Light and low-maintenance distro for old Eee netbook

[Peder_dingo]

Hi!

Grub messed up my system and I can't re-install windows7 now - got a thread about that here, but I don't think it is going anywhere:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2132987/windows-installation-setup-unable-create-system-partition-locate-existing-system-partition.html#13246792

So now I am looking for a backup solution: Linux. I've had Ubuntu installed before, but it broke itself and I got well mad at it. I am thus looking for a distribution with NO maintenance that is able to run on old under-powered hardware (Asus Eee 1005p netbook). I only need my netbook for:

-OpenOffice
-Webbrowsing

Battery-life, ease-of-use and little/no maintenance are my priorities, I intend to use the laptop as a tool for studying (thus battery life is super-important as I am not always near a power outlet) and don't want to make it into a hobby at all. As little maintenance as possible, simplicity first. Which distro would be great at that? I got plenty of HDD space, so that isn't really a problem.

 

[EonW]

Hi!

Grub messed up my system and I can't re-install windows7 now - got a thread about that here, but I don't think it is going anywhere:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2132987/windows-installation-setup-unable-create-system-partition-locate-existing-system-partition.html#13246792

So now I am looking for a backup solution: Linux. I've had Ubuntu installed before, but it broke itself and I got well mad at it. I am thus looking for a distribution with NO maintenance that is able to run on old under-powered hardware (Asus Eee 1005p netbook). I only need my netbook for:

-OpenOffice
-Webbrowsing

Battery-life, ease-of-use and little/no maintenance are my priorities, I intend to use the laptop as a tool for studying (thus battery life is super-important as I am not always near a power outlet) and don't want to make it into a hobby at all. As little maintenance as possible, simplicity first. Which distro would be great at that? I got plenty of HDD space, so that isn't really a problem.

Try Linux Mint - it's an easy distro to install and will come with plenty of applications ready to run.

 

[Peder_dingo]

[strike]Thanks! Which one should I choose for my low specs? I'm looking at Xfce and MATE, I have read that they're the most "light-weight" versions of Mint. I'm a former OS X user, so I do like eyecandy to the extent my netbook allows it.[/strike]

I'm downloading Mint Xfce right now, I'll try using gparted to fix my disk for Windows7, and otherwise I'll keep my finges crossed that Mint wants to install and is low/no maintenance. Thanks!

 

[EonW]

[strike]Thanks! Which one should I choose for my low specs? I'm looking at Xfce and MATE, I have read that they're the most "light-weight" versions of Mint. I'm a former OS X user, so I do like eyecandy to the extent my netbook allows it.[/strike]

I'm downloading Mint Xfce right now, I'll try using gparted to fix my disk for Windows7, and otherwise I'll keep my finges crossed that Mint wants to install and is low/no maintenance. Thanks!

Xfce is a good version - lightweight and quick. Good luck.

 

[stillblue]

Be sure to do the fix on 7 first if you decide to dual boot. Lubuntu is also an option but install LibreOffice for your office suite. Loving the 4.2.

 

[Aristotelian]

I have used Ubuntu (Unity desktop) on EEE netbook with no problems. I used Mint (can't remember which) on the same machine and headphone audio did not work out of the box so I gave up.

 

[Saga Lout]

When you've installed Mint you should find GParted already available in the System menu. If it isn't, open a terminal window and type
sudo apt-get install gparted
and hit Enter. You could then restart and connect your W7 hard disk to a secondary SATA port and work the job in Linux.

 

[Alabalcho]

Battery-life, ease-of-use and little/no maintenance are my priorities, I intend to use the laptop as a tool for studying (thus battery life is super-important as I am not always near a power outlet) and don't want to make it into a hobby at all. As little maintenance as possible, simplicity first. Which distro would be great at that? I got plenty of HDD space, so that isn't really a problem.

Linux and laptop power-management don't play always well. Usually, Windows manages power better (read: provides longer battery runtime) than Linux.

"Zero maintenance" also means "open to future security threads". Most Linux distro's issue regular updates addressing securuty vulnerabilities, and these should be installed when available.

As for your EEE: I would try to restore / reinstall the Windows it came with, and fully update it.

 

[Saga Lout]

A fortnightly Synaptic package update is quite enough, although I have found that one of Mint's annoying features is the lack of a SelectAll function to apply all the changes.

Linux doesn't continously nag you to update - Windows 7 has a habit of hiding updates and when you need a quick restart for whatever reasons you then find that takes half an hour while the update nstall and configure.