My Aunty has an Acer Aspire V3-571G-6602 laptop that originally had Windows 7 Home on it. Then Microsoft decided she should upgrade to Windows 10, all without asking her. Her machine was slow on the reboot and looked locked up. The auto upgrade to Windows 10 and the subsequent auto upgrades persuaded her that this was not kosher, but simply wrong. I lent her an older Lubuntu system, 12 years old, while I deciphered her predicament, and she started to really like the simplicity and speed of Ubuntu. Really, she only uses a browser.
Puppy Linux Tahr 5.0.6 fits into 1G of disk space and runs well on only 500mb of RAM on an old XP box.
After playing with Puppy Linux, both the Slacko and Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr version, on CD, I decided to install Puppy Linux Tahr 6.0.5 as a dual boot alongside Win XP. The instructions online are not crystal clear to me, and left me somewhat puzzled, stomach ill at ease. Let me explain the process.
Puppy Linux can be used quite readily from your CD or USB stick. You need to boot up and then configure. I decided to dual boot install it on an old Win XP box, one with only 500mb ram.
After installing Lubuntu on an old Dell, i was expecting a similar user experience from full Ubuntu with a Unity desktop environment, where I would need to spend many extra hours tweaking the install. Little did I know. Ubuntu is easier to install and use, by far.
My Lenovo w510 came with Windows 7, which I still want to keep. By adding another disk I could boot to the new Ubuntu disk, and then have a choice to stay in Ubuntu or boot to Windows. A dual boot install was required. There is a lot of help online about installing a dual boot using two disks.