Hi, I have an old HP Notebook - 14-an018au, which has 4gb ddr3 ram and runs windows 10 on a 10 ish year old 1tb harddrive. This is a secondary computer, but it has a lot of old files from when I was like 13 years old that I want to backup, but I also have like 300gb of space taken up on the harddrive. So things like my chrome history, app settings, and unique files I would want to keep, but the large apps themselves I don’t want to keep. Also this computer is impossible to work on with its current operating system, so something which is a quick solution please.
And also, what distributions would you recommend that would a) work on this old computer and b) might be kind of fun to mess around with, as a secondary device
Anyway thanks
Set up a flash drive with puppy linux. It’s relatively easy to do (depending on how much you already know about Linux) and is mostly risk-free (but you can still do damage so always use caution) because it runs entirely in RAM and shouldn’t mess with the internal storage drive unless you tell it to. You can use it to copy any desired files without booting Windows and it will probably run on that machine better than Windows ever did. I think that has a 64 bit CPU but there are 32 bit versions floating around the internet if it doesn’t. I’ve seen Puppy Linux versions advertised as being 'so easy your grandma can do it. One project of mine that was fun was creating a Puppy Arcade, a usb flash drive filled with emulators and ROMS but I had issues with some emulators.
Puppy Linux is fun and cute but nothing really ever worked for me the way a normal distro works. But I haven’t spent much time on it.
True, it can be tricky for certain things. I suggested it because it fits the OP’s a) and b) points better than anything else I could think of. The different versions of it can vary a lot too. Bionicpup worked great on my old eeepc, a netbook with a single core 32 bit cpu, but didn’t do well on anything newer. Focal Fossa has worked without issue on everything I tried it on. I wouldn’t use either as my main OS, but it can be fun on a secondary system. I kept mine in the bathroom until the humidity from showering likely wrecked it.