Hello all,
So I have this old Samsung RV520 laptop. You can see the specs there. I’ve installed and reinstalled a few different linux distros on it for the past 12 years or so, the last one being Arch (btw) which is what I use as my daily driver on my main desktop as well (by the btw). But I really don’t need this laptop anymore, so I was thinking I’d give it as a birthday present to my friend’s son, who turns 2 this month. It would be used as a “media station” to basically just play kids’ videos from Youtube.
The problem is that I basically need to install an extremely windows-like (or otherwise simple) distro on it, because while my linux-fu is somewhat high level, my friend uses windows daily so system maintenance must be simple. Ubuntu is for me the obvious choice, but I’m not sure if the laptop can even run it anymore :D of course the HDD in it is also 16 years old and I’m pretty sure I’ll upgrade it to an SSD before set up. So, taking all this preamble into account, what would you recommend? Some Ubuntu-derivative, pure Debian, maybe even Arch with linux-lts? Give me your thoughts!
I have seen your Debian/Arch addendum, but since it’s meant to be easy and for simple media consumption only, how about Fedora Silverblue with a couple of Flatpak games for kids? You’ll barely have to look after it as it’s immutable, will update itself and the stock Fedora Gnome setup is pretty basic and simple enough for a smart kid. Plus he’s two- I doubt he will need anything outside of Flatpaks and a paint program.