Graeme wrote:

I have one of the above which was often useful, but now lives in a
cupboard because it runs XP Home, which is no longer 'secure', and
cannot be upgraded to W7 or above.

It occurs that perhaps there is an up to date version of Linux that
could replace Windows? Linux 'Lite' or something?

Only really needs to be able to connect and load a browser, although
word processing and spreadsheets (doc and xls) would be useful, but mail
not required.

This is the basic spec.

type : Intel® Atom„¢ processor N280
clock speed : 1.66 GHz
Front Side Bus : 667 MHz
2nd level cache : 512 KB

standard : 1,024 MB
maximum expandability : 2,048 MB
technology : DDR2 RAM (800 MHz)

Hard disk capacity : 160 GB
certification : S.M.A.R.T.
drive rotation : 5,400 rpm

A waste of time?


That should run Linux, certainly for the applications you mentioned.

The HDD is more than enough, you need far less and Ive run systems for
special purposes with 40G disks I had laying around.

As for the version, it rather depends. Linux users have their favourites
and can be quite passionate about them. I favour Linux Mint and recommend
it. I also like Sci Linux but that is more specialised.

You can check the latest version of Linux Mint and the recommended machine
required but Ive certainly run early versions on similar spec machines
without problems.

Mint is easy to install, the user interface is similar to Windows, but it
tends to run faster on a given machine. Ive always found it very stable.

Like many versions of Linux, it is based on the Ubuntu distribution.

It comes with Libre Office, which is an excellent office suite compatible
with MS Office etc.