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Specs:

Dell Latitude D820 Laptop Computer Intel Dual Core Processor w/ 2.0 GHz clockspeed Intel GMA 950 GPU w/ 256 MB VRAM 4.0 GB RAM 32-Bit OS

The computer is atrocious, I know. But I want to know if I'm capable of running Ubuntu. With those specs, what would be the recommended version to install?

Noah
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  • i would recommend to install Ubuntu 12.04 or 14.04 because these are LTS versions and would be supported for 5 years. avoid any version prior to 13.10 with the exception of 12.04. – astrob0t Nov 09 '14 at 22:31
  • @astrob0t Why 12.04? Support is ending for 12.04. – John Scott Nov 09 '14 at 22:55
  • I know your computer has a 32-bit OS, but is your processor 32 or 64-bit? (They don't always correspond.) – John Scott Nov 09 '14 at 22:56
  • @FuzzyToothpaste Ubuntu 12.04 will be supported for 5 years(till April 2017). Have a look -> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases – astrob0t Nov 09 '14 at 23:02
  • If your laptop has the Intel Core Duo Processor T2500 2.00 GHz processor then it has a 32-bit CPU, however some models of the Dell Latitude D820 laptop have an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, which is a 64-bit processor. – karel Nov 09 '14 at 23:36
  • @astrob0t That is only security updates, for one, but two, Ubuntu 14.04 is an LTS release too. There is not benefit WHAT SO EVER to using 12.04. Why would anyone, and I mean anyone, want to stay on 12.04 (being too lazy to update is not a reason)? – John Scott Nov 10 '14 at 21:01

2 Answers2

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My laptop is ancient by tech specs and it runs Ubuntu 14.10 just fine. It runs better now than when it still had Windows XP on it. That's my recommendation. Just make sure which ever Linux OS you chose to get the 32 bit version.

LinuxChic
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  • Better get the 64-bit version. 4gb should be enough to run it, and despite 32-bit can address 4gb of ram, 64 bit means more registers and faster execution. – Axel Nov 09 '14 at 23:23
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I have a 10 year old laptop among one of my computers that runs ubuntu, and besides the obvious ram capabilities, it runs fine for what that computer is used for. As for your laptop specs, I would say it should work just fine. With ubuntu there are updates with the number and sometimes LTS is after it, meaning it is a long term update with more consistences between the previous/next LTS update. I would recommend either 14.04 LTS ubuntu or 14.10 ubuntu. The difference between the two isn't really noticeable from the way it looks, it is mostly all security updates and a few tweaks in the coding. A good thing about downloading it to a disk is that when you go to install you will have the chance to preview it, without changing your operating system over fully just yet. However i will say that during the preview, it has been slow in my experience compared to a full install, simply because it is reading it off the disk, and not the hard drive. Good luck!

Phillip Bishop
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