Linux for Old Laptop

I was playing around with my network. Pleased to come back and see you found the charger and are making progress! :D
 
Trying to make a new stick.
The first one doesn't boot. Just sits there with a blank screen.

So here is what Rufus is saying.
upload_2018-10-13_18-15-17.png


Trying one with Win32DiskImager but it looks like it is just copying the iso to the stick...
 
Last edited:
Click yes, and when it asks 'ISO or DD', pick DD.

Not an expert here, it's just what I've been using lately.
 
So far it seems everything works.
Watching youtube with sound and video.

Is there a system checker where it can see if something needs a driver or if there is a better driver.

Pretty sweet.

I'm going to need a new battery for this lappy.
 
Did that for me too at one point. Dunno which; didn't bother me much, because it's basically Rufus installing stuff that is needed for specific distros.
 
So far it seems everything works.
Watching youtube with sound and video.

Is there a system checker where it can see if something needs a driver or if there is a better driver.

Pretty sweet.

I'm going to need a new battery for this lappy.

All drivers are included in the Kernel. Welcome to Linux.

There are a small handful of devices that have non open source drivers. Nvidia is the best known. They don't make open source GPU drivers. (the one included isn't made by them) Linux has a system called DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Management System) this allows you too hook third party (like the Nvidia GPU drivers) kernel modules (a driver) onto your existing kernel.

So your likely good to go. Outside of NV almost every other major piece of hardware will be supported by the MFGs who submit drivers to the kernel team.

If you want to know what version of the Linux kernel your system is using right now type the following command into your terminal;
uname -a
it will return something like this
Linux chadd-pc 4.18.12-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Oct 5 16:06:16 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux

4.18.12 is the latest shipping version of the kernel (4.18 is the version number the .12 is the latest patched version of 4.18) 4.19 is in testing.
4.14.74 is the current LTS (long term service) version of the kernel. (and I believe what the newest Mint is using)

With Mint most things should work fine out of the box.

If you do install chrome.... I would suggest instead installing Chromium the open source version of chrome. If you want to be able to view Netflix or other DRM laced sites install widevine. (the DRM component used by those sites). I know in manjaro its as simple as installing chromium-widevine package out of the manjaro repositories. I'm not sure if Mint has a widevine package... but I do believe chromium-widevine is in the Debian (the base distro of Ubuntu and Mint) repositories so I would think so.

If you want more info there are plenty of good articles explaining all the different HW polling commands you can use here is one;
https://www.binarytides.com/linux-commands-hardware-info/
 
:p
OK
Heading out to take the boy to see Venom.

When I get back I am wiping out this hdd and installing Mint. I'm guessing that Icon on the desktop is what I click on. :)

Does this already have a utility that will low level format the drive or do i need to run Parted Magic and do a secure erase?
 
:p
OK
Heading out to take the boy to see Venom.

When I get back I am wiping out this hdd and installing Mint. I'm guessing that Icon on the desktop is what I click on. :)

Does this already have a utility that will low level format the drive or do i need to run Parted Magic and do a secure erase?

Just click the in stall mint icon, it will step you through eveything
 
So am I being too anal in wanting the hdd to be like a new one?

the install will format the drive and partition it for you. you can either let it do it all automatically or you can choose to specify partition sizes.
 
So am I being too anal in wanting the hdd to be like a new one?

Every Linux distro includes partitioning tools. Linux does not use the same file system as windows so your entire drive will have to be re formatted which every major distro will handle for you. Most will give you options to keep windows partitions if that is what you want to do.... or go crazy and install 4 or 5 different partitions for different Linux subsystems.

For the most part... and being your first dance with Linux. Just let the distro do its thing and format the entire drive to ext4 (the standard Linux filesystem). Most distros will also create a small /swap partition. This is used by the system and you don't have to worry about it. For a few years now its possible to use swap space on the main drive and many distros use that method. (although most stick to the old tried and true /swap part).

