My 40th Thread...Linux Life

[aja8888]

I have an HP laptop given to me with an Intel I7 processor and a bad Windows OS. For the heck of it I just installed Mint Cinnamon on it and it's very fast. It's been years since I played around with Linux stuff.

I have been using a Chromebook for internet stuff and the thing is now 4+ years old and has a big line of dead pixels down the side of the screen. I may change out and use the HP with Mint as my lazy laptop internet machine.

 

[target2019]

Interesting how we've evolved to several devices, and apply each to a purpose, or place in the home.

Around here Chrome OS tablet is definitely giving Pixel phone a run for my attention.

 

[aja8888]

Interesting how we've evolved to several devices, and apply each to a purpose, or place in the home.

Around here Chrome OS tablet is definitely giving Pixel phone a run for my attention.

Yes, I have the Toshiba Chromebook for internet things (the one with the dead pixels), a home built desktop running Win 7 Pro and Win 10 in a separate partition, my new free laptop running Mint, and a Motorola Android cell phone.

DW has an old Dell desktop, an iPad, and a Apple 6 Plus cell phone. Her laptop has been sitting in the closet for near 10 years now.

 

[jim584672]

I picked up an old Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Dell circa 2008 for $25, put in a $20 SSD I had lying around. It runs Windows 11 with some workarounds, Manjaro Linux both run fine. For just basic web stuff you really don't need a new machine at all.

Every few years I try Arch Linux. Tried it again with the new installer. Three days later I lost sound due to a regression in a package. Long story short, I still hate Arch.

 

[target2019]

Going to try and extend the life of primary Windows 10 desktop - XPS-8700. Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s).

Not a speed demon, but noticed I'm starting my 8th year on the original 1 TB HDD. So I ordered 2 TB SSD for about $50. May go dual-boot with that, we'll see.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/seagat...rd-drive-for-desktops/6344172.p?skuId=6344172

XPS-8700 is officially stuck on Windows 10, which doesn't really bother me. I've been toying with the idea of just going new, but will try this route.

 

[jimbee]

Going to try and extend the life of primary Windows 10 desktop - XPS-8700. Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s).

Not a speed demon, but noticed I'm starting my 8th year on the original 1 TB HDD. So I ordered 2 TB SSD for about $50. May go dual-boot with that, we'll see.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/seagat...rd-drive-for-desktops/6344172.p?skuId=6344172

XPS-8700 is officially stuck on Windows 10, which doesn't really bother me. I've been toying with the idea of just going new, but will try this route.

I think that is a hard drive, not a SSD.

 

[rantk81]

Going to try and extend the life of primary Windows 10 desktop - XPS-8700. Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s).

Wow. I have nearly the same exact computer! I ordered the XPS8700 from Dell in the summer of 2015. I customized mine with 24GB of total RAM, and I've had a SSD as the boot/os drive for several years. Mine still runs great with Win 10 Pro.

 

[ERD50]

I think that is a hard drive, not a SSD.

Unless there's something about SSD's that I'm not aware of, I believe you are correct. From that link:

Rotational Speed: 7200 revolutions per minute

!

-ERD50

 

[target2019]

I think that is a hard drive, not a SSD.

Holy crap! Back to the drawing board.

 

[target2019]

Wow. I have nearly the same exact computer! I ordered the XPS8700 from Dell in the summer of 2015. I customized mine with 24GB of total RAM, and I've had a SSD as the boot/os drive for several years. Mine still runs great with Win 10 Pro.

Alrighty. Getting a 1 TB Western Digital. Comes with Acronis, so I hope that is painless.

Way back in the day I installed 4 GB in each of four slots. I'll have to comparison shop later to see if 8 GB DIMMs make sense.

 

[target2019]

Update is done, and I'm running like a millenial on Red Bull!

Side products are 2 x 2 GB HDD's, might go NAS with them.

Also seeing the future benefit of throwing a memory upgrade at this. I've been watching Task Manager for a week or so, and notice that with all apps open I'm using about 75% of built-in 16 GB.

