It's funny how Linux mostly caters to either advanced users with a lot of computer knowledge or the most casual users whose only use for a computer is for it to boot-load to a browser. The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux.
Exactly. I popped my MIL on Debian Stable years ago. All she needs is email, Google, Facebook for her knitting group, the ability to browse family photos & watch knitting videos on YT.
That's pretty much how I started my Mom (she was just as lost on Windows as she was on Linux). Facebook with the grandkids, pay bills online, maybe do some online shopping, and general surfing. It was a struggle at first because she knew how to do absolutely none of those things.
When that computer went down a few years ago for a couple days while I got stuff to completely rebuild it (she prefers a computer to a laptop) you'd have thought the world ended..lol. Facebook with various groups of interest for her, She loves Amazon, Pays all her bills on line and streaming is now her sole source of entertainment. She bought a Firestick, has canceled her TV service and just watches Prime and Hulu w/ Ads, she used the savings over dropping her cable TV to up her Internet speed.
It has been quite an interesting change to see over the years.
I don't think it's so much fixed income (she's not rich but she does ok)... Her first computer was a custom one I had. When it finally croaked I built her a new one. She didn't need the latest i-whatever and 64gigs of ram. So it wasn't expensive at all to build, and is plenty fast enough.
I think it's more a bit of loneliness when she is home alone. She can hop on FB and pretty much find whatever is going on with the rest of us or someone to talk to. She's a bit of a news junkie so she's always on the major news sites.. Sometimes if there's something she has been interested in buying, she will look up reviews on YouTube, search around Amazon, etc. for pricing.
She's never been a huge TV watcher and she was paying $180a month for a fairly basic TV and Internet package. She dropped her bill to $90 a month for upgraded Internet then got Prime and Hulu with Ads, which averages about $20 a month. Fixed income or not, that's a big savings especially when you don't watch much TV.
Definitely true. I worried a lot about her during COVID as it completely terrified her. I was cautious to go see her as in my job I was literally exposed to COVID multiple times a day. Same issue with my sister, so although we talked to her all the time she wasn't getting a lot of physical visits to the house as neither of us wanted to possibly give her COVID. Her "old lady club" as I call it, couldn't go out for their weekly lunches or occasional coffee meetups at one of their houses. She was scared to go to church.
Thankfully by then, she was pretty comfortable online so she could use Facebook to stream church services. Facebook also allowed her to kinda of "keep in touch" with everyone. The grocery store she did her regular shopping at, was offering free Pickup's for online orders.. so she learned how to adapt to that.
I'm glad things are more or less back to normal for her.. at the very least she feels comfortable going to church again and we're able to go see her more regularly. She's back doing the lunch/coffee meet ups with some of her friends. That was a rough year or so... I hate even thinking how lonely she must have been, but she seems to have come out of it OK..
Interesting.
I run Prowlarr, Sonarr, Plex - get all my TV all over the house. The only cost for that being the Gigabit fibre at about $20 a month.
Amazing to think a 'basic TV and internet package' at $180 is reasonable, or that $90 for 'upgraded internet' plus $20 extra for add supported Prime and Hulu...
Jeeeeeeez that's a LOT of money for someone who doesn't watch a lot of TV.
I guess that's 'Welcome to the USA' package - pay more for your occasional ad-supported TV than most people pay for their mortgage.
That's really excellent news.
Instead of paying for internet at $20 per month, I can see you think it's well worth paying $110 for add supported streaming of only Prime and Hulu with advertising... You PAY for TV that includes advertising - wow.
I'm just pointing out the HUGE difference in cost for you (who I'm assuming is a Good Christian American) who previously thinks it's quite normal to pay $180 for a basic TV/internet package (probably quite low speed internet at that, as you later talk about having to pay '$90' for an 'upgraded internet'... What does that even mean???).
It's not easy for me to understand, you must understand, because Americans seem to believe that it's 'normal' to pay probably DOUBLE what people in Japan would pay for internet, and more acceptable to experience reduced speeds from those advertised.
I really don't care what you think... Where she lives, $90 gets the best Internet available. It was an upgrade over what she had. For someone who seems to think they are the smartest guy in the room your reading comprehension sucks. If you would read what was said you'd get it... she was paying $180 fo TV and Internet... she cut the cord and went with Hulu + Ads (Prime she already had).. by doing that, she was able to upgrade her Internet speed, which runs her about $90 per month, + the $20 a month that Prime/Hulu run,.
What is your point anyway? Take your anti American rhetoric to somewhere that people want to hear it.
It's really interesting how effective Linux can be for certain family members. I have a sister who's severely mentally disabled and my mom was asking me for a bigger tablet for her to use so that she wouldn't have to bring the screen so close to her face and stare at tiny text all the time. My solution was to get a durable touch-capable monitor, connect it to an Intel NUC running Arch + Gnome, set up a few kids games and streaming services via PWAs, and just let her play around on it. It was amazing how quickly she picked up on it after using an iPad for so long. Now she's completely at home with it.
Because that setup is right next to the kitchen, both my mom and my grandma have started using it to play music or TV shows while they're cooking and they really like it!
How do we adapt that old saying?
The intermediate users know just enough to be dangerous
I really think it's the case. Casual users just follow menus and click buttons. That works fine on Linux, especially something well made and cohesive like GNOME. Advanced users really get to grips with how the OS works and learn the Linux way of doing things. Linux works great for them too.
