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[jack21]

I'd like to make a high recommendation for Lubuntu for use on old (or simply mature) machines,

I've spent a couple of weeks trying various new releases of Linux distros, including various lightweight editions, and have tried Lubuntu for the first time - wow, it works brilliantly on my really old (1999?) Toshiba SP 4600 700Mhz 256MB laptop - my take-anywhere diagnostic machine. It has a good windows desktop manager and apps, packages (from Ubuntu) aplenty and runs my regular apps (Firefox, Sylpheed and Wine/Routerstats) at around 10% CPU and 60% RAM.   I'm so impressed by it that it has now replaced Puppy Linux as the regular in-action O/S, although Wary Puppy is still there as an alternative boot for if I ever need it. All very surprising because I don't get on well with Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu - all of which I find too restrictive re system settings.

I used the 'alternate' - slightly smaller - ISO download rather than the regular one, as it is suitable for machines with less than 384MB, and it installed cleanly and problem-free, although the process did take an hour or so. Updates came thru nicely and the Ubuntu packages I tried (Firefox and Wine) installed with no problems. The regular CD version also worked really well on my newest machine. which is 4 years old. The network install 24MB ISO version also worked, but was very slow on my 1.5M line - around 2+hours......I didn't repeat that!

On my other machines, I've now upgraded my main desktop from Mint 11 to Mint 12, and settled for PClinuxos 2012 on my 6-year-old Presario V4000 - so no change there, just upgraded to latest.

Distros tried included Slitaz, Slacko Puppy, DSL, Knoppix, Slackware, Arch, Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu, Lubuntu, PClinuxosGnome//KDE/XFCE/LDE, Linux Mint, SUSE12, Debian, Centos (and probably a few more I've forgotten), some just on a desktop (large distros like SUSE etc), and some on the older machines.

[burakkucat]

Thank you, Jack, for that informative report.

I see you mention CentOS, of which I know well. On my 18 month old laptop, a Dell LATITUDE E5500, I use RHEL 6u2 and (perversely) have installed the relevant components for a laptop system from the server repository! 

[ajb@Duo2 ~]$ head -n 1 /etc/issue
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.2 (Santiago)
[ajb@Duo2 ~]$ rpm -qa redhat-release\*
redhat-release-server-6Server-6.2.0.3.el6.x86_64
[ajb@Duo2 ~]$

[jack21]

Hi Burakkucat,
I'd given Red Hat a run a few (4?) years ago and my recollection is that it seemed an excellent server o/s, but less so as a desktop (for me, at that time).....but I don't think I pursued it too far, at the time SUSE10 had my main attention,  and didn't experiment with alternative window managers - interesting that you've adapted it to suit.
Centos really pleased me; a lovely, clean desktop environment/manager which suited me very well, and it was in the top flight as a candidate for my main desktop, as was Debian, but I did run into issues with packages for Centos, as opposed to some of the others which had none such......there's a few basics I try-out: Wine (for Routerstats and DMT), Mono-VBNC, Vbox, Firefox, and I recall particularly having difficulties with Centos and Wine (which I didn't want to dwell on further, and I didn't move on to Vbox). I may well revisit it after I've checked the latest Mint 13 RC.
One distro which interested me as being especially adaptable-at-build was Arch; on my mature laptop I did several full builds, experimenting with different combos, but I didn't achieve anything like the Lubuntu result - once I'd tried Lubuntu, everything else just faded away in comparison. Arch seemed especially suited to those of us who enjoy tinkering......and have time to do so!
Oddly, I ran into issues with more than one distro when I tried them on Vbox, whereas a couple of years ago I hadn't encountered anything that didn't work out-of-the-box on Vbox. Luckily my multi-boot test rig enabled all to be tried-out - at one point I had around 20 on-board.
Cheers,
Jack

[roseway]

If I had the time, I think Arch would be my choice, because of its adaptability and efficiency. I did use it for a couple of months about a year ago, and I was close to committing myself to it full time, but there were some issues which needed more time than I had available to sort out. So I went back to Debian Testing, which is where I'm most comfortable. Debian calls itself the universal operating system, and that's more or less what it is, because you can make it as light or as bloated as you want. But of course it isn't as well populated with user-friendly features as some other distros.

[burakkucat]

Jack,

As I am sure you know, CentOS is built from the exact same sources as RHEL and aims to be 100% compatible with Red Hat's product (even down to the bug level). With the latest product, CentOS / RHEL 6, the ability to support laptops, workstations and other personal clients has improved considerably.

My knowledge of that Enterprise Linux OS comes from being a moderator for the CentOS fora and as a co-founder & administrator for the ELRepo Project. The latter is designed to fill the gaps, left by Red Hat's understandable conservative approach to the support of newer hardware in the enterprise domain. I won't say any more, as I do not wish it to be seen as an advertisement and thus leaving myself open to a swipe from Kitz' administrative paw.