Need reccomendations for distro. Old laptop from like '10 (shipped with windows 8, not even 8.1), touchscreen needed so no Mint unfortunately. No linux experience whatsoever beyond using tails and I know what the terminal is but have NO clue how to use it.
Need a daily driver for light tasks (just gimp, handbrake, internet, qbittorrent, and libreoffice type stuff, no games), would prefer security and privacy, but idk if Whonix can run on my old machine and with my nonexistent linux exp idk if it is a good one for me yet, may need exp with something else first? Idk, y’all tell me!
Was reccomended Fedora, has touch support and supposedly good for the light tasks and will run in my old laptop, but figured I’d ask what y’all think because you guys seem knowledgeable.
It is my only computer besides my phone so I can’t afford the time to fuck around lol.
Thanks for the info, I guess I know I can run Gnome since that same laptop will run tails, so that is good. It is less about reviving old hardware (windows still works on whatever version I’m on and I’m getting updates and whatnot), it is more about getting away from windows entirely. I degoogled my phone for the same reasons, it only stands to reason that I need to do it there too, hence my desire to use Whonix if it’ll be a good fit for a new guy. I know I can’t run qubes but might be able to run Whonix if it isn’t too intensive to do so. Also taking other reccomendations for distros I am unaware of that would be secure and private (or have tutorials on how to make them that way) and frankly any “daily driver” os should be able to handle all my other uses with ease I’d imagine.
Fedora would be a good starting point since it has a straighforward version of GNOME as its default DE. It would be a wise to try out the fedora live disk for a while to verify that the touchscreen works well before installing anything. If Tails worked on this laptop then Fedora should as well, but it doesn’t hurt to check before doing anything permanent.
System memory and processor speed may be bottlenecks on a touchscreen laptop that old. My 2014 touchscreen tablet runs linux, but it can’t handle GNOME or anything remotely touchscreen-friendly. Onscreen keyboard+tiling wm=awkward user experience.
OH you can live boot fedora?! With persistent memory? That is the ticket for trials then for sure! I only use the touch minimally so I could conceivably lose it, but it has gotten me out of jams where my mouse was shitting out, though who knows, that may be an issue with windows and I won’t need it! No clue as to RAM without booting up and going to system specs but this here little sticker says “intel inside core i5” so maybe? To give a more accurate picture of time and therefore possibly it’s components, usb 3.0 was still fairly new and it boasted it had one port for it! Haha.
Apparently, yes. I’ve never tried doing that with a live usb, but give it a shot and let me know how it works out for you.
You probably have much better hardware than my old tablet. My tablet was marketed as a $99 dollar Windows tablet and I got what I paid for. 1gb ram soldered to the board, a weak 64-bit atom processor with 32-bit efi. One micro-usb port that doubled as the charging port. It took a powered usb hub, a custom-modified installer, and a lot of patience to get that thing up and running. It still works!
Hell yeah! I’m sure I can run it fine then! And on a hunch I just called my mom to see if she held on to her old laptop from a few years later and she did, so looks like I have a backup instead of fiddling with live boot beyond function checks! She has her work pc she uses so she doesn’t need it! Love it when a plan comes together lol, I will be trying Fedora as soon as my 2 weeks seeding these last few torrents are over!
Excellent. Any time you swap out an operating system, it is very useful to have a backup device in case you need to spend some time troubleshooting. Most of the frustration and stress is removed from the equation.
For sure, that was always the worst part, thinking “what am I going to do if it doesn’t work, then I have nothing but a phone” well problem solved! Haha.