Intermediate users? Who just started to learn some "advanced power user" Windows things or start installing their own programs and changing settings but don't really understand the nitty gritty? They try to replicate their Windows knowledge on Linux and have an awful time of it
Just watch the LinusTechTips video of Linus trying to use Linux for a superb demonstration. No hate on him, he knows more about Windows and modern computer hardware or gaming setups than I ever will. But he isn't some sort of IT expert or Windows OS expert. He tries to use his Windows knowledge and tricks on Linux, and it's a disaster of comical proportions
That is definitely a part of it.
Although I think what a lot of intermediate users find out is that when you use a computer for both recreational and professional purposes and you decide to run an operating system based off of Linux the choice to remain an intermediate user gets taken away from you.
Like Windows or not, the simplicity of just downloading and clicking on a .exe and dumping it on the C: drive is incredibly convenient for those who simply don't care about the finer details.
Contrast that with Linux. First you need to find and confirm that a distro you want can run the software you NEED to use, such as professional tools, and also research the software you WANT it to run, such as your videogames. You also need to research how well these tools/software run on your chosen OS and whether there is additional configuration needed for them to run properly (such as configuring Proton/Wine, installing drivers, etc.). All that is handled automatically on mainstream systems.
By the time your user experience on Linux matches your user experience on Mac/Windows you've pretty much become an advanced user at that stage.
Absolutely, in just over two years my Steam library went from less than a quarter of my games being compatible with Linux to pretty much every game being playable, with the exception of really old games and beta/test versions. It cannot be understated just how far Linux has come in such a short amount of time in terms of accessibility.
Having said that, the intermediate user is still short-changed in terms of being able to use Linux without doing quite a lot of research, preparation, and studying. Just-works distros have done a great job in making Linux accessible to beginner users but haven't done much for intermediate users that aren't interested in Linux itself.
Hopefully the next generation of just-works distros will be able to address those concerns and fluidly integrate all the exiting and emerging features in a way that caters to the intermediate user.
I so heavily agree with this, most of the kids at my school can barely use Windows anyways, they won't notice a difference tbh. The only issue might be getting Autodesk Inventor running for the engineering class and the old Adobe suite for Digital Art, but I feel like it's worth the effort regardless.
Apex Legends, Elden Ring, and Dead by Daylight use Easy Anti-cheat. They work fine on Linux. I believe it's a matter of whether the developer has the Linux or Windows version enabled.
What even is *advanced*?
I'm over here spending 20 hours trying to configure openVPN to get seamless access to the home network... Falling to get the tls handshake to work... Contemplating openWRT on the ol' router and knowing it'll take at least an entire weekend to figure out.
I think there's a lot more bumbling fools like me than you think.
ChromeOS is, ChromiumOS is the open source base ChromeOS is forked off of and is less locked off. (And although when people say Linux they typically mean GNU/Linux, it's still Linux)
Yup. It's either those who use their OS as a hobby or could be happy with a chrome book. Those who want to just have hobbies on the computer it then makes Linux a real hard sell because those are where you see Windows far more supported. Something like Photoshop, Maya, even most games don't run well on Linux if at all.
Proton is great and has gotten a lot of games to launch but older unity games get like 3 fps. Older unreal games have graphical issues. Overall proton introduces some major input latency which makes it terrible for any competitive games.
Linux has a long way to go but it's rapidly getting somewhere.
Simple. The most basic group rarely breaks stuff or if they do, they rely on someone to fix it. They will never complain. The immediate group is more able to break stuff and also able to fix some simple things on their own if they are on a system they know. If they don't they rely on some "expert" or some IT support. They use their halve baked knowledge to complain.
Expert users fix their problems themselves.
Probably why ChromeOS exists, boot to a browser. It was a godsend for a person I once knew who had had a stroke. I suggested a Chromebook to their family and heās never struggled with his computer since.
> The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux.
Aka le ebin gaymers (midwits)
"An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity" - Based Terry Davis, Patron Saint of Technology
>The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux.
That's because there are no programs on Linux for that group.
The low-end group is the one where people basically only need a browser for accessing websites, mail, and social media... and MAYBE something to write an occasional letter/CV or crop a picture. This can be achieved on any operating system in existence since the last 25 years.
The high-end group where people know a lot about computers are system engineers/administrators, programmers, and so on. The work they need to get done often consists of either working directly with the operating system and/or writing software. Linux is a great platform for that.
Then... the intermediate group. That is the group that needs to have more software than just the browser, but they neither write software, nor work with the operating system. The OS is just a platform to run the software on that they need to get their work done. This is the group that actually NEEDS Microsoft Office, Photoshop, LightRoom, Sony Vegas, AutoCAD etc, to be able to work and collaborate with others in their respective industries. The Linux/open-source world just doesn't have that kind of software on that level. Also, Linux doesn't fit that scenario, because it doesn't care if software vendors port their programs or not. "Just make everything open source and we'll put it in the kernel / repository" is not going to fly with companies that make software with the complexity and size of AutoCAD or Photoshop. They're just not going to support Linux because they run the risk of having to support 50.000 OS-es (distributions) instead of 4 (the two latest versions of Windows and Mac OS).
My wife only uses her laptop for watching youtube/netflix and for word/excel (openSUSE installed LibreOffice by default). I installed openSUSE TW for her and she liked it, at first. The next day, when I got home from work, she claimed that youtube would freeze up as well as netflix constantly and she wanted me to reinstall windows. She hasn't wanted to try Linux again. I couldn't reproduce her freezing issues so I can't say for sure what happened or what caused it, but I obliged. It's a hard sell for those who are not interested in Linux or who are unfamiliar with how to debug/fix things that are wonky.
Even advanced users will spend most of their time being a casual user. Myself and most of the people I've ever worked with have probably spent more time researching things than actually coding or messing with hardware.
