LINUX Question

[DT MI]

I would post this on a Linux forum but haven't for 2 reasons:

1. I don't know of a really good one
2. I'm afraid every response would be "Use what I use because it's the best and anyone who says different is an idiot."

So I decided to post the question here and hopefully get some unbiased (if there is such a thing) views.

I have an old Pentium 4 based machine that had Windows XP installed. It has been replaced with something more robust and is just sitting collecting dust so I've decided to make it a dedicated Linux platform.

The problem is I can't decide which distro to focus on (and, yes, multi-boot is an option but doesn't help me focus). 😕

Photo editing (and some light video editing) and general home use will be the environment. One thing I will not be doing is any S/W development, at least in the near term. One capability I would like to have would be Windows emulation (WINE) on whichever I end up with.

My short list is (in order of preference):

First - Linux MINT
Second - ZorinOS
Third (Tie) - Ubuntu or OpenSUSE

Any thoughts or suggestions on something else to consider?

 

[jokiin]

personally I've found Mint to be one of the most polished distros, haven't used it for a while now, maybe some of the others have caught up since but I always found it to work with more hardware straight up than any other distro I'd tried, really like what they did with it, it's my go-to distro when repairing busted Windows machines, have used Linux off and on for almost 20 years and did 2nd level Unix support for a number a of years, a bit rusty now days though but still drag it out every now and again

 

[lacibaci]

I would post this on a Linux forum but haven't for 2 reasons:

1. I don't know of a really good one
2. I'm afraid every response would be "Use what I use because it's the best and anyone who says different is an idiot."

So I decided to post the question here and hopefully get some unbiased (if there is such a thing) views.

I have an old Pentium 4 based machine that had Windows XP installed. It has been replaced with something more robust and is just sitting collecting dust so I've decided to make it a dedicated Linux platform.

The problem is I can't decide which distro to focus on (and, yes, multi-boot is an option but doesn't help me focus). 😕

Photo editing (and some light video editing) and general home use will be the environment. One thing I will not be doing is any S/W development, at least in the near term. One capability I would like to have would be Windows emulation (WINE) on whichever I end up with.

My short list is (in order of preference):

First - Linux MINT
Second - ZorinOS
Third (Tie) - Ubuntu or OpenSUSE

Any thoughts or suggestions on something else to consider?

Pentium 4 will be fine for server but for any kind of photo editing you will want a quad core CPU.

 

[DT MI]

Pentium 4 will be fine for server but for any kind of photo editing you will want a quad core CPU.

It's actually not all that bad for photo editing. Not suited for a high intensity production environment but for occasional casual use it's usable. Just a hobbyist in that regard and it will not be my primary platform (although it was in the past when it was 'state of the art').

 

[DT MI]

personally I've found Mint to be one of the most polished distros,...

That's my impression as well in reviewing/trying at least 8 or 10 different ones. Just trying to decide which to go with so I can end the decision process and move on.

Dabbled a bit in Unix a lot of years ago but have forgotten just about everything I ever knew except how to spell it. Got my start in I.T. writing assembly language code on early IBM 14xx and Univac 4xx and 11xx series machines - guess that makes me a real dinosaur. 😱

 

[Rajagra]

I have an old Pentium 4 based machine that had Windows XP installed.

How much memory? I think this is a more critical factor than the processor.
A while ago I tried to find a GUI Linux distro to run on a machine with very low memory. Shockingly none of them could match the speed of installation or in-use performance of XP.
I think the machine only had 128MB (but it was so tiny and quiet that I wanted to use it for something.) Having heard the claims that Linux makes better use of low-spec machines, I was disappointed.

Linux mint is very, very nice indeed (on a decent machine.)

Something else that is very nice is VirtualBox. Install it on your powerful PC then create virtual machines running different versions of Linux to try them out. No need for dual booting, just launch it when you need it.

 

[reverend]

Personally I just go with Ubuntu for whenever I need Linux - I used to use SUSE but moved over years ago. CentOS also seems popular these days.

For virtualisation you've also got the likes of VMware Workstation and Xen.

 

[DT MI]

How much memory?...

3GB if I remember correctly (haven't used it in a while) so that shouldn't be an issue.

...
Something else that is very nice is VirtualBox. Install it on your powerful PC then create virtual machines running different versions of Linux to try them out. No need for dual booting, just launch it when you need it.

...
For virtualisation you've also got the likes of VMware Workstation and Xen.

Intriguing ideas for sure - but - I'm trying to get down to one solution to implement not make it easier for me to put off the decision forever. 😀😱

 

[mike-k]

I'd also recommend Linux Mint, while I'd go with the Mate-Variant, as this has more "Debian Background" -> more available Packages and it felt a bit "smoother" using it...

You can still run Gimp for Pictures - but a P4 with 3GB RAM is not much anymore... For Video-Editing it might be to old...

Also Xen or Virtualisation on the P4 won't do much good, as a Dual-Core-CPU and more RAM would be best for it...

If you have a DVD-RW around, you can check distributions via Live-CD-Images...

 

[TheRookie]

For a Pentium 4 I'd rather go for something extremely lightweight, such as Puppy Linux.
Try it without installing and be surprised how quick the Pentium 4 is.
http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview and Getting Started.htm

 

[Gibson99]

Personally I just go with Ubuntu for whenever I need Linux - I used to use SUSE but moved over years ago. CentOS also seems popular these days.

For virtualisation you've also got the likes of VMware Workstation and Xen.

Mint is in fact derived from *buntu. i use mint KDE but then again i scored a pretty decent machine from work to run it on - i7, 32gb, 1tb. 😀 even on this nice pc, i prefer kde over cinammon as it feels lighter and more snappy. you can also run an older version of gimp (if you can find it) to keep it more snappy on that older machine. but then 3gb isn't too shabby. it'll be the single core (unless it's a P4D) that keeps things slow no matter what you run.

of course you could give the win10 insider preview a shot. it's free, so why not? i dual boot it on my mint pc. just have to install windows before any other OS.