Distros for much older hardware

[crosscourt]

Lets have some suggestions based on experiences from users on distros to use with older hardware such as Pentium 4 and older AMD cpus as well.
Lack of 64bit support and in some cases no PAE can make the situation complicated.

[crosscourt]

Puppy Linux, Lubuntu particularly the 14.04 series(same for Xubuntu/Ubuntu), Linux Lite 2.8-3.2, Q4OS Orion 1.88 or Scorpion 2.4, WattOS R9 or R10.

Theres a starting list.

[crosscourt]

Bodhi, AntiX,LXLE, Peppermint, Sparky, MX Linux

[tlmiller]

AntiX is the major one I always recommend. Probably one of the most full featured distro's that's designed for old hardware. q4os obviously is another great one. Puppy works, but is rather hard to personalize compared to most.

[crosscourt]

Ive had the best luck actually with WattOS R9/R10, very minimalist distro that has a Microwatt version that will install on some really old hardware.
Slax and Tiny Core are also good ones.

[tlmiller]

I've never actually used WattOS. Slax I just couldn't bring myself to like. Tiny Core was just TOO tiny for me, given that my OLDEST hardware is ivy bridge, and my weakest hardware is a quad core baytrail.

[crosscourt]

Slax has changed as its debian stable based now and very nice. WattOS is Ubuntu based but its a great distro to use to build what you want and to keep it light and fast.

My D430s have issues with many distros but WattOS runs great on it where Lubuntu doesnt even work. MX Linux funny enough works great.

[tlmiller]

Not really all that surprising to me. I will always maintain that all the things Ubuntu have done to Debian to make it "easier" has also made it much less hardware friendly with devices that aren't common.

[crosscourt]

Id have to agree to disagree as Ubuntu based distros overall have been an excellent experience with a variety of hardware and ive had some lousy/unique hardware over time.

Its ok though, not trying to get into the whole Ubuntu thing, as many people have it out for Ubuntu based distros. Everyones needs vary and sometimes you have to go where it works best for you. My experience with Debian hasnt been stellar but I do like many Debian based distros.

Ive used and I am using many distros of varying types so I dont get into the one is better than the rest or in this case the Ubuntu vs Debian thing.

I take each distro for what it is and see how it works for me and others given the hardware,needs and experience of the user. Based on my needs and experience I comment on distros I like with MX Linux 17, Ubuntu Mate 16.04.3 and Mageia 6 recently.

[tlmiller]

I don't really have it out for Ubuntu. I admit I don't like it, but I still recommend Mint often for newbs. But in my experience, Ubuntu does REALLY well with the 90%, and not so well with the 10%, whereas I've only had 1 machine I couldn't get Debian to work on, and it did work, just couldn't get wireless working because it was an early Apple Airport Extreme card, which I never got it to work in ANY distro I tried (admittedly I never tied Fedora because it was already slow enough with lighter distros).