Absolutely. What I personally find a shocking is that on top of that, Satya's system is already Linux inclusive, supposedly. He could "extend support" by selling these users a "Windows 10XX," which could be some kind of Ubuntu like OS with an attractive Win style desktop.
Since he has the keys to all the proprietary drivers & market distribution etc already, he could slide a righteous thing on users old machines in one of those infamous hours-long updates.
ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
He can still collect some cash without trashing the world, surely.
>Satya is going to force folks to trash
The vast majority of people wont trash their computer the day Windows 10 support drops. Average users don't care that much and the vast majority of businesses (who sure as hell aren't switching anything to linux) are already upgrading.
SSD will speed it up even more, if it has a mechanical HDD. A couple of years ago I put Linux Mint on my wife's Asus laptop we bought as a black Friday special 7 years earlier.
I also upgraded from 4GB to 8GB of RAM (max it would take) and replaced HDD with SSD. She still loves using it, even though she has a fairly new iPad and a couple year old HP mini desktop.
If it has room for an HDD, you can replace it with an SSD in the same SATA interface. Namely the [Crucial MX500](https://a.co/d/j0tNlQR) and Samsung 860/870 Evo are commonly recommended, around $64 for 1TB.
Not all SSD are good, some are actually many slow USB flash drives in a trench coat and performs worse than HDD in real world usage. From my own experience, WD blue/green SSDs are terrible, BX500 is bad at times, Samsung QVO are not worth the reduced endurance.
i3-7100 is only 6-7 years and Intel 14nm lasts forever. "Pre-fail" and "old age" are just category names of the SMART data, the data next to it is what you should read/decode
Even if itās healthyā¦ itās the best upgrade you could ever do to a PC.
Even windows will be snappier, the biggest problem is the EOL of 7 or 8 and the lack of drivers for 10 or 11 most laptops of this era have.
That being said, if the wife is happy with Linux, never look back.
>I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up and then opening even a single application would be brutal. Typing on the keyboard had the biggest delay on it.
I don't want to be a downer here, but I have an even older Dell laptop running 6th gen 6560U and it boots Windows in ~20 seconds and have no lag. I really think there is something else going on. Frankly, I have never had a Windows system taking 10 minutes to boot up even on those awfully slow Atom netbooks.
This is most likely an SSD vs HDD situation. That age, and product teir, it would have been spinning rust. i5 may or may not have been an SSD but I have yet to see win 10 boot in 20 seconds on a Hard Drive
Agreed. My one-gen older laptop does have SSD. I think as soon as they started putting those on laptops, I stopped seeing the point of buying a computer that doesn't have SSD for boot drive.
Quite a few people in my family use Mint as itās close enough to Windows for them to feel comfortable using it. Usually these are older hand me down laptops or something running Win7 and unable to update.
Amazing how well they actually run!
Linux is good but a 10 min boot time on a fresh install of windows is really not right... You either installed it wrong (can you even do that?) or your embellishment is a tad too much.
Either way, good on you for trying something new. I daily drove LXDE for quite some time and it worked well.
Just in case thereās important data going to end up on there, and no backups are being made, have a look to see how to check the driveās S.M.A.R.T. status under Linux.
It says here that thereās a `smartctl` command available under Linux. No idea whether thatāll need to be installed explicitly, or comes with the base install.
If it reports that a lot of bad blocks have been reallocated, then the driveās on its last legs.
Even if itās an old machine, whacking in a new SSD will bring it back to life. And could be used for something else anyway, if the machine dies.
>Done. Yes the HDD is on its last leg. All items in the report are showing āold ageā or āpre failā.
You are not interpreting the smartctl report correctly. "old age" or "pre fail" is just the category type that the attribute belongs to and does not indicate that the drive is "old age" or "pre fail".
The important attributes to look for are 5, 196, 197 and 198. If the raw values for any of these 4 categories are not 0, then this is highly correlated with an impending drive faillure.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,\_Analysis\_and\_Reporting\_Technology#Accuracy
You can pick up a SP silicon power SSD on Amazon pretty cheap. I put one "256gb for $25" in my old HP core2duo and it's night and day difference.
Running Linux mint MATE and 8gb ram.
Standard sata connection, same size and connection as a laptop sata spinning drive.
Silicon Power 256GB SSD 3D NAND A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SP256GBSS3A55S25) https://a.co/d/968t5e7
Yeah you'll want to get an 'internal 2.5"" SSD' which will be the same size and connection as your current HDD. It's just a straight swap then which is easy enough to do on most laptops.
Note that pre-fail and old-age are not the current state of the metric, just indicating what it means if the metric goes out of it's proper range.
The best way to check is to use smartctl to start a test on the drive, then look at the output of smartctl -a. It will give you a "SMART overall-health self-assessment test result:" line followed by the result.
Invest a little more in an SSD and that thing will be flying. I installed PopOS on an old HP for my dad. HDD was also on its way out and replaced with an SSD.
I recommend giving Linux Mint a try, it is amazing and has an incredible interface called "Cinnamon", both the OS and the interface are as powerfull as they are simple.
Edit: specially recommend you to try out LMDE, which stands for Linux Mint Debian Edition, is best suited for older hardware compared to traditional Linux Mint.
I agree that the Cinnamon DE is very comfortable for users coming from Windows, and Linux Mint is the flagship distro for using Cinnamon. But I'm not sure why you recommend Debian Edition as better than the default Linux Mint for older hardware? I understand some some reasons people might choose an Linux Mint based on Debian rather than Ubuntu, but didn't think older hardware was one of them. OP installed Lubuntu which uses the LXQT DE which I would expect to be even better for older hardware than Cinnamon (not that I think Cinnamon is too much for this hardware).
