this post was submitted on 08 May 2024

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I just finished setting up Linux Mint for an old buddy of mine on his old dog of a laptop, rendering it useful once again! (i.imgur.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Edit 2: to everyone suggesting an SDD: i know. Look, if this guy had enough $$$ for an SSD, he could buy a used lappy less than half the age of this one that has an ssd and 2-3x the memory.

Currently, my buddy has a budget of $0, and, if he ever has money to spend, it will be on a newer computer, not upgrading this one. Thx!

My buddy’s old laptop was useless running Windows 7. I wiped it, put on Linux Mint (MATE), and it’s humming along just fine.

Edit: I really love helping people out like this. This guy is in his late 60s and has no other computer. He told me he hasn’t been able to use it in years (I believe it!), so I told him I could wipe it and make it usable again. He was thrilled!

After trying LM Cinnamon, I found it was a bit too much for this machine (Core 2 Duo “Penryn” @ 2.3GHz, 2.77GB Memory, Intel Series 4 Integrated Graphics). I reinstalled with LM MATE, and found it more responsive. I did the standard secondary installation of all the goodies like multimedia codecs, TTF support, battery tweaks, etc. I set up snapshots and the firewall, and installed UBlock Origin in Firefox. I updated everything. Shockingly, the battery still gets about 90-120 minutes, which blows my mind. The damn thing is 18 years old!

So, it’s still slow to launch stuff, as it’s running off of a slow HDD, but it manages to run most things just fine. It’s certainly far more responsive than Win7, and it enables my buddy to enjoy safe, secure, and modern web browsing (which is pretty much all he uses it for).

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[–] GonzoVeritas 76 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Helped a guy and reduced landfill waste, all in one move. Time well spent.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

no landfills here in Florida, they just burn the e-waste and pump the fumes into the local orphanariums, selling it as “Vytameens™".

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A little trick you can do if your friend experiences too much memory limitations when browsing the web is to use the 32 bit version of firefox. I use it in a machine with only 2gb, and it helped a lot.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Interesting. I’ll consider that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I've been putting together a lot of old laptops for friends and family, so here's my opinion based on my experience:

Your CPU speed is ok (that CPU scores 932 passmark points, which is ok for dekstop usage and youtube at 360p (you should set up his youtube at 360p, and to not autoplay). If this was Chrome, that cpu could do 480p, but firefox is much slower than chrome on youtube. The difference in speed is not visible on fast systems, but it is visible on very old ones (anything less than 1500 passmark points).

Your biggest problem is the RAM. You have only 2.77 GB of RAM, which is NOT enough for normal web browsing in this day and age -- if you're using lots of tabs. The moment you will open more than 2-3 tabs with heavy websites (e.g. facebook, nytimes, and linkedin), you will start swapping like crazy with Cinnamon. So your user will always have to be conscious of what apps they have open (and make sure you configure 4 GB of swap too, just in case).

Mate and XFCE should be using less RAM, indeed (about 600-800 MB instead of 1.3 GB on Cinnamon). I find XFCE more stable personally, and it only uses 100 MB more RAM than Mate on average. The only good thing Mate has over XFCE is that it comes with a user administrative gui app. I usually install that on xfce ("mate-user-admin").

[–] just_another_person 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You'd have a bigger impact by putting a modern SSD in there, even if SATA.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

AkTuALly:

In this particular instance, due to the microscopic amount of memory in the machine (even for the day, when 4GB was considered “minimum”, this lappy has… 2.77GB?), more memory would probably impact performance just as much as an SSD.

But, yeah, and SSD would increase app launch performance and other HDD-centric tasks a great deal. But more memory would allow more apps to cache in active memory and quick-launch after first-launch. This might be a better and more cost-effective “first upgrade” before going SSD.

Also, this dude is in no position to spend money on this machine, so I’m doing what I can to make the most of what he has.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I’m guessing it has 3GB of ram and 256MB is being eaten due to being shared video memory.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Oh! That’s it!

The reporting was just weird. Ok, thanks for that!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Fun fact: The machine might even have more RAM. I also had an laptop with a Core 2 Duo. The mainboard supported up to 4GB of RAM. However, the BIOS only supported 3GB (for whatever reason). Around 200MB are used for the iGPU. That left me with 2.8GB of RAM out of 4GB.

[–] Guest_User 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just playing devils advocate but a faster drive would allow better page caching even with the low ram which is probably already happening on that terribly slow HDD.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Recently did something similar and yeah it seems Mint, specially LMDE in my case, is a great fit for such cases. It's on that sweet spot between being too bare and too bloated.

