Linux for a VAIO

[Eskimonster]

Found this Sony Vaio VPCEB2B4E, in recycling, i want to try Linux, for light gaming and web.
Sys spec : i5 M540- AMD HD 5000
Socket 989rPGA
250GB Hdd
4GB DDR3 1600hz (i will upgrade this too 16GB)

What Distro do you guys recommend?

 

[sam_86314]

Found this Sony Vaio VPCEB2B4E, in recycling, i want to try Linux, for light gaming and web.
Sys spec : i5 M540- AMD HD 5000
Socket 989rPGA
250GB Hdd
4GB DDR3 1600hz (i will upgrade this too 16GB)

What Distro do you guys recommend?

Linux Mint.

Beware that the i5-540M is a Clarkdale CPU, and it may not support 16GB of memory. I had tried to use 16GB with an i5-650 (also Clarkdale) and it wouldn't post with it.

 

[Eskimonster]

Linux Mint.

Beware that the i5-540M is a Clarkdale CPU, and it may not support 16GB of memory. I had tried to use 16GB with an i5-650 (also Clarkdale) and it wouldn't post with it.

It says Arrandale, and thx for heads up. i will go max 8 GB. (yes max 8gb 1333hz it says in wiki)
THX a lot for fast response
Any particular Edition ?

 

[mclaren85]

Also, Lubuntu is very easy on system resources

But honestly I would choose windows 7 basic.

 

[sam_86314]

It says Arrandale, and thx for heads up. i will go max 8 GB. (yes max 8gb 1333hz it says in wiki)
THX a lot for fast response
Any particular Edition ?

I like Linux Mint with the Cinnamon UI. XFCE is the lightweight one.

 

[Eskimonster]

Also, Lubuntu is very easy on system resources

But honestly I would choose windows 7 basic.

Problem is chipset drivers, the thing is not officially supported any more.
We cant get all keyboard functions to work properly on it atm, we just tested the thing with win10 pro.

The HDD was formatted, old win7 cannot be restored.

Also, Lubuntu is very easy on system resources

But honestly I would choose windows 7 basic.

It has a windows key for Windows 7 home prem OA, does anybody have this version or link me to it. i think the user experience will be the best with this old teen.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

I recommend MX Linux (XFCE Window Manager) - https://mxlinux.org/

Quite similar to Mint (stability wise) - tho - without the middle man (Mint is based on Ubuntu - which is based on Debian) - based directly on Debian Stable release - while introducing extra features and a better, more polished software database (repositories). It's what i use on my old and faithful (see System Specs) - yet, running like a charm with just 4 GB Ram DDR2. ^^

 

[remixedcat]

I like Linux Mint with the Cinnamon UI. XFCE is the lightweight one.

That's what I use!

 

[Dr. Dro]

It has a windows key for Windows 7 home prem OA, does anybody have this version or link me to it. i think the user experience will be the best with this old teen.

Any regular old Windows 7 Home Premium image works. My father has a similar VAIO with a i5-520M and GeForce 310M he uses to this day. My parents purchased it around the time Windows 7 came out in 2009. It's running Windows 10 now and yes, it does run 16 GB RAM. But that computer doesn't hold up, it's slow as molasses, don't spend any money on it.

 

[gurusmi]

What Distro do you guys recommend?

I own an old Lenovo Note with 8GB Ram and 15,6" display. A few days ago i installed Zorin OS Core without any issue on that machine.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

Any regular old Windows 7 Home Premium image works. My father has a similar VAIO with a i5-520M and GeForce 310M he uses to this day. My parents purchased it around the time Windows 7 came out in 2009. It's running Windows 10 now and yes, it does run 16 GB RAM. But that computer doesn't hold up, it's slow as molasses, don't spend any money on it.

If used with a standard Windows 10 (hundreds of background processes where more than half are meaningful for basic users - even telemetry and such + shinny wasteful "features" ) - i totally agree (pure cringe experience). Yet, using a lite weight Linux distro - which is the equivalent of Windows XP in terms of resource consumption - even tho - the latest build could be a month and.... that old rig will start breathing with ease again - as if in his prime days... instead of choking on Windows 10.

 

[wNotyarD]

Whenever someone asks me for the most hassle-free lightweight distro, my recommendation is the latest LTS release of Xubuntu. You get a polished XFCE experience with all of the Ubuntu/Canonical help you may need.
If you do wish to tinker and don't think a regular update cadence is an issue, skip the LTS and get the latest available.