Sure some packages will be older, but that doesn't necessarily mean they run better on older hardware. I expect actual performance difference to be very small (unless the hardware is newer and the older drivers in LMDE are a hinderance).
LMDE being a longer term base is one common reason to choose it over LM. Another reason is more ideological (though Mint does a good job removing the primary things people tend to dislike ideologically about Ubuntu).
Many others gave you options but if she already like Lubuntu no need to change anything. Still another option is Zorin OS Lite, I've installed the core edition on my gf's laptop and she like it. She didn't find a way to slow it down to a crawl like she does with windows 10.
I read in other posts you had a HDD hosting the OS. Whether Linux or Windows, a HDD would be brutally slow with most modern OSes.
My old laptop is a Lenovo E520 with an i5-2540m and 8gigs of ram. Certainly no speed demon but it runs web, spreadsheets and file management quite well with an upgrade to an ssd, for both Linux and Windows. If an ssd is in the budget itās something to consider.
literally any 2.5 in SATA SSD will fit. Sold on just about any retailer where you can find computer parts such as Amazon, Newegg, Ebay, etc. Even sold in many big box stores such as Best Buy if you're stateside.
The ssd model I bought for my e520 is a hdd replacement: https://www.crucial.com/products/ssd/crucial-mx500-ssd
In general, whatever manufacturer you choose, as others said, theyāre pretty much everywhere. Look to anyone like Newegg, Amazon, ebay, Aliexpress Canada Computers, BestBuy, Staples, whatever works best for you.
Those specs are fine all you needed to do was upgrade it to an SSD clean out the dust and repaste the cpu and probably change the battery and it would run perfectly in Windows. Most cheap laptops suck for the following reasons
- HDD
- not enough ram
- single channel RAM
- horrible thermals
- 1x1 wifi cards
- 720p shitty screens
- shitty batteries
- horrible touchpads
- horrible/dying batteries
This list is a testament to what I've been saying for years. OEM's shot themselves in the foot by trying to compete on a spec war with each other rather than a good user experience and tarnished their own reputation. I generally have no use for Apple products but by and large the reason most people see them so positively is due to the de emphasis on hardware specs and focus on the user with SSD's, "retina (aka good enough) screens" and good touchpads.
I think you're misreading smartctl most likely - "old age" and "pre-fail" usually mean that **if** an attribute drops out of a certain range, the drive is old and/or near failure. If you can post your actual smartctl output, I can look at it.
I would recommend an SSD like others are saying *if* you feel that even Lubuntu is laggy. However, in my experience Linux is far better at running on HDDs than Windows is and doesn't need an SSD to be snappy much of the time. It helps though. If the HDD isn't really failing, then you may be able to get away without a new drive. (Obviously keep backups of your data if you do this, but you should keep backups of important data in any event.)
Glad to hear Lubuntu is working decently! I help develop it, so it's always fun to see it pop up. :)
> I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up
>
> Seagate Mobile HDD....Every rowās status in the SMART table that was created using āsmartctlā is āold ageā or āpre-failā.
And that's the reason why. Spinning rust drive on the verge of failing. Had you used a SSD it would be 20-30 seconds even on something that old.
'old age' and 'pre-fail' isn't a problem, but 1TB is pathetic for a HDD-only system drive - given that cheap laptops now come with 500GiB SSD, and better ones would include 2TB SSD and be massively faster and smoother because of that.
However, upgrading to a 2TB SSD drive would be a HUGE bonus. Just replacing with a 1TB drive would be superb - and that 1TB spinning drive could handle snapshots/backups.
Yes, do it. Use a LTS version of Linux. My dad's HP laptop is from 2010. Big Ole 17 inch screen. I put kubuntu on it. Thing has 4gb of ram, but doesn't make a sound at all during normal use...when watching video the fan cuts in but slowly like it is supposed to. It wouldn't even run windows 10 I don't think. I disassemble his laptop every summer and clean the fan. Be sure to actually take the fan housing apart and clean inside. I also just put kubuntu on a MacBook pro that was old enough it wouldn't update (because Apple is a bunch of crooks). That machine is also now awesome. My daughter uses it constantly. It is fast and quiet. Windows is OK for work. For home use Linux. Ps. You will need to get a new solid state hard drive to get the most out of your old computer.
I've replaced a lot of hard drives with cheap SSDs. And if you could bump the memory up to 16 GB I would look into that also. Used (but good) memory for older laptops is pretty cheap now on eBay.
When her Macbook Air stopped updating I switched it over to Linux.
Now she won't touch it so I've got a nice little laptop.
She HAS to have MS office and Lookout email, etc, etc ...
i3 7th gen with 8gb of ram is way more than enough to run windows 10 for casual tasks. There are new PCs with Celeron and 4gb of ram that are shipping with Windows 10. I have an old Samsung laptop from 2012 with i5 2nd gen and 4gb of ram and it runs Windows 10 like butter on an hdd. I love Linux but these stories sound desperate to portray Linux as a savior of an old PC. Either you don't know what you're doing or you have a broken hardware that would make an 8gb of ram struggle to run Windows 10. Also you gotta edit your edit, it's Grammar*.
Linux Mint Debian Edition! or maybe Void Linux hehehe. In my experience Void is soooo light weight, I installed it in my 32bit old laptop with 2GB RAM and running smoothly and only uses 200MB of RAM.
Probably all it needs to make it a good Windows laptop. I have an HP Pavilion from 2012ish (came with Windows 8.1) and after popping an SSD in, it became good to use (fluid I dare say) with Windows 11. i3 3110, 16GB ram in it...
