this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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What's your use case? Like, what are you planning/wanting to do on that computer? If you're looking for web browser and music playback, virtually any distribution would work. I have a similarly-spec'ed laptop (a quite old unibody macbook) and have managed to do browser/music/ssh with it with no problems, running Debian + LXDE and NixOS + DWM. If you want the "standard desktop experience" then you should probably stay away from the primary Ubuntu distribution with Gnome, and instead go for one of the official spinoffs, like lubuntu or xubuntu. If using Ubuntu as your distribution of choice isn't a hard requirement, you could also check out other distributions like POP!_OS or a Fedora spin with XFCE, LXDE, or LXQT.
If you want gaming, you might be out of luck unless you have a discrete GPU and limit yourself to fairly old games.
If you're just starting with Linux I wouldn't recommend some distributions because of the learning curve. Arch Linux and its derivatives like Manjaro are really appealing to some people but there's a lot of extra necessary knowledge that could hinder your progress. Ditto Gentoo and Alpine.