Not true. JNCS built me a brand new one with LInux Mint 19 that runs like a top.
No, perfectly true. I did not say THIS IS THE BEST PERIOD, what I said was that it has always been “MY” personal experience, and it has. I never said you can’t do a new build, but generally speaking as a 52 year old man, certified UNIX network admin, and software systems engineer who has used LINUX nearly since it was created, yes LINUX generally runs best on older machines because of required drivers already having been created for older systems. Developers don’t rush to create stuff they won’t get paid for…
@anon15753498 and @jhweaver99 you are both right in the latest editions of some Linux Distributions newer hardware can work well enough. However not all editions and older hardware will work better on them, because of, as @anon15753498 has said the drivers will have been written for them.
This is the whole point of this thread, so everyone can add their view and accept that none of us know what the best really is. At most we can say “in my experience” . In the end there is no right answer to this and no wrong answer, just the answer we have found that works for us and we share this with our community.
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Yes, you are right. I didn’t mean to be confrontational. Maybe the company I got my computer from did some extra work on the graphics driver to work with the hardware I chose. Anyway they did an outstanding job and I love my new Linux computer. When I ordered it I asked for Linux Mint MATE 18.4 and they said they couldn’t install it on my configuration but they could install MATE 19 which pleased me to no end. Thanks for your feed back.
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You are welcome Jim and thank you for taking it in the way I meant it. 
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Your aging iMac, (I trust) having an Intel 64bit CPU would be excellent for installing a Linux distro,provided the hardware is still OK.
So, don’t discard the machine ,it still is an excellent machine to get used to Linux . Recommended Linux distributions : Lubuntu 18.04 , MX18.
Frank in County Wicklow ireland
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I recommend visiting your local computer shop and purchasing a top- or near-top of the line refurbished desktop at half or less the new cost. You can get a lot of machine for your money.
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System 76 Meerkat is the best config you can get, I imported it recently to india through my friends in USA by ordering it to their address in the first place. Take a look at the link below!
Cheers!
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Any laptop / pc with i-5 or i-7 new generation, could to be suitable
for you, and a good video card is desirable too; 8 Gib ram and
preferably Nvidia card ( for best compatibility ) with linux kernel.
what
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I’m pretty happy with a scratch-built desktop.
I have installed Linux on multiple different computers and basically have found it runs well on all computers regardless of age. The only thing I have tailored is smaller versions like lubuntu if the computer only has limited cap[ability. I have not tried to install it on any macs since I have never had a mac
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Had xubuntu 16.04 running well on a 2006 coreduo iMac till the HDD started failing… PITA to crack it open and replace the HDD…
I’d say System 76 's Pop OS.
In my view there is no “best” PC / Laptop for Linux . Recently I bought a second hand Dell laptop with i5 CPU and 4GB RAM removed Windoze 10 and installed Ubuntu 18.04 (64bit) . It runs smoothly
Yesterday I did run Zorin 15 (32bit) Live on the machine and it worked well.
Also still using 2 Desktop PCs with Pentium 4 CPU (obviously 32bit) and only 1GB RAM.
On 1 I use Linux Mint 19.2 and on the other MX Linux 17 , be it that I changed the HD for an SSD to speed-up processing .Am still very happy with the 2 units and as long as 32bit distros are available I intend keep using them.
My advice : Remove Windoze from an existing PC/Laptop and replace it with any popular Linux (Debian/Ubuntu related )distro , alternatively keep Windoze and free-up HD space for a Linux distro .
in dual boot. Suggest you replace the HD by an SSD when using Linux only .
Any additional PC/Laptop for Linux could be best second hand , because when buying a new machine with Win 10, a change of OS might defeat warranty…dealers selling the usual PC equipment ,highly likely don’t have a clue about Linux .
My 2 Eurocents advice
Frank in County Wicklow - Ireland
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i’d be interested in hearing what choice(s) you make for web browsing on your pentium 4 machines if you do so. i have two 32-bit computers that both have core 2 duos and 3 or 4 gb of ram that can run the more modern browsers like firefox, but the experience is certainly laggy and slow. i don’t really use them often enough to test the lightweight browsers extensively to see how they stack up. the one i have loaded with manjaro uses midori which has worked just fine for the few times i need to look something up quickly though.
My 2 Pentium 4 CPU ,1GB RAM desktop PCs run fine when using the latest Firefox as well as Chromium browser .
Of course not as fast as the desktop PC with an i7-CPU (first gen) I am writing this message on …but nevertheless still very smoothly , including all the other apps like Libreoffice , VLC , Thunderbird (only used for Newsgroups) , K3B ,Skype ,Clementine ,etc
But as mentioned earlier the respective HDs have been replaced by 120GB SSDs which have speeded up all processes significantly. These old machines ,having been in use since 2004-2005 with Windoze XP, were dumped by their original owners in April 2014 ,when M$oft stopped with updating XP .
I intend using them (1 of them with recently issued Zorin 15 Light ,32 bit) until update-able 32bit distros will no longer be available; so that will be at least until 2023.
I also have been donated an Acer Travelmate 6000 Laptop from that era having a Pentium M (Centrino) CPU and a PATA
HD , which hence (sadly) cannot be updated with a SSD (which is SATA only)
As an aside ,on all my machines I have installed the cmd line app inxi ,which provides extensive info on all running hardware components …thoroughly recommended !
Linux has so far been very friendly towards dated hardware.
Frank in County Wicklow -Ireland
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replacing hdd’s with ssd’s sounds like a good idea. i don’t use my 32-bit machines for much so i haven’t done anything like that, but a 120 gb ssd should be fairly budget friendly if i ever decide to give it a go. thanks for the suggestion 
if you have one, it might be interesting to see if an external ssd would provide any performance enhancement. it probably isn’t efficient in the long run and you might run up against data transfer speed issues (maybe even compatibility with sata in general?) with what are probably usb 2 or 1 ports, but the thought crossed my mind.
i first learned about inxi in a discussion here. i tend to stick with lshw just because it was one of the first commands i learned and it is familiar (and works out of the box on a fresh install), but i do like the way the info is formatted with inxi better to be sure.
I’ve been looking at some of their desktops and am considering buying one in the future.
Any desktop can run Linux , be it that a 64 bit CPU is very much recommended (not a problem when PC has an age of up to 12 years)
My main desktop PC is 12 yrs old (1st generation Intel i7 CPU and 8GB RAM) still runs the latest Mint distro.
You really don’t need to buy a NEW PC , but a machine should preferably not have less than 4GB RAM. I am awaiting Linux Mint 22 later this year (possibly June) and will install it on the above machine .
I also run Mint 20.3 on an 8 yrs old Dell laptop.
Frank in County Wicklow -Ireland
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