Dell Latitude 2110 Netbook. OS recommendation.

[CaptNumbNutz]

I was recently gifted this snail.
Atom N470 Single core w/ hyper threading
1GB of DDR2 RAM
5400rpm 160GB WD drive.
Non-touchscreen version.
Full Spec sheet from Dell.

I maxed it out with the junk I had laying around. It now has 2GB of RAM (maxed) and a 240GB Crucial M500 SSD in it. I also replaced the ancient broadcom 802.11G wifi with some Azure 802.11N unit that I pulled from a dead Asus ultrabook that I was sure had updated drivers.

It came with Win7 Basic 32bit edition. I did a fresh install of Win10 Pro 64bit using the Win7 key. Win10 found every driver it needed except the drop sensor which I don't need anyways since I'm using an SSD now. The CPU is 64bit capable, but obviously can't manage any decent amount of RAM.

I've installed Spybot Anti-Beacon to alleviate some of the Win10 bullshit to possibly use less system resources.

Is there any benefit to using the same hardware but dropping it back down to Win7? If so, should I use Win7 32 or Win7 64?
I do not wish to discuss Win10 "spyware" unless it has to do with overall system performance. I'm fully aware of what Win10 shares with MS.

If it helps, here is what I want to accomplish with it:
-Basic Websurfing
-Basic SD streaming video
-Really old games (pre-2001), possibly NES emulation


It's a neat little toy, and I would like to keep it. The exterior is rubberized, its got the extended battery and goes for days in sleep mode.

Now a few of you are probably thinking drop Linux on it and forgo windows. I would like to dual boot Linux on it at some point to learn. I do not expect to do much application wise with Linux. I do have to have Windows as I'm not a Linux guru yet. Therefore I need the following answered:

-What windows should I run? Win7 32 basic, Win7 64, or Win10 (with a bunch of bells and whistles disabled). I have Win 8.1, but unless someone convinces me otherwise I doubt it would be a good fit.

-What flavor of Linux should I run? Please consider the hardware and something relatively noob friendly. Ubuntu was the recommended when this thing first released, but that may not be the case now and I am way out of touch with Linux.

 

[BulletDust]

I think you'd be surprised application wise what you can achieve with Linux, bugger Windows, I run Linux 24/7 now and don't miss a thing - It's not 1995 anymore

A very light distro would be perfect, I'm partial to Ubuntu Mate however any of the lightweight distro's would run really well.

Here's a screenshot of my Compaq Presario CQ42 with Celeron T3100, 2GB ram and 500GB HDD that I use for work on a daily basis...

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

I think you'd be surprised application wise what you can achieve with Linux, bugger Windows, I run Linux 24/7 now and don't miss a thing - It's not 1995 anymore

A very light distro would be perfect, I'm partial to Ubuntu Mate however any of the lightweight distro's would run really well.

I don't expect Linux to be decent for some of the things I wish to do (e.g. old windows games and possibly emulation). If it does it, that's icing on the cake. I know Linux is no slouch, I'm just not familiar with its latest incarnations.

Feel free to name these other distros you recommend. As I said, I'm very out of touch with the Linux world. I only know names of a few, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and more recently ChromeOS, and now SteamOS. I know there are hundreds of others but I have no clue where to start. To emphasize how out of touch I am with Linux, lets just say the last time I actually used Linux and not just read about it I was using Slackware and OpenSuse on a Pentium II. Ubuntu Mate sounds interesting, but I would like to hear a few suggestions before I make my decision.

I still need dual boot...for now. Therefore I do need both Windows and Linux recommendations.

 

[BulletDust]

I don't expect Linux to be decent for some of the things I wish to do (e.g. old windows games and possibly emulation). If it does it, that's icing on the cake. I know Linux is no slouch, I'm just not familiar with its latest incarnations.

Feel free to name these other distros you recommend. As I said, I'm very out of touch with the Linux world. I only know names of a few, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and more recently ChromeOS, and now SteamOS. I know there are hundreds of others but I have no clue where to start. To emphasize how out of touch I am with Linux, lets just say the last time I actually used Linux and not just read about it I was using Slackware and OpenSuse on a Pentium II. Ubuntu Mate sounds interesting, but I would like to hear a few suggestions before I make my decision.

I still need dual boot...for now. Therefore I do need both Windows and Linux recommendations.

If Source 2 based titles are classed as 'old games' I play old games, I also emulate Amiga games using FS-UAE - In fact I'd go as far as to claim that anything you can emulate under Windows you can emulate just as well if not better under Linux.

However, honestly, the OS isn't going to be your limiting factor here - It's your hardware, an Atom and 2GB of ram isn't really suited to gaming and emulation. When I say I play Source 2 based games I play them on my desktop with an Nvidia GPU as opposed to my laptop's iGPU.

Pretty much anything you care to do on that machine you can achieve easily under Linux, don't underestimate how far Linux has come. As far as Windows goes, forget Windows 10, Windows 7 32bit is your only realistic option on such hardware.

 

[BulletDust]

If Source 2 based titles are classed as 'old games' I play old games, I also emulate Amiga games using FS-UAE - In fact I'd go as far as to claim that anything you can emulate under Windows you can emulate just as well if not better under Linux.

However, honestly, the OS isn't going to be your limiting factor here - It's your hardware, an Atom and 2GB of ram isn't really suited to gaming and emulation. When I say I play Source 2 based games I play them on my desktop with an Nvidia GPU as opposed to my laptop's iGPU.

Pretty much anything you care to do on that machine you can achieve easily under Linux, don't underestimate how far Linux has come. As far as Windows goes, forget Windows 10, Windows 7 32bit is your only realistic option on such hardware.

Just a quick post linking to the top 5 emulators available under Linux, the NES emulator is already packaged for Ubuntu apparently.

Top 5 Linux Gaming Emulators