I have an old HP Compaq nx9105 laptop. There's nothing wrong in the hardware. So I thought I could empty everything that has to do with Windows (XP) and install some kind of Linux on it, just to start getting a hang of Linux. We still have some of these laptops at work and no one is interested in updating them. And since they are more or less useless for anything, since the systems are cluttered with years of installed crap and whatnot, I thought they could be used for some single tasks, like controlling info screens, running some apache html/php servers for testing purposes, whatever. Or simply for me to learn more about Linux, which I use at work for a very narrow field.

So any advice would be nice. Which distro, which version etc? I don't even know the right questions.

I personally would go with debian, but I'm biased.

I've tried RPM based distros and Ubuntu, and I liked neither very much. They all liked to blow up.

Debian Sid/Unstable will occasionally have issues if you try updating at the wrong time, but they are generally fixable by either waiting it out, or uninstalling one or two packages that are messing things up before trying to update again.

For a beginner, Debian Stable or Testing would probably be a better bet than Sid. Fewer update issues, but packages can be older. Though you can always add the Debian Backports package repos, and get newer software for stable.

I think it's just that you're used to a faster computer. This older computer of mine seems horribly slow compared to the main one I'm on now, but I remember how lightning fast it seemed compared to the previous one which had an AMD K6 and a VIA video chip, which in turn was lightning fast compared to the 486 I was running before that, etc. etc.

I'd try XUbuntu. (I use it as my regular OS.)

The main thing is to use a lightweight windows manager, like Xfce (as XUbuntu does). There are other ones; I only recommend it because I'm familiar with it. It's very similar to Windows XP, or at least if you move the panels around it is.

The latest fancy windows managers with GNOME or KDE aren't going to run well.

If I have five or six tabs open I get confused!

CrunchBang Linux is what I'm currently using. It is essentially the same as Debian, but it is slimmed down and a joy (for me) to use.

It's using around 8GB of disk space (my files included), and 667MB of RAM. I rarely touch my swap, too.

If you need to look up how to do something on it, and you can't google "how to do x in crunchbang" with success: ask the same question and put "Debian" instead. This distribution is 95% the same as Debian (and thus you benefit from Debian's popularity).

Long story short:

I concur that the DE matters just as much as the distro when it comes to performance. I've tried MATE, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, and LXDE on a Linux Mint Debian installation. I ended up settling with Xfce--but not for performance reasons. It simply presented the most stable and logical design. KDE was very stable but had an unresponsive feel that pervaded all control widgets. MATE and Cinnamon are more or less interchangeable. Both are young and lack some key customization features; the nail in the coffin was hard-coded color values that interfered with light text on dark backgrounds. LXDE was the ugliest of the bunch and felt a little too stripped down.

I sampled all DEs precisely one month ago, using the latest versions available in my distro repos. I noticed no performance differences between any of them, but that's mostly because my computer is super awesome.

Before the week is done, I'll be ending my 18-month relationship with Mint for a more attractive and stable Debian, who also happens to be a better cook and knows a good trick or two in the sack. Mint has too many "quirks," and the main reason I went to Mint was because it (supposedly) Simply Worked... If I'm going to have to do everything manually regardless, I want to be as close to the metal as possible.

I'd like to suggest Razor-Qt again.

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Last time I tried it, it was super light (lighter than XFCE), and less crap than LXDE.

As long as you can access Google Translate, you're good, right?