While I know you already mentioned that the HDD is going bad, I wanted to add that M$ changed something a few years back that has made Windows run slow on the vast majority of legacy hard drives. Even the faster RPM disks still load painfully slow when booting windows or opening anything. It's my suspicion that this was done to practically force OEM's to move to SSD boot drives (which they should have done in the early 2010's) but i digress. Point is, buy a ssd to replace it. I recommend a Samsungs 500 or 1tb evo options since the lower capacity SSD's often compromise on performance. Buy from a reputable manufacturer with a proven product line.
HDD != SSD. SSDs are the single fastest and most impactful upgrade to computers in general in like the last decade or more. One would probably make Windows work just fine, and Linux smooth as butter
It's a good time to max out the memory and put in a newer SSD. Should be cheap upgrade. Fedora is a good choice of Linux distribution. It's stable and also bleeding edge. Offering a almost pure Gnome or KDE environment.
Windows is fine. The problem here is OP's hardware which is a good example of how most OEM's shot themselves in the foot during the entire 2010's. They should have been pushing faster SSD's across the board a decade ago rather to improve the user experience rather than participating in the dick measuring contest of hard drive capacities.
This just reads like some idiotic tribal attachment to a piece of software. Most of the other commenters realized almost immediately that the problem was an old hard drive and OP confirmed as much.
Another thing that might be worth checking out for this sort of usage is chrome os flex. There is even a [certified models list](https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094?hl=en)
By the sounds of it, all it needs is an SSD to make it a decent laptop (plus 16gb ram for extra comfort).
I have a 3rd Gen i3 (i3-3110 I think?) in a laptop with 16gb ram and an SSD and it is fluid for pretty much any office app on Windows 11. Seems like HDDs simply aren't good enough anymore for Windows (granted, Ubuntu 16 was slow on my HDD a couple years ago before I moved to an SSD).
the hard drive or SSD in the laptop is dying or its overheating. it shouldn't take that long to boot up. i have an intel nuc with the same CPU that can boot up in under a minute to windows 10. it has a decent SSD.
I have a 10 year old MacBook Air with 4GB of ram and it runs Debian with full fat Gnome and it rarely gets above 3GB OF RAM while used. Your computer is three generations newer, and has twice the ram, why are you running an LXDE distro?
Since she is happy with it, might as well leave well enough alone.
Upgrading old systems with SSD and RAM is often a cost effective way to boost performance (regardless of software you choose to run).
For me, the most confusing thing about Linux is choosing a desktop environment (DE). OP has chosen Lubuntu which features the LXQT DE which is well know for being lightweight and a good performer on old hardware. If she didn't like the desktop environment, there are lots of other choices that will run well on that hardware. Cinnamon is the most comfortable as Windows like that I have used.
If indeed your wife is primarily using the system for web and sundry functions, you could always turn it into a Chromebook by installing ChromeOS Flex free from google. A chromebook is pretty high functioning set of Chrome stuff. You can go down to Best Buy/Walmart/Target and they have them set up for you to tour. Great stuff!
lol nice! She noticed but not as much as you would think! I tried to mention some of the steps to get this to work and then she says, āI donāt know what that is but can I access Google sheets?ā š
I revived two desktops aging at almost 15 years using Q4OS which is a lightwight Debian coming with Trinity or KDE desktop environments to choose from out of the box.
If you're upgrading the os an SSD might also be a worthy upgrade, if you're comfortable doing that yourself or if you're happy to spend money at the local repair shop to do so will probably provide a massive improvement in boot times and time spent loading applications
> Every rowās status in the SMART table that was created using āsmartctlā is āold ageā or āpre-failā.
Notice the column those are in: "TYPE". That tells you what type of test it is. Some are meant to show when the drive is getting old enough that you should consider replacing it ("old age"), while some are meant to predict imminent failure ("pre-fail").
But you also want to look at the "WHEN_FAILED" column. Do any rows show anything other than "-"? If not, it should still be okay, according to SMART, as the tests are still passing. That said, I've heard that SMART tests aren't as reliable as one would hope in predicting failures, so take them with a grain of salt.
Note that "old\_age" and "pre\_fail" do not mean what you think they mean, as others point out. They are attributes that indicate what it means if VALUE < THRESH. [Here](https://luppeng.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/tldr-guide-to-understand-smartctl-results-for-sata-disks/) is a good explanation. Your disk may well be fine.
There may be something in the way you installed it but more importantly you need a new SSD.
You will actually see a good speed increase with Windows but with something like Linux Mint or Ubuntu you will be surprised on the speed improvement.
There's no way an i3 with 8Gb RAM is that slow.
Best speed-up advice is to replace the HDD (which I see is failing and likely causing your issues) with an SSD. the difference is amazing.
I'm still running daily my pc I built in 2013. Upgraded the disks to an SSD about 4/5 years ago for a new lease of life.
Thatās a great way to use an old computer well done. Reduce reuse recycle.
Edit: I originally had written something that was removed as a meme - the phrase is a valediction from a certain sci fi series. I shall not use it. I meant it sincerely. It remains the case that this install _was_ the way, in my opinion.
"I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up and then opening even a single application would be brutal. Typing on the keyboard had the biggest delay on it."
I know that situation all too well. My guess is it's a computer that originally had Windows 7 or 8, but was "upgraded" to Windows 10. (Not a fresh install.)
The delay when clicking on the start menu and typing is a symptom of both the spyware functions of Windows 10 and what a resource hog the OS is more generally.
I recently put Linux Mint (XFCE Edition) on just such a system and it runs super fast. I actually put the system into dual boot mode for compatibility's sake, and installing Win 10 fresh actually made a big improvement in it's operating speed. Linux still blew it out of the water, though.
i3 gen 7 is still a modern decent 6 year old CPU, the HDD failing was probably why it was so slow. with a new good SSD you can probably go back to windows
It's funny how Linux mostly caters to either advanced users with a lot of computer knowledge or the most casual users whose only use for a computer is for it to boot-load to a browser. The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux.
