Haven't used Linux in some years... Installed Linux Mint on old (SLOW) laptop... pretty impressed so far.

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I have a very old HP Laptop with a 5th Gen i5 and 4GB ram and a slow 5400RPM 500GB harddrive... I never used this laptop, partly because I rarely use any laptop but this one in Particular was so sluggish with Windows 10 that I simply would get mad and turn it off when I ever tried to use it for anything.

I was (and am still) unwilling to pay a dime on upgrading this laptop, because I dont want to... The form factor is bad (for my needs as it is 17" laptop) where I would be much happier with a 14" or so smaller laptop... in addition HP seems to have gone out of their way to make upgrading anything as much of a pain in the a** as possible anyway.
The only reason I have this dumb laptop is because a family member asked me to look at it, and then changed their mind and bought a new laptop and left it here...

Whatever backstory complete after trying to see if I just wanted to wipe this laptop and take it to goodwill or whatever, I decided out of curiosity to download Linux Mint 21 (Xfce) live image and installed it on USB key... And I was pretty surprised everything works and despite quite underwhelming specs the laptop was responsive enough to not make me want to throw it out the window....

I did have one snag after using the live environment for about 1hr and deciding it was probably the way to go. I tried the install option which kept failing stating the attempt to mount a file system had failed... I messed about with this for a little while before finding out that it was having an issue with the EFI partition that was on the drive... used GParted and nuked all the existing partitions and then the install proceeded...

I havent done much with this machine installed spotify and browsed the web mostly ... but I am pretty impressed (the install error would have likely put people with no linux experience off I would imagine). But once that was sorted, having a reasonable backup laptop or something to use if the power blacks out, (with my mobile hotspot) (SoCal Edison can suck it), from what was basically ewaste as a windows machine is pretty impressive.
 
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Algrim said:
Xfce is a nice light-weight window manager. Nice find and save!
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I am liking it, I am amazed how decent it is on this potato of a laptop. I'd definitely recomment Xfce for anyone with Potato specs on a machine they want to do something with.
 
I had this old Dell E6410 that is probably 12 years old now (sold it to a friend earlier this year). It has 8GB of Ram and a 500GB SSD and it ran fantastic with Windows 10.
Main thing to have for these older machines is at least 8GB and an SSD and they will feel like a modern PC.

This one has the Intel i5 520M processor and a 1080p screen.

IMG_2006.JPG
 
I just installed Linux Mint 20.3 on an old Dell Inspiron E1505 with 2 gigs of ram. I had an issue with trying to get a driver for the on-board WiFi card to work with zero luck. I tried everything that was suggested with no luck, so I picked up a different model from Ebay dirt cheap. Just waiting for it to arrive. I also bought some new ram and battery. I currently have it installed on a 7200 rpm spinner, but I'm waiting for my 240GB SSD to arrive and I'll reinstall Mint again.
 
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Zepher said:
I had this old Dell E6410 that is probably 12 years old now (sold it to a friend earlier this year). It has 8GB of Ram and a 500GB SSD and it ran fantastic with Windows 10.
Main thing to have for these older machines is at least 8GB and an SSD and they will feel like a modern PC.

This one has the Intel i5 520M processor and a 1080p screen.
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Edit does that Dell have a trackpoint?? NICE... also see you on linux with that thing in 2025 when window 10 support ends??

If this was that Dell absolutely I would have bought more ram and a SSD.... 14.1 and what looks like a decent keyboard / trackpad nice.. perfect. But sadly this thing is 17~ inch with the horrible keyboard and trackpad designed in hell apparently? I never wanted this laptop to start with, my mom asked me to look at it and see what I could do to make it faster, then just bought a new laptop and left this thing with me. There is no way I'm spending money on this laptop, mostly only keeping it as a spare / emergency device for time being, but it will probably go away pretty soon, as I kind of hate it. I am waiting on a 14in Thinkpad which will have 16GB and SSD and a 8th gen intel i5 that I would be more than happy to run windows on.

behold this HP in all it's sort of crap glory..
1670554076275.png
 
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Executioner said:
I just installed Linux Mint 20.3 on an old Dell Inspiron E1505 with 2 gigs of ram. I had an issue with trying to get a driver for the on-board WiFi card to work with zero luck. I tried everything that was suggested with no luck, so I picked up a different model from Ebay dirt cheap. Just waiting for it to arrive. I also bought some new ram and battery. I currently have it installed on a 7200 rpm spinner, but I'm waiting for my 240GB SSD to arrive and I'll reinstall Mint again.
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Hmm sorry other than choking on the install at 1st the HP picked up everything no issues, even my cheap little bluetooth adapter works fine... As I remember using Linux in the past, it is great right up until it isn't and something doesn't work right. But for what I wanted for the time being it is working pretty good for me.
 
Mint is exceptionally nice as an OS. Caveat is that you know a bit about linux, if you don't it's a bit of a learning curve.

Linux on the desktop is still very much a "Free costs time, linux costs what your time is worth to learn it"
 
Got it up and running with a new 240G SSD and the wifi card from ebay. Now just waiting for the ram to show up.

I've already setup 2 more old laptops for my nieces two kids who required to do homework on Chrome book. She likes these Linux laptops better than a Chrome book, and so do the 2 kids using them.
 
Executioner said:
Got it up and running with a new 240G SSD and the wifi card from ebay. Now just waiting for the ram to show up.

I've already setup 2 more old laptops for my nieces two kids who required to do homework on Chrome book. She likes these Linux laptops better than a Chrome book, and so do the 2 kids using them.
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Everyone likes the price of the Chromebooks, but the locked down nature is frustrating, imo.
 
auntjemima said:
Everyone likes the price of the Chromebooks, but the locked down nature is frustrating, imo.
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My sub $200 ASUS BR1100 (4 GB ram, 256 GB SSD) will be here today and that will converted to running Linux. Needed something mobile with hdmi output for the lcd projector.

At $200 it is not much more than a Chrome book.
 
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Zepher said:
I had this old Dell E6410 that is probably 12 years old now (sold it to a friend earlier this year). It has 8GB of Ram and a 500GB SSD and it ran fantastic with Windows 10.
Main thing to have for these older machines is at least 8GB and an SSD and they will feel like a modern PC.

This one has the Intel i5 520M processor and a 1080p screen.

View attachment 532801
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So true, for most people, if they give them a few cores an ssd and some decent amount of ram, they can't tell the difference until the games start.
 
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