What To Do with Old Laptop? Bring it Back to Life with Linux - Chris Titus Tech
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Date: 2022-03-21
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Comments and reviews: 10
Voodoo
-Old- means different things to different people. I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 and a Dell XPS M170 running Windows ME along with a Dell Precision M6600 and M6700 dual booting Windows XP and PeppermintOS 10 Respin. I have to say that I found PeppermintOS 10 Respin easiest to poke around in, but it has opened my eyes to the Linux community. For starters, I learned that Linux is evolving just as Windows is and you can easily find that Linux has moved on from supporting the old hardware that you have, just like in Windows. A good example of that is how the R9 270's or HD 7850's with the newer distros. Sure, it will run with the open drivers with little effort, but if you want to actually utilize the gpu, you have to do some driver back tracking. This is especially true for trying to get the Vulkan drivers loaded for that card. Don't get me started on the Geforce 8800M GTS that is in my Gateway P6860FX. There still seems to be issues with that where you get the black screen with the drivers that are available for that. I have come across quite a few other issues that I had to take time and tinker with and hopefully get it working the way I want. So much that I have found myself starting my own forums now that PeppermintOS has evolved once again after the original creator died. The new team has moved from Ubuntu based to Debian and no longer supporting 32 bit. In doing so, the also removed all LXDE references... And now we are faced with new interface, new features, and new problems all over again. That means you spent all that time getting your Linux customized to the way you want it and you find yourself either waiting until the service for your specific version ends or you have to start over trying to customize a new Linux install knowing that you won't be able to customize it the same way because so many base changes have been made to the distro. Bottom line is you had better have lots of time on your hands if you want to try to move from Windows or Mac to Linux.
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-Old- means different things to different people. I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 and a Dell XPS M170 running Windows ME along with a Dell Precision M6600 and M6700 dual booting Windows XP and PeppermintOS 10 Respin. I have to say that I found PeppermintOS 10 Respin easiest to poke around in, but it has opened my eyes to the Linux community. For starters, I learned that Linux is evolving just as Windows is and you can easily find that Linux has moved on from supporting the old hardware that you have, just like in Windows. A good example of that is how the R9 270's or HD 7850's with the newer distros. Sure, it will run with the open drivers with little effort, but if you want to actually utilize the gpu, you have to do some driver back tracking. This is especially true for trying to get the Vulkan drivers loaded for that card. Don't get me started on the Geforce 8800M GTS that is in my Gateway P6860FX. There still seems to be issues with that where you get the black screen with the drivers that are available for that. I have come across quite a few other issues that I had to take time and tinker with and hopefully get it working the way I want. So much that I have found myself starting my own forums now that PeppermintOS has evolved once again after the original creator died. The new team has moved from Ubuntu based to Debian and no longer supporting 32 bit. In doing so, the also removed all LXDE references... And now we are faced with new interface, new features, and new problems all over again. That means you spent all that time getting your Linux customized to the way you want it and you find yourself either waiting until the service for your specific version ends or you have to start over trying to customize a new Linux install knowing that you won't be able to customize it the same way because so many base changes have been made to the distro. Bottom line is you had better have lots of time on your hands if you want to try to move from Windows or Mac to Linux.
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Jordan
I'll say if you have an old laptop and a newer laptop running Windows, Linux can be a secondary OS to get a feel of it. A lot of people used the virtual machine environment, but it's useful to have Linux in a native environment on an older laptop. Another issue someone my have a old 64 bit computer with an Intel I5 or I7 processor and they bought a newer computer with Windows 11 installed (because the sleeker design). With Linux Mint, you can install multiple desktop environments in the terminal (Lxde, KDE, Plasma, MATE, XFCE) that will you many choices and you don't have to jump from distro to distro.
I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 on one of my older laptops since I utilize Linux about 10 percent of the time, but it's to check out newer distros and keep up to date with the Linux realm.
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I'll say if you have an old laptop and a newer laptop running Windows, Linux can be a secondary OS to get a feel of it. A lot of people used the virtual machine environment, but it's useful to have Linux in a native environment on an older laptop. Another issue someone my have a old 64 bit computer with an Intel I5 or I7 processor and they bought a newer computer with Windows 11 installed (because the sleeker design). With Linux Mint, you can install multiple desktop environments in the terminal (Lxde, KDE, Plasma, MATE, XFCE) that will you many choices and you don't have to jump from distro to distro.
I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 on one of my older laptops since I utilize Linux about 10 percent of the time, but it's to check out newer distros and keep up to date with the Linux realm.
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parasite
Been running Unix based OS for over a decade. My go-to laptop is a Dell E6410 maxed to 8Gb (yes maximum - I know) with an SSD and a HDD caddy (CD drive replacement) runs Lubuntu.
Sure it looks minimal - almost Windows 85 minimal...
However with an SSD - boot up gives my mid priced mobile phone a second place on the speed front.
Use it to run music production.
It's never crashed, stable and just works.
The gotcha are obviously physical issues, CPU speed, RAM (1333 speed DDR3 - not exactly bleeding edge) and the second HDD is an old physical generic drive of the 350Gb size.
However, it works - does what I need and often, still astounds at what it can deal with before glitches stop the show.
reply
Been running Unix based OS for over a decade. My go-to laptop is a Dell E6410 maxed to 8Gb (yes maximum - I know) with an SSD and a HDD caddy (CD drive replacement) runs Lubuntu.
Sure it looks minimal - almost Windows 85 minimal...
However with an SSD - boot up gives my mid priced mobile phone a second place on the speed front.
Use it to run music production.
It's never crashed, stable and just works.
