A version of Linux

Bear

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Can anyone please suggest a version of Linux that will, without resort to sudo apt-get to install a version of Samba and a configuration utility, allow me to use Libre Office to edit files on a machine running Windows? It needs to run on a 32-bit Intel Atom 1.6 GHz with all of 1GB of memory and a slow 15GB SSD so the smaller the version of Linux the better.
 
You could try an old version of Linux Mint ver8 is less than a gig and ran well on an old Amd athelon 1.4ghz machine I had with1.25 gigs of ram.
 
I think Ubuntu is as point-and-click as they get and its quite popular, so there's a lot of howto's available for various tasks, although it might be a bit big compared to others like Mint. I've never had an issue with performance when running Linux on older machines as long as I'm not doing anything too resource intensive. I can't see Open/Libre Office being too demanding.
 
I tried the latest Mint (18.2) with the XFCE desktop and it ran well enough but the build doesn't include Samba, which is needed to network with Windows. Installing Samba and system-config-samba wasn't too hard but they didn't get on with the version of smb.conf that came with them. Manjaro + XFCE looked tidy enough but kept claiming it had 135 updates which it refused to install so in the end I went to Peppermint 8, which comes with Samba as part of the build. LibreOffice and FireFox came from wherever Peppermint gets it from and system-config-samba let me set up shares. It wasn't the easiest of jobs to get it all working, involving me in guessing my way through Linux keyrings, which I assume are some form of security, but by dint of using the same password and username for everything it does now work although please don't ask me to tell you how.
 
You dont need Linux or Samba to run Libre Office on Windows. Download the windows version.

I know I don't. I have the Windows version on several machines as I've no wish to pay a subscription to Microsoft for Office 365. The problem is that the files I occasionally wish to edit are on a desktop in an unheated upstairs spare room whereas I want to sit in a warm downstairs room with Mrs. Bear, hence the use of the horrid little Acer and a wireless network.
 
Ubuntu is okay, easy to install, I have been running it on an old laptop for about 3 years, no issues, boots up quickly and libre office installed.
 


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