Linux

I, personally, would suggest Debian 12 especially since they still supply 32 bit ISOs. (Also 64 bit, but that's kind of a given at this point)

• Debian is rock stable due to testing like crazy
• Adding a lightweight desktop like XFCE would help with not overloading the PC
• If I remember correctly, updates for the next 5 years since it's a long term support (LTS) release
• I am guessing you mean 75 GB which should still have, at minimum (absolute worst case everything went wrong kind of wrong), 60 GB left for programs and files

Since they provide both 64 and 32 bit ISOs and run the same thing, all support issues can be done exactly the same on all the computers since, I assume, there is no dedicated graphics card (Nvidia, AMD) in any of them.

Here's a link to the downloads: https://www.debian.org/distrib/

Download from the "complete installation image" area on the left, second section down.

Edit: If you can use a DVD or USB then use the DVD link, but if they can't then the CD image will also work.

Puppy Linux is made for old machines and generally just works. You can boot it up on a live USB and see what you think. Lots of flavours to choose from.

Try mint with Xfce - on 64 bit machines and then go lighter.

I would suggest Mint. Considering the hardware, the XFCE version. Have you looked into any hardware upgrades for these machines? I've found that a simple ram or hdd-->ssd upgrade can be rather inexpensive these days.

I'd suggest Linux mint Debian edition, at least for the 32bit machine. Many distros have stopped supporting 32bit lately.

It should be fairly user friendly.

since you're a noob, idk if this will be very helpful to you, but

i used debian with awesomewm on an old pentium 4 from 2004-2005 and it was pretty fast! like a modern low-end computer. but you'd have to configure it to be noob-friendly/have patient users. i don't mind it cuz i enjoy tinkering, but i imagine it could be very frustrating for other people.

i'd give you my awesomewm config (i configured it to be super minimal, but also familiar, as i was trying to create a desktop environment that could be used on older machines), but unfortunately my desktop no longer has a power supply, so i can't access it :')

AntiX is quite good on older hardware but beware of the fact they don't use systemd. Nice effort to try and use newer init services but a lot of things really depend on systemd being installed.

WattOS (which uses systemd) is also very performant on old rigs but it needs more tweaking OOTB I'd say.

I've used Debian on an old netbook with an Intel Atom and onyl 2GB RAM. The experience wasn't so bad but web browsing was definitely a pain. Video calling and watching YouTube (Firefox) was very sluggish and annoying to deal with. It's fine for working with documents and watching low resolution videos locally but that's about it.

I've also tried antiX but a lot of the defaults were annoying. If you (or your family members) can deal with it, then it's probably the best lightweight Linux distro out there.

are there any linux distros that might work becasue im a noob who uses windows so im very lost. any tips or suggestions or something would be great.

In this case, I recommend just leaving your family members to do their own thing. From my experience, it is very hard to manage other people's Linux issues if you don't have decent knowledge on it yourself. If they don't want to upgrade, that's their problem. Not yours.

I'd like to do something similar on my Pentium 3 box. Maybe Debian with a really light WM would be a good fit, maybe IceWM? It only has 512MB of RAM though so I might have to go even lighter than Debian. I also have an Athlon XP box with 2GB of RAM, but that's too new to be fun. :p

Puppy Linux runs on a potato of any architecture and is super user friendly (grandpa certified)! Only 300 MB or so. https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/

I know a lot of people recommended Mint, which I personally use on my very modern budget gaming pc, but you should really try Puppy Linux, it's meant for the exact use case you're describing.

Browser choice is probably going to make just as much difference as distro choice. Modern browsers kinda need at least 1 GB to be usable, ideally more. Depends what you do with it of course.

Try Pale Moon, Falkon and Konqueror.

Would also recommend Debian or Puppy. Maybe also take a look at Distrochooser?

Alpine Linux is one to look at.

MX Linux works good on old hardware.

If you're looking for a DE, XFCE might even feel sluggish on older hardware. You can go lighter with LXQt or use the Pixel Desktop that Raspberry Pi OS has (which is modified LXDE).

Anything with Xfce or MATE, such as Mint Xfce or MATE

There is Tiny Core Linux if you want something really lightweight.

With 1GB of RAM, you will have trouble running a modern web browser without swapping. I would suggest checking if the RAM can be upgraded. You can get older RAM really cheaply. 4GB of RAM and a cheap SSD will improve performance significantly.

I have experience with low end devices, since I'm a broke Brazilian (currently using a device with 2gb ram as my daily driver), and these are my suggestions:

You face 2 problems, low end hardware and low tech users, so going deep into very lightweight distros will affect usability. I find mxlinux to be a good middle ground of optimized for low end hardware and easy to use. This step is important, because you don't want people calling you all the time for help

Now, I suggest running the 32bit of mxlinux on all computers with less than 4gb of ram, because it makes a LOT of difference, from a machine unable to browse the internet, to a machine that works nicely. Even if you use the 64 bit version, enabling multi arch and running at least the 32bit browser makes a huge difference.

And another important thing is to use the same distro and gui on all devices, because it helps them and allows them to help each other, instead of calling you all the time. Helps with maintenance too.

those are very low specs for every day distros (meaning usable for the general public), you might get away with linux mint xfce, if it ends up usable on those machine and not lag too much then don't bother with anything else, otherwise you might have to install lighter stuff like antix or lxle. If none of the above are usable you can always install puppy linux, it can run on a toaster but is not very pleasant to use. note that regardless of distro, surfing the web is going to be a chore due to half of the modern internet being heavy as fuck and hard to run, you might want to look for alternative frontend to websites like piped for youtube, urlebird for tiktok etc.