I have an HP Stream 11 that I want to use for word processing and some light web browsing - I’m a writer and it’s a lightweight laptop to bring to the library or coffee shop to write on. Right now it’s got Windows and it’s unusable due to lack of hard drive space for updates. Someone had luck with Xubuntu, but it’s been a few years and it seems like Xubuntu is no longer trying to be a lightweight distro for use cases like this.
My experience with Linux is very limited - I played around with Peppermint Linux a bit back when it was a Lubuntu fork and I used Ubuntu on the lab computers in college. I can follow instructions to make a live boot and I can do an apt-get (so something Debian-based might be best for compatibility and familiarity) but I mostly have no idea what I’m doing, lol. I used to do DOS gaming as a kid so having to do the occasional thing via command line isn’t going to scare me off but I’m not going to pretend to have knowledge I don’t. I’m probably going to go with Mint on my gaming laptop next year but I suspect it’s not the best choice for my blue bezeled potato (although I might try it anyway).
I second Debian with LXDE. I run it on much older hardware with no issue.
Just something to note, LXDE is no longer officially maintained by the original devs (there are some community maintainers). LXQt is the new project from those devs and still seems to be going strong.
Not saying to avoid LXDE, just that updates may be few and far between.
I didn’t know that. I usually recommend LXDE because I have used it for a really long time. LXQt is also a great option, I haven’t used it in a few years but I remember it being nice and lite.