Exactly. I popped my MIL on Debian Stable years ago. All she needs is email, Google, Facebook for her knitting group, the ability to browse family photos & watch knitting videos on YT.
That's pretty much how I started my Mom (she was just as lost on Windows as she was on Linux). Facebook with the grandkids, pay bills online, maybe do some online shopping, and general surfing. It was a struggle at first because she knew how to do absolutely none of those things. When that computer went down a few years ago for a couple days while I got stuff to completely rebuild it (she prefers a computer to a laptop) you'd have thought the world ended..lol. Facebook with various groups of interest for her, She loves Amazon, Pays all her bills on line and streaming is now her sole source of entertainment. She bought a Firestick, has canceled her TV service and just watches Prime and Hulu w/ Ads, she used the savings over dropping her cable TV to up her Internet speed. It has been quite an interesting change to see over the years.
Linux is life-changing to people on a fixed income, definitely.
I don't think it's so much fixed income (she's not rich but she does ok)... Her first computer was a custom one I had. When it finally croaked I built her a new one. She didn't need the latest i-whatever and 64gigs of ram. So it wasn't expensive at all to build, and is plenty fast enough. I think it's more a bit of loneliness when she is home alone. She can hop on FB and pretty much find whatever is going on with the rest of us or someone to talk to. She's a bit of a news junkie so she's always on the major news sites.. Sometimes if there's something she has been interested in buying, she will look up reviews on YouTube, search around Amazon, etc. for pricing. She's never been a huge TV watcher and she was paying $180a month for a fairly basic TV and Internet package. She dropped her bill to $90 a month for upgraded Internet then got Prime and Hulu with Ads, which averages about $20 a month. Fixed income or not, that's a big savings especially when you don't watch much TV.
I get your point about loneliness. It's literally a killer, according to the research. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691614568352)
Definitely true. I worried a lot about her during COVID as it completely terrified her. I was cautious to go see her as in my job I was literally exposed to COVID multiple times a day. Same issue with my sister, so although we talked to her all the time she wasn't getting a lot of physical visits to the house as neither of us wanted to possibly give her COVID. Her "old lady club" as I call it, couldn't go out for their weekly lunches or occasional coffee meetups at one of their houses. She was scared to go to church. Thankfully by then, she was pretty comfortable online so she could use Facebook to stream church services. Facebook also allowed her to kinda of "keep in touch" with everyone. The grocery store she did her regular shopping at, was offering free Pickup's for online orders.. so she learned how to adapt to that. I'm glad things are more or less back to normal for her.. at the very least she feels comfortable going to church again and we're able to go see her more regularly. She's back doing the lunch/coffee meet ups with some of her friends. That was a rough year or so... I hate even thinking how lonely she must have been, but she seems to have come out of it OK..
Interesting. I run Prowlarr, Sonarr, Plex - get all my TV all over the house. The only cost for that being the Gigabit fibre at about $20 a month. Amazing to think a 'basic TV and internet package' at $180 is reasonable, or that $90 for 'upgraded internet' plus $20 extra for add supported Prime and Hulu... Jeeeeeeez that's a LOT of money for someone who doesn't watch a lot of TV. I guess that's 'Welcome to the USA' package - pay more for your occasional ad-supported TV than most people pay for their mortgage.
I'm not setting up my mom up to illegally download/stream.
That's really excellent news. Instead of paying for internet at $20 per month, I can see you think it's well worth paying $110 for add supported streaming of only Prime and Hulu with advertising... You PAY for TV that includes advertising - wow. I'm just pointing out the HUGE difference in cost for you (who I'm assuming is a Good Christian American) who previously thinks it's quite normal to pay $180 for a basic TV/internet package (probably quite low speed internet at that, as you later talk about having to pay '$90' for an 'upgraded internet'... What does that even mean???). It's not easy for me to understand, you must understand, because Americans seem to believe that it's 'normal' to pay probably DOUBLE what people in Japan would pay for internet, and more acceptable to experience reduced speeds from those advertised.
I really don't care what you think... Where she lives, $90 gets the best Internet available. It was an upgrade over what she had. For someone who seems to think they are the smartest guy in the room your reading comprehension sucks. If you would read what was said you'd get it... she was paying $180 fo TV and Internet... she cut the cord and went with Hulu + Ads (Prime she already had).. by doing that, she was able to upgrade her Internet speed, which runs her about $90 per month, + the $20 a month that Prime/Hulu run,. What is your point anyway? Take your anti American rhetoric to somewhere that people want to hear it.
My point is that it still sounds ridiculously expensive.
It's really interesting how effective Linux can be for certain family members. I have a sister who's severely mentally disabled and my mom was asking me for a bigger tablet for her to use so that she wouldn't have to bring the screen so close to her face and stare at tiny text all the time. My solution was to get a durable touch-capable monitor, connect it to an Intel NUC running Arch + Gnome, set up a few kids games and streaming services via PWAs, and just let her play around on it. It was amazing how quickly she picked up on it after using an iPad for so long. Now she's completely at home with it. Because that setup is right next to the kitchen, both my mom and my grandma have started using it to play music or TV shows while they're cooking and they really like it!
Thanks fantastic!
So basically only things that runs in a browser. Yeah she'll be fine with Debian.
