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opa
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Re: Linux

by opa Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:59 pm

Finally got around to doing a full Fedora install. I'll mess with it for a few days. So far so good; however, I like the look of the fedora spins (plasma, cinnamon).
I didn't have any issues installing software yet.
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Anapan
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Re: Linux

by Anapan Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:26 am

I may have been inebriated when I weighed in on Linux. Atreyu lost his horse in a desert. I use it often, but the hardest tasks are making old hardware work. The reason I struggle is because without it, old hardware is much less useful - or recycled to a 3rd world country landfill. My hobby is making the best of old hardware, but when Linux is involved it involves old linux, modified and house-of-cards barely running. I have to now figure out how to fix it more so it does what I want. At least I have archive.org and Usenet to explain things as they were, because Google thinks I want to make my gaming computer interface with a 16-bit PCMCIA card from the early 90's.

I boot into Puppy Linux when I need to because it doesn't bite as hard. It also loads faster on old hardware and VM. I most often use it in a VM to interface with the linux filesystems of Raspberry PI storage.
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o.pwuaioc
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Re: Linux

by o.pwuaioc Tue Jul 05, 2022 8:46 pm

opa wrote:Finally got around to doing a full Fedora install. I'll mess with it for a few days. So far so good; however, I like the look of the fedora spins (plasma, cinnamon).
I didn't have any issues installing software yet.

Are you using the software center? First thing I do is remove that and any unnecessary software/stuff I don't like and install my own all via dnf. Much prefer just periodically checking for updates via a simple command than worrying about yet another gui program bloat.
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opa
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Re: Linux

by opa Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:55 am

I tend to avoid any software centers. They don't seem to be kept up to date on program versions. I just install programs myself.
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Re: Linux

by opa Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:49 pm

I liked fedora (esp. the plasma spin) but I was getting a lot of video flickering. Probably a hardware-related thing.

Back to ubuntu for the moment.

RE:puppy
Yes, puppy is awesome. I'm tempted to run it on an old Win 2000 laptop for the LOL's.

o.pwuaioc,
try ubuntu if you ever have a moment. I think you'd like it. (perhaps.... no promises... ha)
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o.pwuaioc
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Re: Linux

by o.pwuaioc Thu Jul 07, 2022 9:33 pm

opa wrote:I liked fedora (esp. the plasma spin) but I was getting a lot of video flickering. Probably a hardware-related thing.

Back to ubuntu for the moment.

RE:puppy
Yes, puppy is awesome. I'm tempted to run it on an old Win 2000 laptop for the LOL's.

o.pwuaioc,
try ubuntu if you ever have a moment. I think you'd like it. (perhaps.... no promises... ha)


I can't remember exactly when the last time I used Ubuntu was, but it was probably in 2016 or 2017. I didn't love it then, but I'm not sure what's so different about it now, if anything.

Debian was fine but lackluster, Mint is still fine, but I'unno, I'm just sold on Fedora. It's been good to me, so why leave it now?
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Re: Linux

by Jagosaurus Thu Jul 14, 2022 1:10 am

I have an aging (old... 8 years or so) spare laptop I'd like to tinker with. Is Mint still likely my best option to clear Windows & run Linux?

Also Opa, I didn't chime in but mentally bookmarked your Chromebook tips thread for another machine I have laying around:
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=53765

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Ziggy587
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Re: Linux

by Ziggy587 Thu Jul 14, 2022 6:48 am

My laptop is from 2010 (plus or minus a year) and I've been running Mint on it for a few years now with great success. Worth noting is that I run it from a spare SSD, which definitely helps with how smoothly it runs.

I have an old low-end desktop. It came with Windows 8 on it, so whatever year that might be. I repurposed it with Mint, just so I could have something on my workbench (so mainly web pages and PDFs. I didn't want to put any money into it, so it has whatever crappy mechanical HDD that came with it. Mint is tolerable, although the start up speed is lacking (but it's been a while since I've used a mechanical driver for the OS) and it sometimes chugs along when there's lots of background tasks going on. But again, it's a low-end PC, it has some sort of low-end Celeron or Pentium CPU and probably slow RAM as well.

Even though my laptop is a few years older than the desktop, it runs better with Mint. Likely due to the SSD, but also it has a Core i3 and 8 GB of RAM. The desktop CPU, although a few years newer, probably isn't as fast. Even so, it still runs tolerable on the desktop for the light tasks I want it for. So your results may vary.

I know there has always been forks of popular distros specifically targeting older hardware. I've never used any myself, but I've always been curious to. I would start with Mint, but I guess there's alternatives if you don't like the results.
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opa
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Re: Linux

by opa Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:17 am

Just for kicks I'm posting from Puppy Linux right now running from a live USB.

Jagosaurus wrote:I have an aging (old... 8 years or so) spare laptop I'd like to tinker with. Is Mint still likely my best option to clear Windows & run Linux?

Also Opa, I didn't chime in but mentally bookmarked your Chromebook tips thread for another machine I have laying around:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 49&t=53765

If you're able to load GalliumOS just be sure to have a spare USB stick as a chromebook recovery drive. If you let your chromebook battery die you have to recover the whole system and reinstall. Kind of a pain but not an unrecoverable situation.
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Jagosaurus
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Re: Linux

by Jagosaurus Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:02 pm

Thanks for the input guys.

Saving this thread. A lot of house projects going on, but will eventually get around to this.

... also intrigues me to buy a small mini PC for emulation and avoid the MS windows tax ... thread for another day ...

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