Best OS to use depending on hardware/spec

[joshwa]

I'm basically trying to make older hardware (mostly laptops) useful again by reinstalling the OS on them...

Here is an example system:
Celeron 900 (2.2ghz), 3gb ram, and 320gb HDD. Its capable of running Windows 10, but when you try and do things like use YouTube it's painfully slow. So what would be a better OS for this type of system?

Ive found that other systems with a Q6600 or better/similar and 4gb ram, with an SSD will run Windows 10 reasonably well for light use.

Thanks in advance
Josh

[Jonj1611]

Surprised hadn't seen this thread before, would something like Linux be suitable? I have used various Linux variations over the years on older system and they have worked well and generally will still do everything you need of them.

I have used Linux Mint, Puppy linux and Lubuntu. I am sure there are many other more suitable

[[GSV]Trig]

Celeron 900!?!?!
Have you got any doors that you want keeping open, or paperwork that's near an open window?

[DanceswithUnix]

Try converting it into a Chromebook.

https://www.neverware.com/#intro

Modern browsers are doing a lot of work to render a modern web page and the hardware is probably missing support for modern video codes, so there will be limits even to simple everyday Internet tasks that you want a laptop to do. But the basic OS footprint is way better suited to old hardware so it probably your best bet.

[[GSV]Trig]

Celeron 900!?!?!
Have you got any doors that you want keeping open, or paperwork that's near an open window?

Having said this, I've just had a load of old laptops land on my desk, fired one up and its got WinXp on it, 2Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD and a Celeron 575 in it..

[Saracen999]

I'd think I'd start at the other end. Trying to make it useful for what?

I would suspect that that hardware might be useable under W10 but really only if you can increase the RAM, and probably HD/SSD a bit. It's never going to be great.

It'll certainly run Win 9x, XP etc probably up to Win7 reasonably well, with the obvious warnings if the machine is net-facing. But it could be a legacy games machine, for instance, off-line.

Or, if suitable software exists for what you want to use it for, then Linux is a real option, especially one of the lighter variants or if you strip out anything unnecessary.

[[GSV]Trig]

As long as you can get the google classroom stuff on there then you should be fine, as Saracen says, Linux is probably your best option, once its up and running web stuff will be fine.

[DanceswithUnix]

OK, as people seem to be piling on the Linux suggestions I guess I should poke my nose back in.

My son spent quite a bit of time messing with this a while back on old laptops and netbooks, and the main Linux distros just swamped the machines. You can do it, I still have an old 1.8GHz E350 APU based laptop running Fedora Linux but even with 6GB of ram and an SSD in it the thing chugs a bit these days and so only comes out when I have a nasty network problem to wireshark my way out of.

Look for the lighweight distros. Lubuntu seemed to work quite well, so would make a good starting point. The lightest weight Linux though was ChromeOS.