Lubuntu is a nice alternative. It is based on the LXDE environment which aims to be lightweight. It's a great disto (short for distribution) for old systems (not ancient systems) as it aims to keep the impact on your system low.
Linux Mint was designed to provide a complete experience right out of the box without having to download additional packages after installing the OS. Personally I found it lighter weight than Ubuntu in the past and a crisper interface. It's a nice fit between Ubuntu and Lubuntu.
LXLE vs Lubuntu
LXDE eXtra Luxury Edition 14.04 (old name Lubuntu eXtra Life Extension)
In a nutshell, LXLE is literally stock Lubuntu LTS (Long Term Support), with:
- about 2 dozen preconfigured PPAs for specific add-on applications, and
- some different choices for default theme and preinstalled applications,
- extendet PCManFM (now let open files and directories with root permissions, easier changing file names, copying directories, emptying bin with one click)
- shortcuts for system menu, terminal and launching panel
- after run LXLE there are 4 options for imitation interfeces from Win XP, OS X, Gnome2 and Unity, and configuration for netbooks with small screens
- xArchiver repaced by FileRoller
- Gpicview replaced by Mirage (light, with scale and crop functions)
- Ubuntu One cloud replaced by Bittorrent Sync
- Samba Client replaced by Gigolo
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For me, the two most significant differences are:
- LXLE track LTS instead of mainline Ubuntu. On the one hand, I'd get to avoid the Big End-of-Life Update for a lot longer (5 years vs. 9 months). On the other hand, packages aren't as current as on mainline, to avoid potential package version jumps that turn out to be showstoppers. For instance, PostgreSQL is already on 9.4 with Lubuntu 15.04, but stuck on 9.3 with LXLE 14.04.2.
- LXLE is a "boutique" distro. While the underpinnings (Lubuntu) are well-supported, there are enough additions and tweaks that if the LXLE creators decided to cease operations tomorrow, there's a good chance that I'd have to do a fresh Lubuntu install to continue moving forward.