[–] bigmclargehuge 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Warms my crusty heard seeing tech saved from a landfill. Good job

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

We’re in Florida, so no landfill— they’d just burn it and pump the exhaust into local orphanages, sold as “Vytameenz™”

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Any reason MATE over Xcfe? Just curious if the performance is close or MATE is better at things, not trying to question your decisions. I have a >9 year old PC at this point and installed Cinnamon on it but was finding it a bit laggy. I tried out the other editions but am sticking with LMDE for now, but sort of feel like I don't really need nice animations, I just need more CPU for faster compile times, haha

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

XFCE is so ugly and clunky, I wouldn’t ever suggest that a Linux novice ever use it. It’s fucking horrific. It’s a user interface you choose when you have no other choice and are just that desperate. Suffice to say, I wasn’t that desperate.

It was important that this user have an interface that he could navigate easily, an XFCE was not that interface, nor will it ever be.

Edit. I should note that this may be colored with some personal bias I have against XFCE. I just don’t like it and only use it when forced to. So, ya know, keep that in mind…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Then what about LXQT?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If hardware/budget allow it, you might want to throw in a cheap SSD and some more RAM. Something like 50€ could greatly improve usability.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

For 50[currencyunits], he could buy a new(er) laptop that’s less that half the age of this one, lmao

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Where are you from? Even used pcs around here are somewhat expensive

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I can find 120 GB used SSD for 5€)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

This is so cool and wholesome, thank you.

[–] piexil 3 points 6 months ago

Switch out the swap file for zram

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Silly question but what do ya'll use to get that fancy summary?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fastfetch has replaced neofetch!

But there are alternatives, namely the wonderfully queer hyfetch!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

screenfetch?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This was basically my first laptop. Thanks for this reminder

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Did the spacebar crap out on you? Of so, how did you deal with it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Fortunately, I did not have that happen before it met the wrath of 8oz of ice cold water

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Such a great project. Bringing joy to a friend and reduce e-waste at the same time. Love it. Would give away the SSD from my old Core 2 Duo based laptop (which got replaced by a used Gen4 i7 laptop from my company when they sold the devices to employees for very little money. Now they are giving them to schools for free, which is great). Sending it around half the planet is neither free nor sustainable, though. Would be cheaper to buy a new one. But maybe you find someone to help out. For me, an SSD was a great improvement for that old machine. As stated in another comment, upgrading RAM did not work in that particular case.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

We have a crazy old laptop that we used to watch movies on when I was a child. That now also runs Linux Mint really well.

I think a slim Fedora KDE would also be very fine, as Cinnamon is really quite painful to use. But they have a really nice set of user friendly minimal apps.

Nothing I would recommend to people switching from other OSes though, as its just too minimal and especially Nemo is awful. Like, no link support??

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Can it run Warframe though

Jk, well done

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Cute. what breed is this dog?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Toshiba satellite C655

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Does he know how to use Linux?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

He certainly didn’t know how to use a windows 7 computer for the 18 years he had that installed as the operating system.

Now he has a computer that he can use confidently and securely in a modern way.

And he’s very happy. I called that a win.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's awesome! Good for him. You're a good friend.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

He apologized profusely for putting me out so much for all the work I put into it. I just told him: some guys like to work on old cars as a hobby to unwind. And some people like to work on old computers.

The benefit is that, with old computers, I can take your old computer into my garage, fix it up, and then hand it back to you without feeling any obligation about doing it for free.

It’s not a fucking car.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I set up a linux laptop for my three year old. He plays Putt-Putt, Commander Keen, and Wolfenstein 3D. You're never too old to get into computing!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You’re never too Young to learn to fucking kill Nazis

[–] ToffeeIsForClosers 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Question for you guys.

How do you know which version to install relative to the hardware? Is it just trial and error?

I have some 13 year old Macs but I’m not sure which distro and version to go with and I’m not keen on spending days figuring it out.

I recall reading another post from some guy who went through like six installs with various problems. Didn’t seem encouraging.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tell me the specific model of the Mac, and I will give you a specific recommendation for the hardware

[–] ToffeeIsForClosers 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, that’s very kind of you to offer.

I’ve got quite a few older machines. I’m pretty keen to figure out the top four, at least.

Any advice on the following and/or on the method of identifying viable distros and versions in general is very appreciated.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53 GHz, Mid 2009)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009)
Mac mini Server (Mid 2010)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2013)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008)
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
Mac mini 2018

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Ok, so, for the 2008-2010 machines, depending on the memory available, you can try Linux Mint, EndeavorOS, or, maaaaaybe (on the ones with dGPUs and more memory), Pop!_OS.

For everything post-2010, Pop!_OS. Maybe Endeavor OS of you happen to like it, but I think Pop!_OS has really done a lot of work to become the new, de facto “where to start with Linux” distro after Ubuntu got enshittified (Linux Mint for older machines)— especially because popOS has a custom-spun NVidia version that is one of the few out-of-the-box distros that “just works” with NVidia cards.

Edit: after some tinkering, you may pick LM over Endeavor for the older ones, or just Endeavor for all. I’ve never used it, so I don’t know how well it will do on older hardware, but LM is great for that.

popOS, on the other hand, is great for hardware that can run it (and a lot can), so check that out. It’s my favorite, and a daily driver in my server and another machine I have, both older Macs.