Later once you have a better handle on Linux you can do fancier installs if you want... or you never have to go there. Up to you. Some people create a small (30-40GB) partition for the Linux operating system "/" the root system. Then create a second partition for "/home" where you will keep all your user data. The advantage of doing this is if you ever do a 100% clean re install you can leave the /home part alone and retain all your data and for the most part ALL your program configurations as software config files should all be stored in /home/username/.config

One thing to keep in mind with Linux... it doesn't name drives with silly letter assignments. Gone are C: D: E: drives ect. Everything is represented in the directory structure. You can mount different directory locations to parts. So a system with one partition... or a /home partition will look identical. Also keep that in mind when you plug in USB drives ect. (most GUI file managers make it easy to find things).... if you plug a say a USB back up drive in you will find it at /run/media/username/devicename

Every distro (accept a few rare and obscure ones) follow the same standard directory layout.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

Also if you want to get fancier with that machine you can look into setting things like zRam Cache, moving your cache system to memory. (chrome books use this system... if you have 4gb or less of system ram its worth considering)

Anyway sorry not trying to overwhelm you with stuff.... your distro will take care of partitioning and formatting, and the default file system is in general the way to go.
 
Last edited:
Alright.
I'm back from Venom. My 11 year old says it's his favorite movie ever. I say it's OK. Tom Hardy was just not believable to me as an investigative journalist. Truck driver? Yes. Construction worker? Yes. San Francisco Investigative journalist? No.

Anyhoo….

This is going to be so much freaking fun. So. Before. I stopped the backup I was doing because I couldn't wait to try it.... so finishing that now and then I am clicking the icon.
Thanks for all the info so far.

I will say that I did a lot of reading before hand and had been looking for a good candidate for this project and this intel laptop has not disappointed. With this laptop and Mint, it was literally a no brainer. The trackpad works. The wifi works. The speakers work. Easy as pie. I've used a lot of Android so some of this is familiar. I launched Chrome and logged into my Google account and bam, everything is right there. The laptop with windows is sluggish as hell. Mint is snappy and minty fresh. Now, it is a very old installation that had been updated to Win10 so... I need to see if I can recondition the battery. I suspect it will last longer with Mint. If it doesn't get better I will get a new one. This is going to be my upstairs web lappy and I want to get at least 3-4 hours out of the battery. Right now if I unplug it is telling me it has about an hour and a half on a full charge.

I will update after I install to the hdd.

;)
 
Mint is a good no brainer if your hardware supports it and it runs good. I've been liking Solus lately as well. It's all boils down to what you want and like in a distro.

I prefer FreeBSD and kde but the latest 11.2 has been a PITA for setting up a DE with an nvidia card.
 
I have found there to be two camps in Linux, one CentOS/fedora, one debian/Ubuntu. People from one camp don't typically like the other distro camp, but imo they are as good as each other, just do things differently.

Mint is in the second camp.

I like Ubuntu because apt (blah) is second nature to me, as is the folder structure, where it would be more difficult for me to adapt to the rpm/yum etc of fedora/CentOS/suse world. Not that I couldn't, just a comfort thing.

There is a third camp, the arch camp, but that is not my cup of tea at all
 
I have found there to be two camps in Linux, one CentOS/fedora, one debian/Ubuntu. People from one camp don't typically like the other distro camp, but imo they are as good as each other, just do things differently.

Mint is in the second camp.

I like Ubuntu because apt (blah) is second nature to me, as is the folder structure, where it would be more difficult for me to adapt to the rpm/yum etc of fedora/CentOS/suse world. Not that I couldn't, just a comfort thing.

There is a third camp, the arch camp, but that is not my cup of tea at all

Pretty much what it comes down to. There are a handful of outliers like Solus, Slack... but ya most of the Linux world can be divided up into DEB and RPM. Its hard to get real numbers but I would say its a pretty good bet that the majority of the server world is running RPM based RHEL Cent or SLES. However for home type desktop use most distros end up being based off of Debian. Debian was started with the idea of being as close to 100% open and free as possible... there are very few distro specific tools from Debian. Its an easy distro to use as a base for another.