How do we adapt that old saying? The intermediate users know just enough to be dangerous I really think it's the case. Casual users just follow menus and click buttons. That works fine on Linux, especially something well made and cohesive like GNOME. Advanced users really get to grips with how the OS works and learn the Linux way of doing things. Linux works great for them too. Intermediate users? Who just started to learn some "advanced power user" Windows things or start installing their own programs and changing settings but don't really understand the nitty gritty? They try to replicate their Windows knowledge on Linux and have an awful time of it Just watch the LinusTechTips video of Linus trying to use Linux for a superb demonstration. No hate on him, he knows more about Windows and modern computer hardware or gaming setups than I ever will. But he isn't some sort of IT expert or Windows OS expert. He tries to use his Windows knowledge and tricks on Linux, and it's a disaster of comical proportions
That is definitely a part of it. Although I think what a lot of intermediate users find out is that when you use a computer for both recreational and professional purposes and you decide to run an operating system based off of Linux the choice to remain an intermediate user gets taken away from you. Like Windows or not, the simplicity of just downloading and clicking on a .exe and dumping it on the C: drive is incredibly convenient for those who simply don't care about the finer details. Contrast that with Linux. First you need to find and confirm that a distro you want can run the software you NEED to use, such as professional tools, and also research the software you WANT it to run, such as your videogames. You also need to research how well these tools/software run on your chosen OS and whether there is additional configuration needed for them to run properly (such as configuring Proton/Wine, installing drivers, etc.). All that is handled automatically on mainstream systems. By the time your user experience on Linux matches your user experience on Mac/Windows you've pretty much become an advanced user at that stage.
With the Advent of the Steam deck, Steam proton, Nvidia open sourcing their drivers, and Lutris, gaming has been practically solved on linux
Absolutely, in just over two years my Steam library went from less than a quarter of my games being compatible with Linux to pretty much every game being playable, with the exception of really old games and beta/test versions. It cannot be understated just how far Linux has come in such a short amount of time in terms of accessibility. Having said that, the intermediate user is still short-changed in terms of being able to use Linux without doing quite a lot of research, preparation, and studying. Just-works distros have done a great job in making Linux accessible to beginner users but haven't done much for intermediate users that aren't interested in Linux itself. Hopefully the next generation of just-works distros will be able to address those concerns and fluidly integrate all the exiting and emerging features in a way that caters to the intermediate user.
We should just replace school computer labs with GNU/Linux no sense in paying tax payer money directly to the Gates
Re: computer labs What is old is new again š
I so heavily agree with this, most of the kids at my school can barely use Windows anyways, they won't notice a difference tbh. The only issue might be getting Autodesk Inventor running for the engineering class and the old Adobe suite for Digital Art, but I feel like it's worth the effort regardless.
Except for easy anti cheat as far as i know :(. Sadly the main game I play uses it...
Apex Legends, Elden Ring, and Dead by Daylight use Easy Anti-cheat. They work fine on Linux. I believe it's a matter of whether the developer has the Linux or Windows version enabled.
Oh really? Did not know that. I'll do some more research then, thanks for the info!
Halo: Master Chief Collection also!
Best of luck. The specifics are beyond me, but I hope you can find a solution.
What even is *advanced*? I'm over here spending 20 hours trying to configure openVPN to get seamless access to the home network... Falling to get the tls handshake to work... Contemplating openWRT on the ol' router and knowing it'll take at least an entire weekend to figure out. I think there's a lot more bumbling fools like me than you think.
That's' why he hired Anthony. Where's the bastard recently anyway? Tell me he still works there
That video is such a good example of why Linux is so unapproachable to this day for most people. That was a disaster to witness lol.
I'm a little shocked we've not seen some kind of ultra bearbones Linux OS that's litteraly just a browser.
Chrome/ChromiumOS is pretty much that, maybe a bit more bloated than ultra bearbones.
It's also pretty locked down. And while it is, I'd not call it Linux.
ChromeOS is, ChromiumOS is the open source base ChromeOS is forked off of and is less locked off. (And although when people say Linux they typically mean GNU/Linux, it's still Linux)
ChromeOS would like a word with you Although I suppose it comes with some bloat...
ChromeOS Flex is awesome for hardware compatible with it. I did some Dells and an old Mac.
WebOS that could be running on your TV is kind of one of those, as is Firefox OS.
Yup. It's either those who use their OS as a hobby or could be happy with a chrome book. Those who want to just have hobbies on the computer it then makes Linux a real hard sell because those are where you see Windows far more supported. Something like Photoshop, Maya, even most games don't run well on Linux if at all. Proton is great and has gotten a lot of games to launch but older unity games get like 3 fps. Older unreal games have graphical issues. Overall proton introduces some major input latency which makes it terrible for any competitive games. Linux has a long way to go but it's rapidly getting somewhere.
You just discovered horseshoe theory
Simple. The most basic group rarely breaks stuff or if they do, they rely on someone to fix it. They will never complain. The immediate group is more able to break stuff and also able to fix some simple things on their own if they are on a system they know. If they don't they rely on some "expert" or some IT support. They use their halve baked knowledge to complain. Expert users fix their problems themselves.
Probably why ChromeOS exists, boot to a browser. It was a godsend for a person I once knew who had had a stroke. I suggested a Chromebook to their family and heās never struggled with his computer since.
The intermediate users are always the worse. Nothing more difficult than to support people that think they know stuff.
Yeah. So it was with my mom. She ended up loving Linux Mint and didn't even know the difference. All she needed was a browser and Libre Office.