 

[target2019]

And the upgrades keep coming. I doubled to 32 GB built-in, and Windows 10 desktop PC is running with 4 browsers, Excel, Thunderbird, and a few other lighter apps open with no problems. Memory use is 35% without any virtual memory enabled, so plenty of headroom for more apps and system gyrations.

Along the way I found that Norton 360 was a hindrance on the older i5 processor, so removed it and let Windows Defender etc. handle the additional PC security.

All together it cost $200-225 or so, and took about 4-6 hours of attention over a few days for image backup, cloning, and working inside the case to install SSD carrier and 4 sticks of memory.

The carrier I bought (Dual SSD/HDD Metal Mounting Bracket kit 2.5 to 3.5, Convert Any 2.5 inch Solid State Drive/HDD Into One 3.5 inch Drive Bay) came with two power adapters and SATA cables. Because of old hands and tired fingers, the tiny screws were the toughest part of this upgrade.

 

[Sunset]

I stick a small magnet on the screwdriver so it will hold the screws and I can then put them in the hole without dropping them.

 

[target2019]

Tweezers work well too.

 

[easysurfer]

GNOME Disks rocks for resizing partitions!

Having to resize a partition on a linux machine, I spent almost my entire day struggling trying to get that done with Gparted. Don't know if I have a blind spot with Gparted or what. After trying and trying and searching for a good example, no luck. Was almost ready to call it a night when I got to thinking there's got to be a better way.

Decided to try GNOME Disks. A few mouse clicks the resize finished in a few seconds. Easy as pie. I'm a believer!

 

[ERD50]

GNOME Disks rocks for resizing partitions!

Having to resize a partition on a linux machine, I spent almost my entire day struggling trying to get that done with Gparted. Don't know if I have a blind spot with Gparted or what. After trying and trying and searching for a good example, no luck. Was almost ready to call it a night when I got to thinking there's got to be a better way.

Decided to try GNOME Disks. A few mouse clicks the resize finished in a few seconds. Easy as pie. I'm a believer!

What a co-incidence, I was just looking into this.

IIRC, I've used Gparted to resize some partitions, it was slow, but I don't recall any problems. But if GNOME Disks worked for you, that's great.

I'm in the process of cloning my Xubuntu install. I regularly back up the data, but I'd like to be able to boot from an external clone, just in case. And to have the entire system/install backed up. I like to boot from them to test them.

The first problem though (which I think I've solved) is that a clone is a clone - it has the same UUIDs as the source. If you reboot with two drives with identical UUIDs, all sorts of confusion can happen with the system. This is a laptop, not easy to remove the source drive. But it looks like I can go into the BIOS and simply disable the internal drive, so it won't even see it at that point.

For cloning SW, I see that FOXCLONE is getting good reviews. I was attracted to one statement - it will clone a larger partition to a smaller one (assuming of course the 'used' on the source is no larger than the destination partition). For me, that was always kind of a pain with any 'dd' type cloning, my partitions are sized with lots of room to spare for the future, I really don't want to take up all that empty space on my clone.

False 'advertising', IMO! In the instructions, they say to do this, use Gparted to shrink the source partition! well, that's not FOXCLONE doing anything, it's Gparted shrinking the partition so that it is no longer larger than the destination. I don't want to shrink, then resize again after I clone, there's risk in those operations (so back up before you do it - a Catch-22!).

I have separate root and /home partitions (plus a few unused partitions that I planned to put a bare bones Xubuntu on, just to have something else to boot into for troubleshooting, or testing). Now I'm a little unsure what I all need to do on the destination drive, in terms of partitioning, so that it will boot. The instructions only seem to cover cloning the entire drive. My internal is 500GB SSD, I have a 2GB external, so I guess I'm OK anyhow, but I think it will take longer, and use 500GB of space rather than ~ 100GB actually 'used' (including 30GB of swap).

