Distro for 7yo laptop - Dell Studio 1555

Software & Operating Systems Linux
1

Hi All,
you may remember me from couple of months ago, complaining about my dell studio unable to run clean win7 + skype.
Clean reinstallation did help that day, but I'm in the same situation today.

It's enough, this time, however.
I would like to switch to linux.

Could you recommend some distro to me ? I have practically no experience with linux machines.
Ubuntu might seem sufficient, there is one problem however.
I have ATI Radeon HD4570 in that laptop. With opensource driver, the gpu is overheating and fans spinning all the time.
Putting Legacy catalyst driver 13.1 there helps, but that sets me back to Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.

Please find other specs of my laptop below:

  • Core2Duo P8600 /2,4GHZ, 1066Mhz, 3MB)
  • Intel Wifi Link 5300
  • Ati Radeon HD4570
  • 2x2048MB ram 800mhz
  • Bluetooth Dell 370 Card
  • 1366x768 primary screen

I don't consider other specification that important, if you are curious, don't be shy to ask.

Now to expected workload:

  • web-browser
  • spreadsheet / documents processing
  • minor java - netbeans, jsf development - (I am beginner)

My win7 installation can't handle this unfortunatelly.
Please do not advise me to swap gpu, or buy more ram. That laptop is 7 years old, 8gigs of ram would cost me over 200 €, which is more than half of price of new nuc, which would be suitable for me.

Is there anything I could do with the machine to return it back to life ?
Or should I finally ditch it and buy a nuc instead ? (Mobility isn't concern, while size is)

Any recommendations ?

Thanks guys :)

2

If you have more intention of work might try BSD too. I would recommend Netrunner Rolling for a linux, but I'm starting to play with BSD myself. Windows feel but open source :Q

4

You want to try a arch linux based you can try antergos and choose a lightweight desktop like xfce or openbox or even mate (a little less lightweight) during the installation.

You want a ubuntu based, you can use xubuntu or lubuntu.

5

LXLE worked great on my emacines 1300, single core 900 mhz

6

I use Xubuntu 14.04 lts on my Acer aspire one with a 1.6 ghz duel core and 1gb of ram it works great and runs pretty quick.

7

Any of the buntus would work well on this hardware. I have an XPS m1330 running ubuntu GNOME 15.04 and it works great. Heavier DEs might slow a computer down some but most of them are still a lot lighter then windows.

8

Arch.

That is all.