 

[Dr. Dro]

If used with a standard Windows 10 (hundreds of background processes where more than half are meaningful for basic users - even telemetry and such + shinny wasteful "features" ) - i totally agree (pure cringe experience). Yet, using a lite weight Linux distro - which is the equivalent of Windows XP in terms of resource consumption - even tho - the latest build could be a month and.... that old rig will start breathing with ease again - as if in his prime days... instead of choking on Windows 10.

The graphics are just too inadequate these days, being equivalent to a desktop 210 or something like that. It's barely enough for web browsing and video playback tasks. It runs... Call of Duty 4 on medium settings? Kinda? That's about it...

 

[gurusmi]

I owned two Vaio (F409, F405) a longer time ago. When i substituted them i also installed Linux. I took gentoo and also LFS (LinuxFromScratch) and installed them on both. Ok. I started with Linux where one had to download it diirectly from the finnish FTP-Server. Also the comppilers etc. and build it up like nowadays LFS. But that is the best way to see under the hood.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

The graphics are just too inadequate these days, being equivalent to a desktop 210 or something like that. It's barely enough for web browsing and video playback tasks. It runs... Call of Duty 4 on medium settings? Kinda? That's about it...

By breathing with ease again - i didn't mean - it will act as if upgrading the hardware (to modern standards). More like - the same it did back in 2010 (same way it ran back then - be it browsing, video playback or the games from that time), and that - while using a secure an updated OS (even modern - looks wise). Which is not something that can be said about Windows 10 - which is simply to much of a hassle - for hardware released 5 years earlier.

The thing is - that was actually the main issue with Windows Vista. It's not as if Windows Vista - was the most horrible Windows OS - yet was hated as one. And that's because the majority from that time had Windows '98/2K and Windows XP Hardware.... for which Windows Vista proved to be a hassle. Yet latter, while upgrading their hardware (not to mention the hardware evolved - became more capable - starting with Intel Core 2 CPUs) - they got the opposite impression about Windows 7 (the best Windows Ever) - which obviously - was more of a right software for the right hardware type of thing.

The thing about Windows.... Microsoft does not recycle (doesn't care about older hardware and older systems), but keeps moving forward - while pushing even older (not old) - yet still capable hardware behind. As it happened with Windows 11 - where even 7th Gen CPUs were not officially supported anymore (despite of being still capable of running Windows 11). Windows 12 is suppose to have native support for A.I. - so once again older CPUs will lag behind.

Linux on the other hand... is for everyone. Yet, many Linux distributions do recycle (what Microsoft and Apple - left behind) - do take into account old and older hardware (within common sense) - while testing it out. It's actually - the latest hardware - where it usually lags behind. Tho, it's doing better this days - now that both nVidia and AMD - started embracing the Open Source world... instead of taking the Windows/OSX exclusive aproach - like it happened in the past (support wise).

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

I agree with the Lubuntu or MX Linux suggestions. I run Lubuntu 22.04 LTS myself on my ProBook 645 G1, which is actually a bit slower than your i5-540M (except for the iGPU and the UVD3).

 

[SchumannFrequency]

I recommend PCLinuxOS (KDE/LXQt + XFS) and Clear Linux (F2FS)

I would maybe also use Alpine Linux on your hardware.

Ubuntu and RHEL have larger teams behind them patching software and responding to issues.
But if you look at the vulnerability reports on the Docker Hub, Alpine consistently comes out ahead of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is popular enough to get plenty of attention: security issues.

Furthermore, Alpine Linux also has fewer pre-installed packages and services, so the attack surface has fewer things that can be attacked by hackers.
And the software apps are (also) less secure on Ubuntu.

Alpine Linux's package manager is also faster and simpler than Ubuntu's.
For example, you should not do 'apt-get autoremove' as the Alpine Linux package manager does this automatically.

Installing ZFS support on Alpine Linux is simpler and/or more reliable than on any other Linux distro in my experience.

The devs behind Alpine are more competent than most OS devs and this is a huge advantage.

 

[johnspack]

I'd recommend Lubuntu. Very fast and easy on resources. I keep Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu ect distros in vms all the time. Lubuntu has a nice interface
and runs on almost nothing.