Arch is actually pretty popular with developers... as the entire concept is simplicity. Which they define as "without unnecessary additions or modifications" they ship packages quickly with as little modification as possible. Its rare for the arch packagers to change anything in upstream packages. Its one reason I really love manjaro these days... they do hold packages for a bit longer then arch proper to reduce the potential for show stopping bugs, and include a few useful tools like their settings manager which allows you to easily run multiple kernels. At the end of the day things run very much as expected... and libraries tend to be very stock.

Anyway guess we are getting off the topic. Other then to say to a new user.... ya Linux isn't as "fragmented" as some people claim. Linux distros use the same core kernel follow standards like the File system hierarchy, and in general use most of the same tools and systems. And the majority of distros either use the DEB or RPM bases. Instead of having a bunch of users wanting X or Y in their OS or nothing closed, or all open. Whatever there is a project for that. Debian was founded to be a 100% open distro. RPM (red hat package manager) was developed by Red Hat 21 years ago... and is not only used in Linux but also by Novel in netware and IBM in AIX. (its one big selling feature for Red Hat). Arch (I think it can be called the third major) was founded to push simple pure as developed packages.

Mint is a good starting place, by all reports it tends to run without issue on a very large number of average consumer grade hardware no issues. Really any of the majors you feel like trying out. Linux distros are all at a point where they are for the most part pretty new user friendly. It helps that using an Intel based machine everything is really well supported by the Kernel. (its easy to hate on Intel right now... but their Linux support has always been really good)
 
I'm really loving the insight that you guys are sharing with me.

I hope that some day I will put it to good use.
As time goes by and I use it day to day, it is going to be an interesting trip to see what additional functionality I might need.
With what is working already, just with the thumb drive, if I never touched anything else, I have already accomplished my goal of a working web/email machine.
I like the way it looks. But, I'd bet that customization will be first on the list. I found the settings for sleep and power management. Surprisingly intuitive. I'm going to have fun just tweaking on that stuff.

So, I abandoned the idea of putting the ssd in this machine. This lappy is one where you have to take the keyboard out to get to the hdd and memory so I'm just going to leave it as is and use the spinner.
Bummer. I wanted the speed and battery enhancements but... I actually got as far as having the keyboard popped out but the ribbon cable latch was being a bitch so I aborted.

Just finished the backup. Long story including the aborted upgrade. Going to get some sleep and install to hdd tomorrow. Will update.
 
Linux world is quickly moving to the way of containers and packaged software. It solves the old dependency problems elegantly as every software package includes it's own dependencies (or in the case of Docker, it's entire virtual OS). I have been implementing Jelastic to our organization and that's built on Docker. You can have a base image of Alpine linux that takes only 5 Mb of hdd space and build your applications on that so that they're entirely encapsulated and run similarly well regardless of the distro you use or even if you run them on windows.
 
Use LVM with the new Linux Mint installation?

I don't think I need to encrypt...
 
Something has gone seriously wrong.

LOL

I guess the install failed?

Ima put the stick back in an try again.
 
I guess it didn't like that LVM thing.

Setting up now. Booted fine this time.

Updating.
 
Last edited:
So.
I have sound but it is thin and the volume is lacking.
This lappy has altec lansing speakers dolby blah blah blah....

It's definitely not driving them. I guess no way in hell there is going to be a way to get that working.


OK. Found a way to increase amplification. You can actually go to 150%. Still thin but louder now.
 
Last edited:
So.
I have sound but it is thin and the volume is lacking.
This lappy has altec lansing speakers dolby blah blah blah....

It's definitely not driving them. I guess no way in hell there is going to be a way to get that working.


OK. Found a way to increase amplification. You can actually go to 150%. Still thin but louder now.

Pulse effects is a good bit of software if you want all the sound toys some people like. Mint should support flatpak, likely the easiest way to install it for ubuntu based distros.

https://github.com/wwmm/pulseeffects
https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.wwmm.pulseeffects
 
Haha.
That was a test right?

So I had to find the right "package" (some non-intuitive nomenclature I will say) for Mint.
What I found was text commands. Nothing to download or anything like that. So... I copy and pasted that shit in the terminal and voila... no wait... it needs a sudo password... wtf...