Well, I'm off to try some things. Maybe it will all be clear when I actually step through it. Wish me luck!

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

For me, Gparted looked like it "should work" but did not for me.

I didn't have a lot of partitions on that drive. I did in the past once extended a partition on a laptop using Gparted but took me a couple of days of searching and trial and error and finally somehow got Gparted (a Rubik's Cube ) to work.

Like I said, may just be a personal blind spot, but did not find Gparted intuitive.

 

[target2019]

There's a lot of assumed knowledge and experience when tools are documented. Then software evolves but the docs stay put, and become increasingly inscrutable. Add in a million youtube videos and tech site posts and you can drive yourself crazy.

I used to wonder why this tool or the next is difficult for some and easy for others. Well, some tools used to work and no longer do. But it's up to you to find the cases where they fail.

 

[Sunset]

For me, Gparted looked like it "should work" but did not for me.

I didn't have a lot of partitions on that drive. I did in the past once extended a partition on a laptop using Gparted but took me a couple of days of searching and trial and error and finally somehow got Gparted (a Rubik's Cube ) to work.

Like I said, may just be a personal blind spot, but did not find Gparted intuitive.

Each time I use Gparted, which is rare, it's like I have to learn over again.

I tell it to do a couple of things, and nothing happens, I keep forgetting to do the menu choice that says: Now do all the stuff I just told you to do...

 

[Sojourner]

Just checking in here to say that I finally made the jump into Linux world! It's been on my to-do list for a while, but I decided to take the plunge this week and install Mint (Cinnamon) on my 2014-era Dell laptop running Win10. It had been getting more and more sluggish in recent years, despite my efforts to keep it clean and "snappy". For some reason, it just felt like the right time to revive it with a fresh, clean install of Linux Mint along with a minimal set of apps for the types of stuff I need to do with it.

I've been spending many hours learning some of the basics of Linux, like command line syntax, the filesystem, the myriad of ways to install apps, configuring various aspects of the GUI, etc. It's quite different from Windows, which I've used exclusively—both personally and professionally—since the early 90s. But there are enough similarities that I feel fairly comfortable already. Looking forward to getting much more adroit at all aspect of Linux usage and sys admin over the coming months and years.

As much as I'm liking my foray into the world of Linux so far, there are a few things I'm finding a little disconcerting off the bat. Hopefully my concerns will be eased as I gain more knowledge and experience, but it's also possible that these are just things I'll have to learn to live with. Would love to hear any thoughts and opinions on the below items from you Linux veterans.

• I installed Mint 20.3, and then days later, version 21 was released. From what I've read, upgrading is a fairly straightforward process within a major release, but not recommended when going to the next major release. Many articles I've read suggest doing a fresh install every 3-4 years when moving from one major version to the next. This is definitely not a pleasant thought, compared to Windows world.
• My laptop battery seems to deplete more rapidly while running Mint than Win 10. I've read that this is a common issue among users running Linux on laptops. I was hoping for (and expecting) the opposite. Pretty disappointing.
• There don't seem to be any comprehensive guides or tutorials for learning ALL aspects of Linux Mint. Rather, I've only found piecemeal, scattered articles and blog posts that narrowly focus on individual aspects of the OS. I was certain I could find a book or online course called something like "Linux Mint Fundamentals for Windows Users" that would cover 80-90% of what I need to know for solid, day-to-day usage and sys admin of my Linux laptop. But, alas, no such luck.

 

[jim584672]

• I installed Mint 20.3, and then days later, version 21 was released. From what I've read, upgrading is a fairly straightforward process within a major release, but not recommended when going to the next major release. Many articles I've read suggest doing a fresh install every 3-4 years when moving from one major version to the next. This is definitely not a pleasant thought, compared to Windows world.
• My laptop battery seems to deplete more rapidly while running Mint than Win 10. I've read that this is a common issue among users running Linux on laptops. I was hoping for (and expecting) the opposite. Pretty disappointing.
• There don't seem to be any comprehensive guides or tutorials for learning ALL aspects of Linux Mint. Rather, I've only found piecemeal, scattered articles and blog posts that narrowly focus on individual aspects of the OS. I was certain I could find a book or online course called something like "Linux Mint Fundamentals for Windows Users" that would cover 80-90% of what I need to know for solid, day-to-day usage and sys admin of my Linux laptop. But, alas, no such luck.

