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Without reading through 60+ replies, I'm going to say something most people have already said: Linux. Ubuntu Linux or Linux Mint will do EVERYTHING you need them to do, AND you could download either one, install it to a flash drive, boot off of it, and give Linux a test drive before you decide to replace your XP install.

As one who has tried every major and some minor Linux distros on older (6-10 years) PCs i have to disagree, considering the person in need here. Linux typically failed at doing what you take for granted can be done easily in Windows without having to learn search forums, and try various coding attempts, which can vary from one flavor another.

And unless he has a hardware modem, he likely will have problems with dial up.

Recently i have been involved now with trying to install Linux on an HP nx9005 laptop, 1.67ghz cpu and 512mb ram for someone whose HDD i replaced , and thus i want to use a lightweight distro.

So i did some partitioning on my own, and then i installed Fedora 16 LXDE. But Yum would get stuck in a loop after first update. Will not close.Killed it, try again, logoff or reboot and tried again, — same thing occurs. No help that works found online.

So Installed Lubuntu 13.10. Does not detect simply DSL network connection via DSL, which Fedora did. Looked online and ran sudo pppeo conf to no avail, and looked about a dozen of questions to forums on the same error message in which no answer was found.

Then there is the problem of illegal codecs, which i want to be legal about, and have read the debate. I asked which proprietary codecs they were so i could use any distro i wanted and remove them, but no one can tell me as the names vary from distro to distro. I would buy the Fluendo package if i relied on Linux, but i really only want it for a alternative, and for old PCs i would give away.

I upgraded to Win8 pro for 29.00 (w/ rebate) when it was being promoted, so i cannot complain about the price.

Still, i think Linux has potential, and i am for alternatives, but it actually suffers from too many individuality and lack of maturity. And yes i have my critiques of Windows also, but thank God for the abilities computers give us.

I've been curious about Linux but reality is not having the time to try and work through it. That's compounded by a concentration issue I'd have to try it on a good night or rather several good nights. I have an older Compaq I will likely try it on at some point if nothing else just to try out the off line programs. I will also still be able to keep XP in that one for the just in case I have some files W/8 can't open and I need to convert them to another format type of problem. But right now I need to keep the learning new tricks to a minimal and 8.1 is enough challenge for a while.

You spoke of 2 distros of Linux, and both of those distros are not mainstream user distros. Fedora is literally Red Hat’s development platform and is one of the most rapidly changing distribution of Linux. It is NOT recommended for home users unless you are RHCE material.

I admit I’m not intimately familiar with Lubuntu, but I will tell you that you neglected to mention Linux Mint which is one of the most user-friendly distros of Linux with which I’ve ever had the pleasure of working.

I would NEVER recommend Fedora to a neophyte home user. For his purposes, Mint is the way to go, and you mentioned Windows 8 without noting that OP’s computer only has 684 MB of RAM. Windows 8 will NOT run on his machine, period.