Well, after I figured out how to get around that (i literally typed sudo password, and then my password into the terminal command line and voila... no wait... then it sits there with sudo password and a blinking cursor that doesnt move when you type... so I just entered my password hit enter, copypasta the "package" again and voila. I got the icon in my menu.

Then I had to figure out how to get the thing launched and configured where it could effect the sound but by golly, I did it.
I turned on the base boost, crystallizer and loudness and it definitely helped a lot.

:happy:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mikhailnov/pulseeffects -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pulseeffects pulseaudio --install-recommends

This was actually easier to figure out than a flatpack although I am reading up on those now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ChadD
like this
Haha.
That was a test right?

So I had to find the right "package" (some non-intuitive nomenclature I will say) for Mint.
What I found was text commands. Nothing to download or anything like that. So... I copy and pasted that shit in the terminal and voila... no wait... it needs a sudo password... wtf...

Well, after I figured out how to get around that (i literally typed sudo password, and then my password into the terminal command line and voila... no wait... then it sits there with sudo password and a blinking cursor that doesnt move when you type... so I just entered my password hit enter, copypasta the "package" again and voila. I got the icon in my menu.

Then I had to figure out how to get the thing launched and configured where it could effect the sound but by golly, I did it.
I turned on the base boost, crystallizer and loudness and it definitely helped a lot.

:happy:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mikhailnov/pulseeffects -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pulseeffects pulseaudio --install-recommends

The terminal isn't scary. Don't worry MS tried to dumb everyone down with GUIs for every stupid little click. You'll get used to being able to pop into the terminal and do things... for a lot of stuff its just so much faster.

sudo is a program that elevates your user account to admin. The biggest issue for windows is running on admin accounts all the time... 95% of all Windows malware and virus can be handled by simply NOT using an admin privileged account for everything.

add-apt-repository ... is a command to add additional repositories to you package manager. Linux distors use one repository to install packages (software)
adding a PPA (personal package archive) is a way to add a small repository that in general has one piece of software in it. In Debian / Ubuntu / Mint land they are used often by software developers to allow users to install software not included in the main repositories or newer versions then the distro maintainers offer.

apt update ... is just updating your package managers list of packages

Apt install .... is just what it sounds like. pulseeffects is now in your list of packages as you added a repository that points to it.

The other option was to install the flat pak version. Flatpak is a newer way to distribute Linux software that sandboxes the software and includes any and all libraries (depends) the software will need. With Linux when you hear people talk about dependencies they are talking about software libraries and frameworks that bit of software needs to work. So if your a gamer think of DirectX.... if your playing a game on windows DirectX is a dependency for that game to run. This can also be true of other libaries like Java / Python ect ect. If you install software from the command line in linux... with sudo apt install packagename, you will see your package manager will download any dependencies you may not already have. This is like a windows installer that says HEY dude you need .net you want me to get that for you. The difference is unlike windows the package manager already knows if you have it... and isn't going to run the stupid installer every time you install a new piece of software. ;)

The other advantage... is from now on when you update your system. It will also update any software you install via your package manager. So if a new version of pulse effects is released say next month... it will download the update when you do your system update.

With most distros you can install most everything you need via the GUI package manager interface or software store or whatever said distro wants to call their GUI PM. If your going to use linux for awhile though take the time to learn how to update and install stuff from the command line. The main difference with different distros will be the package manager software they use... and what type of packages they use. (mostly you don't have to worry about it) Debian based distros use APT. Other distros will use things like zypper, yum, pacman ect... they are all a bit different but the same idea. They take care of installing software, and keep track of versions dependencies ect so you don't have to.
 
Thanks man.
I appreciate all of the help.

I got past that sudo password by accident but now that makes perfect sense why it was asking. I'm going to play around with it some more so I can get the order of when it wants things to happen.
I'm guessing I should have done the sudo password first and then copy and paste the command. Bah. I can't remember exactly how it went down. I think if I had just entered my password.... the non-moving blinking cursor had me stumped for a minute and i hit enter a few times lol.. It's not going to execute gibberish so I wasn't scared.