On your points.

Major releases usually just update, but I found in Ubuntu that a clean install on a major update works better. One of the reasons I moved to Manjaro is it is a rolling update and it updates as needed daily so no worry about a major point release. The risk with a rolling release is it can be less stable, but I haven't found many problems with Manjaro. Arch Linux has big problems with breakages on updates since it is so fresh it isn't tested as well.

Laptops are very hardware specific and Windows can handle power management better in many cases, it really is machine specific. There may be some setting you can tweak to get more battery life.

On major guides you might want to check the public library for books. Since Mint is a Debian derivative any books on Debian, Ubuntu, or Mint will work since they are basically all the same lineage. The Unix file system is really a book on its own.

 

[Ramen]

There don't seem to be any comprehensive guides or tutorials for learning ALL aspects of Linux Mint. Rather, I've only found piecemeal, scattered articles and blog posts that narrowly focus on individual aspects of the OS. I was certain I could find a book or online course called something like "Linux Mint Fundamentals for Windows Users" that would cover 80-90% of what I need to know for solid, day-to-day usage and sys admin of my Linux laptop. But, alas, no such luck.

In my experience, this is the price of admission for using Linux. It's lean and mean and good for older machines, but it's also less user friendly compared with a mainstream OS. I have learned to deal with it, reluctantly. For a more Windows-like experience, you might try the Zorin distro.

 

[Ramen]

Question about Linux system updates.

I've been using Zorin 16.1 for a few months and have been surprised by how many updates I have to install each month. The downloads take 2 to 3 gigs of bandwidth, which is on par with monthly Windows 10 updates.

Is this normal for an Ubuntu-based distro? I thought Ubuntu updates were once or twice a year. Should I switch to Mint for less frequent updates? Granted, many of the updates are for the programs I've installed, but those seem not too large.

Since I no longer have unlimited home internet service and rely on my phone's data plan via tethering, every gigabyte counts. I'm allotted 10GB per month and am using a fourth of it just for updates.

I can upgrade the phone data plan if needed but would rather have a distro with fewer updates if that's possible.

Suggestions?

 

[Sojourner]

Laptops are very hardware specific and Windows can handle power management better in many cases, it really is machine specific. There may be some setting you can tweak to get more battery life.

Yeah, I have already installed an app called Slimbook Battery that's supposed to help with this. Not sure what effect it's having, if any, but at least it's a start.

On major guides you might want to check the public library for books. Since Mint is a Debian derivative any books on Debian, Ubuntu, or Mint will work since they are basically all the same lineage. The Unix file system is really a book on its own.

Good idea in theory, but, IME, libraries tend to have very outdated books on computers, software, technology, etc. Worth taking a quick look online, I suppose, but I'm sure I'll have better luck on Amazon finding something written within the last few years. Of course, there are some highly rated books that cover various aspects of Linux fundamentals, usually focusing on Ubuntu or RedHat, etc., but I was hoping for a recently written book that specifically talks about Mint and covers the "big stuff" fairly broadly.

 

[jim584672]

Good idea in theory, but, IME, libraries tend to have very outdated books on computers, software, technology, etc. Worth taking a quick look online, I suppose, but I'm sure I'll have better luck on Amazon finding something written within the last few years. Of course, there are some highly rated books that cover various aspects of Linux fundamentals, usually focusing on Ubuntu or RedHat, etc., but I was hoping for a recently written book that specifically talks about Mint and covers the "big stuff" fairly broadly.

Any book on Ubuntu should apply to Mint. Ubuntu has tons of books and info.