Your favorite free O/S

[Whitieiii]

what is your favorite free operating system? I'm looking for something for one of my free machines... I don't expect much from it and already invested $8 in it for a power supply.... I was thinking of going with Linux Mint or Debian to be different then just installing Ubuntu but what do you like?

[MisterB]

Mint is easier than Debian and has much better plug and play hardware recognition. I have a portable installation on an express card drive and I have yet to boot it onto a Thinkpad and not have it work with all the different hardware being recognized. W500, W520, X220 Tablet, X201 Tablet, W700 and W701 all work with it with no missing drivers and it doesn't take long to boot either which surprises me because it has to reconfigure the hardware at boot.

I use Debian as my system of choice for Linux servers but Mint and Ubuntu are my favorites as client OSes.

[Whitieiii]

Mint is easier than Debian and has much better plug and play hardware recognition. I have a portable installation on an express card drive and I have yet to boot it onto a Thinkpad and not have it work with all the different hardware being recognized. W500, W520, X220 Tablet, X201 Tablet, W700 and W701 all work with it with no missing drivers and it doesn't take long to boot either which surprises me because it has to reconfigure the hardware at boot.

I use Debian as my system of choice for Linux servers but Mint and Ubuntu are my favorites as client OSes.

I'm going to be using it on a crappy core 2 duo 64 bit windows visa era Dell inspiron 1525 but I gotta find out why it's running the fan at 100% it may need new thermal paste (like most of my machines)

[RealBlackStuff]

Years ago a friend of mine bought a Dell 1525 (against my advice), and it ran hot from day one.
Decent thermal paste (like Thermal Grizzly) might improve it.

[Omineca]

I like Debian. If you look around for the 'nonfree -including firmware' version, it has a lot of extra drivers in the .iso.

My R500 (also Core2Duo) runs very nicely with Debian and LXDE on the Desktop. It's my everyday machine, and has been for a few years. XFCE might be a better choice if you want a little more automated integration.

My only complaint with Debian at this point involves peripherals. I have a tough time getting full speed out of USB drives, etc. I'm not sure why, because Android Device Bridge works at full speed through the same ports. Sometimes unmounting and remounting a USB drive helps, but sometimes it doesn't. Other than that, I'm completely happy with it.

[MisterB]

I'm going to be using it on a crappy core 2 duo 64 bit windows visa era Dell inspiron 1525 but I gotta find out why it's running the fan at 100% it may need new thermal paste (like most of my machines)

I tried it on my T60P which has been upgraded with a T7200 processor. It worked just as easily as on newer Thinkpads. Mint is just about the best when it comes to working on different hardware. I've also booted the same image in Virtualbox VMs and the Virtualbox additions are built in so it is compatible with just about any 64 bit hardware or virtual hardware.


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[Whitieiii]

Years ago a friend of mine bought a Dell 1525 (against my advice), and it ran hot from day one.
Decent thermal paste (like Thermal Grizzly) might improve it.

ya thank god I only got the Dell for free... I would never pay money for it.... I'm only Thinkpads and Apple computers

[axur-delmeria]

Years ago a friend of mine bought a Dell 1525 (against my advice), and it ran hot from day one.
Decent thermal paste (like Thermal Grizzly) might improve it.

It's ridiculously easy to remove the CPU heatsink (underside access panel), but the fan is a separate unit for some reason.

Undervolting works too, since it has a Core 2 Duo CPU.

[Whitieiii]

oddly enough I think my 2015 Macbook pro, Dell and Thinkpad T440p are the hottest running machines I own... I'm going to fully dissemble the T440p soon to clean it out and hopefully get it to a point where I can sell it for a T440p with nvidia graphics or upgrade it with a board that has nvidia graphics... at this point i'm set on getting an nvidia T440p

[unix_joe]

OpenBSD

[katiefkn]

Debian is my favorite.

[MustardOrMayo]

I have multiple favourites, all of which are Linux distros (those being Debian, Devuan, and KDE Neon), but if I had to pick one, it'd be Devuan, although, If I had to recommend a Linux distro to someone who's new to the world of GNU/Linux, I'd recommend one of the many official "flavours" of Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

[madicetea]

what is your favorite free operating system? I'm looking for something for one of my free machines... I don't expect much from it and already invested $8 in it for a power supply.... I was thinking of going with Linux Mint or Debian to be different then just installing Ubuntu but what do you like?

DOS 7.0/V and Fedora, depending on the age of the machine's hardware I expect it to run on.

[Whitieiii]

I'm currently running Linux Mint with xfce desktop on my Dell with 3gb ram and 5400 rpm hard drive and it's working good enough... It's just a knock around machine to try Linux on and it's been a good machine other than the fan bearing and needing a $5 power supply but I wouldn't mind picking up another early core 2 duo for around $10-20 and use it as a Linux machine

[zerotetration]

I find OpenBSD runs excellent on older Thinkpads. Nearly all hardware features are fully supported and the system is extremely stable. I can run indefinitely without needing to reboot just closing the lid for sleep or hibernating the machine. OpenBSD does have a somewhat steep learning curve for configuration to get it running optimally but every thing that you need basically works out of the box. As you learn more you can tune it to work even better. In the near future I am thinking of selling some t61 / r61 machines with OpenBSD + Firefox 58 or 59 + Libre Office with everything configured. Without the Windows (and possibly Linux, idk, I have not used Linux actively for many years) bloat you will be amazed at how fast old hardware can perform in the present day. I can watch HD youtube videos, even three or four simultaneously in multiple tabs, etc, on my daily driver X61 with 4 gb of ram, for example.

Meanwhile a T60 that I have with windows 7 installed on in order to run iTunes....struggles to do anything and the OS constantly swaps out to disk / hogs almost all the T60's 3 gb of ram.

[Dekks]

For older hw I would recommend Debian, but look up how to dl the nonfree-iso or know how to apt get them after basic installation. The documentation on howto do this is easily found on the Debian website.
It's that step IMO that people seem to think is poor hw detection, it's just that you need to add the right firmware to get full functionality.

For new hw go for Arch once you know your way around Linux.