Anyhow. Is it just me or do things look different on the web. I'm going to all of the places I usually go, setting up my bookmarks and whatnot and everything just looks... better. Placebo with new toy?? Hard to explain. Like the format is slightly different.
 
Thanks man.
I appreciate all of the help.

I got past that sudo password by accident but now that makes perfect sense why it was asking. I'm going to play around with it some more so I can get the order of when it wants things to happen.
I'm guessing I should have done the sudo password first and then copy and paste the command. Bah. I can't remember exactly how it went down. I think if I had just entered my password.... the non-moving blinking cursor had me stumped for a minute and i hit enter a few times lol.. It's not going to execute gibberish so I wasn't scared.

Anyhow. Is it just me or do things look different on the web. I'm going to all of the places I usually go, setting up my bookmarks and whatnot and everything just looks... better. Placebo with new toy?? Hard to explain. Like the format is slightly different.

With Linux you can type more then one command (program) on a line. So;
sudo apt-install
first runs sudo... then the program apt-install.

sudo allows you to run programs with the rights of a different user. The default setup to run software as a superuser. sudo was short for "superuser do" most distors by default add user accounts into groups allowed to "sudo" admin level stuff... like hardware polling / software installation ect. In general software shouldn't be running with admin rights unless it is software that effects your system.... and even Linux mostly has hooks for that software to get the info it needs without elevating itself. (a problem for windows for years has been software the requires it be run as administrator... its a very unsecure way to do things. MS has pushed hard for years to get developers to stop and have mostly got rid of that to be fair).

sudo asks for your user password.... and checks a config file located at /etc/sudoers if your user group has permission in that config file it allows your account temp admin permission.

Another way to go is to use the command
su
This command is easy to remember "switch user". it will ask for a password, the password of the user you are switching too. So if you type;
su chadd
it will ask you for the password for user chadd on that system... then your prompt will change to something like
chadd@yourcomputer:~$
If you simply type;
su
this will default to the /root admin account. When you install a distro most of their installers will ask you to create a user and admin account... some (like Mint I think) are aimed at new users and often have a check box that says "use same password" or something like that. Anyway if you type su you can switch to the root account then install software or whatever you need to do on the admin account.

PS... as a general rule sudo is the best command to use for things like installing software. I just wanted to explain that a bit to you hope it helps. As you can see if you where say setting up a kids account and you didn't want them to install software... or a companies terminal, you would set it up to not add those users to the sudoers permission file and they would be unable to mess with much. Yet if I'm say onsite at a company and I need to I can use su on pretty much anyones terminal... to switch to an account with permission.

EDIT:

In general when you see a "-i" or "-t" or whatever those are flags for the program your running. So in the example earlier where you typed "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mikhailnov/pulseeffects -y" the -y is a flag which in this case means "-y, --yes Assume yes to all queries" I just copied that out of the online apt manual. for most software you can type something like command -help ect and get a helpful list of possible flags and options you can use. If you see a "--" it in general is telling bash (the terminal) that there will be a space and variables and to not assume they are new programs. So as an example in Mangaro the distro I am using if I want to change the servers my package manager is downloading from I could use a command like;
"sudo pacman-mirrors --country Canada United_States"
This would run packman-mirrors.... and --country tells bash that Canada and Unites_States are still arguments for the program and not new programs themselves.
 
Last edited:
Anyhow. Is it just me or do things look different on the web. I'm going to all of the places I usually go, setting up my bookmarks and whatnot and everything just looks... better. Placebo with new toy?? Hard to explain. Like the format is slightly different.

It's likely the browser is using a different font than what is normally used in Windows. It's quite amazing how much difference a different font can make in how things look.
 
I'll say that I usually use Chrome with syncing, and I don't notice any difference across distros and Windows.
 
sudo is used to elevate privledges when needed, rather than have them on 24/7.

Windows implemented their version of sudo with UAC (that window that pops up when you try and install something and everyone just clicks yes on)
 
Back
Top