light weight linux system idea

[collie man]

So, I'm tinkering around with an idea for a friend of mine, I wana build him a simple browser on a screen from some of the leftovers I have hanging around. He just got separated, and his wife, the tech savvy one, had him set up with "Push the blue E button on the screen, have fun, and if you look at porn dont leave a mess under the desk," situation. and now he's (quite pathetically I must add, it was not a mutual breakup) showing up at friends places, crying a bunch, then asking for help checking his facebook and well you know the rest. His new building has free wifi, so I figgured I could set him something up, and thats were I need help from the form.

I'm very out of touch with Linux, I played with red hat 15 years ago but that's pretty much it. I am looking for a light weight distro that will run well on, say 2GB ram on a low end Core 2 or Athalon64 x2, or posibly a high end Pentium 4, or Pentium D (still in the pondering phaze, not even a plan yet) to be used as a browser only, no downloads, no work or syncing or anything, just browser 720p videos, browser flash games, browser facebook, browser.

Any suggestions? Is there one distro that is already perfect for my needs? I dont care about complexety of setup, that's just more fun for me, but simplisity of operation is key, power on, wait, browse the internet. Any help would be apreciated.

Like I said, I'm not even 100% gona do this, I might just tell him to get a chrome book and leave me alone, but pondering, I wonder. Building a franken-rig is always fun.....

[Zoea]

Xubuntu (Ubuntu with a lighter desktop windows manager) is what I used. I would point out that was just a couple' years ago now, and I think I once read about something potentially better (linux OS wise) recently, however seriously sorry but I can't remember the distro name. A new popular one... I think!...

[Bjorg]

I agree, go with Xubuntu 14.04 LTS (right now is 14.04.02, second LTS). It is really lightweight. Activate the Firewall (GUFW is in the software center, then open the app and enter admin password, activate the firewall with the switch) then teach him how to daily update the system, and your browser-system is ready to go.

Install Chromium if you/him prefer it over to Firefox.

Going with the 14.04 LTS you have updates until April 2016, if you then install (not update, my advice) 16.04 LTS you will have 4 years more of updates.

That's all.