Q4OS VS Ubuntu MATE

With those specs you are looking at something designed for low power machines, and not one of the more beginner friendly distros. I would take a look at q4os or Puppy Linux. Source: 6 months ago

Https://q4os.org/ and https://xpq4.sourceforge.io/ It's does not seem well known but it looks and works very closely to old Windows. I have a side project plan to take this, combine it with a decent laptop, pre install libreoffice and a browser and sell it as "Stable OS" with a long term "no-change" policy to anyone who just needs a basic computer where not everything changes at the whim of someone looking for a... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago

Try q4os with Trinity desktop. Trinity is the fork of KDE 3.5 iirc Https://q4os.org/. Source: 10 months ago

Okay. The best way for beginners to experience dual boot is to install Q4OS. Look up for tutorials online about it and the best part is, it can stay on your Windows partition without hassle like resizing it or disableing secure boot which isn't hard on that laptop but for security reasons and Windows itself, just try like this. You will take small but important steps. After you decide to upgrade your laptop if... Source: about 1 year ago

My best suggestion is buying a cheap thin book. I use one. HP T620 Thin Client. You can buy it on eBay for $50 including shipping (here). Then I installed Q4OS (here) which is a Debian based version of Linux. Then install Docker and Portainer. There are many guides on google on how to do it. But don't get confused with Home Assistant OS versus installing it inside of Docker. They are different. Source: over 1 year ago

When I started out, I used red hat, Suse linux, and then finally I jumped to Ubuntu, when they killed gnome and rolled out their new GUI later, I switched to Ubuntu Mate, with xfce alternatively installed. And then later came MINT. Which is based on ubuntu anyway. Source: 5 months ago

Prepare a blank USB stick with a copy of Ubuntu (write the ISO to the USB stick with Rufus). Source: 5 months ago

Ubuntu MATE (simple, well maintained, has the Ubuntu ecosystem support and should work well). Source: 11 months ago

Linux Mint has its advantages, but your title doesn't make sense when there's Ubuntu MATE. Source: about 1 year ago

(btw: since the PC is older I would reccommend Ubuntu Mate or Xubuntu as those come with a lighter Desktop). Source: about 1 year ago