSD.

The installation was quite fast actually, and completed flawlessly. There was only a very slight delay when ssh-ing into
the box and opening applications from the terminal, for example I had installed python and gprolog to play with simple
programs.

In any case, it may sound strange, but for a user who will only use the system for surfing the net and with no need for constantly
installing, configuring, and experimenting with new software, OpenBSD can be actually a very safe, viable, and easy solution.
It will just take some time to initially set up the system, install all prerequisites, plugins, etc. And if one opts to upgrade the system
every 6 months, it is easy to do so (for a user with some unix experience), the FAQ is very descriptive.

 

Interesting to hear that there could be a slow SSH implementation or something... But I suppose that's more of a minor detail than a major flaw.

I already know about how safe BSD is, considering those distros usually have much tighter requirements than Linux distros (especially in the area of security). I assume that a lot of Linux knowledge will easily transfer over to *BSD (asking as someone who has to use Linux daily for CS work)? I'm curious how much BSD differs from Linux in terms of software development, if you happen to know.

 

It is just that the processor was so slow it took some time to process the SSH connection

Yes, a lot of stuff is similar between Linux and *BSD, this article captures the main differences:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-differences-between-linux-and-bsd/

Regarding development, *BSD uses the ports system which will put you into a philosophy of downloading, tweaking, developing, and compiling source code
instead of just getting the binary package, so, it has a more development-like feel to it. Some common commands may have slightly different flags in Linux
and in *BSD.

I basically use an OpenBSD 5.6 system now as a mini server running postgresql, mysql, apache, tomcat, smtpd, transmission, and other stuff. The only thing that got some used to
is the rc system for managing services. Basically you have an entire list of /etc/rc* configuration files and directories that help you manage services. In OpenBSD most of the services
you install do not automatically start-up at boot-up, the system only does what you tell it to do, so it just installs the service. You then have to manually add it in the /etc/rc.conf.local
file for example so that it can start during boot-up.

What I really enjoy playing with is the PF firewall, such a great and flexible tool to define rules. All in all *BSD is a great UNIX learning experience among other things.

 

Thanks for the info! Would have read it sooner, though NBR's alerts tab is still broken for me.