The gotcha are obviously physical issues, CPU speed, RAM (1333 speed DDR3 - not exactly bleeding edge) and the second HDD is an old physical generic drive of the 350Gb size.
However, it works - does what I need and often, still astounds at what it can deal with before glitches stop the show.
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UFO
It is not true. Some low-end Windows laptops(I believe manufacturers have some sort of deal with Microsoft) can not install any other operating system. They somehow lock the bios and cause the kernel to fail to start. For example, a lot of low ends N4000 series windows laptops. I can never ever start the installation, and it all gives me the same error, kernel fails.
I also suggest people install chrome os or chromium Os instead of Linux on their laptop, Linux is extremely unstable. I tried almost every Linux, pure awful.
Last, save your money and buy a good MacBook or windows laptop to fix all your problems. Linux will not fix your old laptop.
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It is not true. Some low-end Windows laptops(I believe manufacturers have some sort of deal with Microsoft) can not install any other operating system. They somehow lock the bios and cause the kernel to fail to start. For example, a lot of low ends N4000 series windows laptops. I can never ever start the installation, and it all gives me the same error, kernel fails.
I also suggest people install chrome os or chromium Os instead of Linux on their laptop, Linux is extremely unstable. I tried almost every Linux, pure awful.
Last, save your money and buy a good MacBook or windows laptop to fix all your problems. Linux will not fix your old laptop.
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NemophilistPNW
I have an old hp pavilion dv6 with Windows 7 that crapped out and won't even boot up. Trying to decide if I should install Linux on it or Windows 10. It will be for my wife who is a casual user and only using it for quickbooks or similar bookkeeping software. I can still get into bios on startup so I should be able to install either one, just trying to decide which. I use Zorin OS on my current pc and love it. It's very user friendly and lightweight so I'll probably go with that if I do it but I also have Windows 10.
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I have an old hp pavilion dv6 with Windows 7 that crapped out and won't even boot up. Trying to decide if I should install Linux on it or Windows 10. It will be for my wife who is a casual user and only using it for quickbooks or similar bookkeeping software. I can still get into bios on startup so I should be able to install either one, just trying to decide which. I use Zorin OS on my current pc and love it. It's very user friendly and lightweight so I'll probably go with that if I do it but I also have Windows 10.
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J-rgen
Does Lubuntu or any other lightweight distro support WLAN and Bluetooth? I own an elder DELL Latitude D830 Notebook with Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit 21H, which won-t work with Windows 11, and a MacBook Pro from 2008 (OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, more recent versions aren-t offered) which Apple doesn-t support any more. Any recommondations for a stable, simple to use distro? On the MacBook I don't necessarily need the Apple design anymore, it-s the same with DELL and the Windows design.
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Does Lubuntu or any other lightweight distro support WLAN and Bluetooth? I own an elder DELL Latitude D830 Notebook with Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit 21H, which won-t work with Windows 11, and a MacBook Pro from 2008 (OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, more recent versions aren-t offered) which Apple doesn-t support any more. Any recommondations for a stable, simple to use distro? On the MacBook I don't necessarily need the Apple design anymore, it-s the same with DELL and the Windows design.
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Mitchel
If you want to install a 32-bit version of Lubuntu, consider using the 18.04 LTS version, since the 32-bit version of 18.04 will continue to receive support for years, whereas more recent versions such as 19.04 will only receive short-term 32-bit support. Upcoming versions of Lubuntu will not have a 32-bit version. 18.04 uses LXDE, not LXQt, so the desktop will be a little different. But both are fine. Also, Lubuntu is not rolling release.
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If you want to install a 32-bit version of Lubuntu, consider using the 18.04 LTS version, since the 32-bit version of 18.04 will continue to receive support for years, whereas more recent versions such as 19.04 will only receive short-term 32-bit support. Upcoming versions of Lubuntu will not have a 32-bit version. 18.04 uses LXDE, not LXQt, so the desktop will be a little different. But both are fine. Also, Lubuntu is not rolling release.
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m1cajah
Windows 7? LOL I-m sitting here running Peppermint on an old HP laptop with the -Made for Windows Vista!- sticker still on it. Mine was super high end back in the day though - 6GB RAM and I-ve upgraded to a 500GB SDD for faster read/write times and boot up. I may throw ChromeOS on there using Cloudready (Brunch option won-t work) just to see how it goes.
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Windows 7? LOL I-m sitting here running Peppermint on an old HP laptop with the -Made for Windows Vista!- sticker still on it. Mine was super high end back in the day though - 6GB RAM and I-ve upgraded to a 500GB SDD for faster read/write times and boot up. I may throw ChromeOS on there using Cloudready (Brunch option won-t work) just to see how it goes.
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Moni
I have 2 extra low end -laptops- I have one asus one with a celeron processor and 4gb of ram, and my other one is actually a windows tablet with an atom processor and 2gb of ram. gonna start with the asus but does Linux have any touch screen support? If I do this to the windows tablet I-d like to keep the touch screen feature if possible.
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I have 2 extra low end -laptops- I have one asus one with a celeron processor and 4gb of ram, and my other one is actually a windows tablet with an atom processor and 2gb of ram. gonna start with the asus but does Linux have any touch screen support? If I do this to the windows tablet I-d like to keep the touch screen feature if possible.
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Matt
My advice don't use Linux worst operating system ever windows is a lot faster and if you don't want to lose your videos pictures and music and important files get a western digital external hard drive 1 terabyte don't waste your time using linux
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My advice don't use Linux worst operating system ever windows is a lot faster and if you don't want to lose your videos pictures and music and important files get a western digital external hard drive 1 terabyte don't waste your time using linux
reply
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