Ask HN: What OS should I use to to revive an 8yr old PC (1GB RAM)

I use Ubuntu NBR on machines like this and it seems to work ok.

Some lighter weight Linux, I'd say. See : http://tuxradar.com/content/whats-best-lightweight-linux-dis...

TinyCore if you want minimal and hard work (http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/welcome.html) {Damn Small Linux is dead. TinyCore is sort of the result.}

Puppy if you want, well, I dunno, but it has a loyal userbase (http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Starte...)

or there are a gajillion "minimal" versions of Ubuntu. CrunchBang is one, but there are many more.

I like running Linux Mint LXDE edition on my Atom/ION machine with a 1G of memory. It's based on Ubuntu (I think the latest version is based on 11.04), but uses LXDE, which is the lightest "full" UI that I could find. I put Chrome on it and it works fairly well - not exactly snappy, but sufficient for Web browsing.

The plus side is that all the software that's in Ubuntu is still available (from the repositories), which might not be the case with some other minimalistic distros.

I have fedora 16 running on a similiar laptop (dell inspiron 8600). On a laptop like that, i think the graphics card is what will make the most noticable difference. Hopefully you have an intel or ati card with supported drivers. Nvidia let their drivers for that era go "legacy" and nouveau (the open nvidia driver) might be lacking even basic hardware acceleration.

Sadly, Windows XP might actually be your best bet if have an nvidia card and you want to do things with flash and expect it to be somewhat performant.

lubuntu

Arch linux with a lightweight WM or framebuffer.

An older Ubuntu could be more pleasurable, like 10.10, then you can use the classic gnome UI.

I used Debian testing with openbox/tint2 on my Toshiba NB505 for a while. It has a 1.66GHz Atom with 1GB of RAM. It ran pretty snappy.

You could try Ubuntu 10.04LTS, depending on your taste (habits) I think Windows XP will do just fine on your 1GB PC.

ZenWalk has always been my choice for older hardware.

I have windows xp running on a 7 year old PC that was low end at the time. Hulu and Youtube do pretty well on it but netflix chokes. If I were going to set it up again I'd probably go with Ubuntu.

To be honest a minimal version of windows 7 will run better than xp on a system that old. I mean, if you just want to setup something with the least amount of hassle.

Get a good video card though.