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A good Linux Distro for AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+

Plain Arch/Debian with XFCE or Mate.
 
It's really not the distro that matters, it's mainly the desktop environment / window manager that does. I'd agree with @Nikos Zampakikas but strongly lean towards Debian in that case, because "bleeding edge" won't do you any favour and tbh the OP does not sound like a seasoned linux user, so Debian would fit better.

Heck, I'm not a fan of distro-forks, but in this case I might even suggest something like BunsenLabs, Debian based, good Openbox (window manager) setup with sane defaults, good for low-spec systems. Although I have not tried it in a while, so grain of salt...

I use Arch btw.:p

But Debian will forever be my true love. :love:
 
I had an Athlon 54 X2 back with the XP era but I had 4GB installed which ran Windows XP x64 reasonably well. Eventually I moved to AM3 and got a Phenom X4 which ran XP x65 fine and I was using 16GB DDR3. The Phenom ran everything from XP x64 to Windows 7 and eventually Windows 10.
 
Mint with XFCE sound good for that.
I'll second this! Mint with XFCE will run on any dual core from 2006/2007 on up. It'll even run on a single core Pentium4 from 2005, but runs like sludge. Do note, 2GB of RAM should be considered the minimum to start with, but 4GB+ is much better. Ideally? 8GB will make MintXFCE happy.
 
It's really not the distro that matters, it's mainly the desktop environment / window manager that does. I'd agree with @Nikos Zampakikas but strongly lean towards Debian in that case, because "bleeding edge" won't do you any favour and tbh the OP does not sound like a seasoned linux user, so Debian would fit better.

Heck, I'm not a fan of distro-forks, but in this case I might even suggest something like BunsenLabs, Debian based, good Openbox (window manager) setup with sane defaults, good for low-spec systems. Although I have not tried it in a while, so grain of salt...

I use Arch btw.:p

But Debian will forever be my true love. :love:
Yeah it doesn't matter, that's why I said two completely different distro's, which both are lightweight (he can debloat Debian by not installing GUI and unnecessary packages, and configure it later by himself to save valuable resources, same way with Arch), this CPU is almost 17 years old, it even lacks SSE4.....I'd suggest Debian too.

Most Distro's-Forks are bloated with packages that (sometimes) you don't even need, I'm not familiar with the specific Distro you are talking about though, I had to check it out....it contains Conky which isn't very helpful in case he wants to open 1-2 more tabs on Firefox/Chrome or whatever browser he's using without lag. Just Mate or XFCE with GTK themes do the job.
 
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I'll second this! Mint with XFCE will run on any dual core from 2006/2007 on up. It'll even run on a single core Pentium4 from 2005, but runs like sludge. Do note, 2GB of RAM should be considered the minimum to start with, but 4GB+ is much better. Ideally? 8GB will make MintXFCE happy.
my hubby has that as his config on his 3570k based system! and he likes it and it's very fast
 
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