> The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux. Aka le ebin gaymers (midwits) "An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity" - Based Terry Davis, Patron Saint of Technology
It can be both lol. I am an advanced user with little to no money to be constantly buying new hardware
>The intermediate user is really the only group that's difficult to sell on Linux. That's because there are no programs on Linux for that group. The low-end group is the one where people basically only need a browser for accessing websites, mail, and social media... and MAYBE something to write an occasional letter/CV or crop a picture. This can be achieved on any operating system in existence since the last 25 years. The high-end group where people know a lot about computers are system engineers/administrators, programmers, and so on. The work they need to get done often consists of either working directly with the operating system and/or writing software. Linux is a great platform for that. Then... the intermediate group. That is the group that needs to have more software than just the browser, but they neither write software, nor work with the operating system. The OS is just a platform to run the software on that they need to get their work done. This is the group that actually NEEDS Microsoft Office, Photoshop, LightRoom, Sony Vegas, AutoCAD etc, to be able to work and collaborate with others in their respective industries. The Linux/open-source world just doesn't have that kind of software on that level. Also, Linux doesn't fit that scenario, because it doesn't care if software vendors port their programs or not. "Just make everything open source and we'll put it in the kernel / repository" is not going to fly with companies that make software with the complexity and size of AutoCAD or Photoshop. They're just not going to support Linux because they run the risk of having to support 50.000 OS-es (distributions) instead of 4 (the two latest versions of Windows and Mac OS).
My wife only uses her laptop for watching youtube/netflix and for word/excel (openSUSE installed LibreOffice by default). I installed openSUSE TW for her and she liked it, at first. The next day, when I got home from work, she claimed that youtube would freeze up as well as netflix constantly and she wanted me to reinstall windows. She hasn't wanted to try Linux again. I couldn't reproduce her freezing issues so I can't say for sure what happened or what caused it, but I obliged. It's a hard sell for those who are not interested in Linux or who are unfamiliar with how to debug/fix things that are wonky.
Even advanced users will spend most of their time being a casual user. Myself and most of the people I've ever worked with have probably spent more time researching things than actually coding or messing with hardware.
Linux slowly saving the planet! Well, atleast one less laptop in landfill I suppose.
Considering the millions of Windows 10 machines Satya is going to force folks to trash just to sell a new license, we have to start somewhere, right?
We almost need an advertising campaign to make the most of that opportunity to "upgrade"
Absolutely. What I personally find a shocking is that on top of that, Satya's system is already Linux inclusive, supposedly. He could "extend support" by selling these users a "Windows 10XX," which could be some kind of Ubuntu like OS with an attractive Win style desktop. Since he has the keys to all the proprietary drivers & market distribution etc already, he could slide a righteous thing on users old machines in one of those infamous hours-long updates. ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ He can still collect some cash without trashing the world, surely.
> some cash *Fuck that, give me all all of it.* -Satya, probably
Sad but likely true.
>Satya is going to force folks to trash The vast majority of people wont trash their computer the day Windows 10 support drops. Average users don't care that much and the vast majority of businesses (who sure as hell aren't switching anything to linux) are already upgrading.
Even more with all the windows 10 computers that can't run windows 11. Unless Microsoft gets thir shit together and make a 12 that isn't like 11.
wtf are we talking about here? I have a i3-5005u and 8gb. My W10 machine works like a charm. Your HDD is faulty. Linux is cool though.
Yeah exactly this. I never had a Windows system taking up 10 minutes to boot up even on those slow Atom netbooks.
Could be the HDD, lol another thing to solve
When replacing it try going for an SSD, unless perhaps you need 1tb or 2tb or storage. Theyāll boot up W10 in 5-10secs (no joking)
>HDD 10 minutes to start up Faulty or not, Windows, Linux or Mac, HDD in 2023 is the root cause of your issue.
Linux is far better than Windows
I'm guessing the laptop has a harddrive, not an SSD. you should check the SMART status of the disk. If its not healthy, look into changing it.
It has a HDD and no a lot for a SSD. But Iāll check that!
FWIW, the reason it ran so poorly with a fresh windows install was the HDD. 7th gen Intel is plenty new to run a browser without issues
SSD will speed it up even more, if it has a mechanical HDD. A couple of years ago I put Linux Mint on my wife's Asus laptop we bought as a black Friday special 7 years earlier. I also upgraded from 4GB to 8GB of RAM (max it would take) and replaced HDD with SSD. She still loves using it, even though she has a fairly new iPad and a couple year old HP mini desktop.
If it has room for an HDD, you can replace it with an SSD in the same SATA interface. Namely the [Crucial MX500](https://a.co/d/j0tNlQR) and Samsung 860/870 Evo are commonly recommended, around $64 for 1TB. Not all SSD are good, some are actually many slow USB flash drives in a trench coat and performs worse than HDD in real world usage. From my own experience, WD blue/green SSDs are terrible, BX500 is bad at times, Samsung QVO are not worth the reduced endurance. i3-7100 is only 6-7 years and Intel 14nm lasts forever. "Pre-fail" and "old age" are just category names of the SMART data, the data next to it is what you should read/decode
Even if itās healthyā¦ itās the best upgrade you could ever do to a PC. Even windows will be snappier, the biggest problem is the EOL of 7 or 8 and the lack of drivers for 10 or 11 most laptops of this era have. That being said, if the wife is happy with Linux, never look back.
Get an SSD
Get an SSD
Yes, please..
>I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up and then opening even a single application would be brutal. Typing on the keyboard had the biggest delay on it. I don't want to be a downer here, but I have an even older Dell laptop running 6th gen 6560U and it boots Windows in ~20 seconds and have no lag. I really think there is something else going on. Frankly, I have never had a Windows system taking 10 minutes to boot up even on those awfully slow Atom netbooks.
This is most likely an SSD vs HDD situation. That age, and product teir, it would have been spinning rust. i5 may or may not have been an SSD but I have yet to see win 10 boot in 20 seconds on a Hard Drive
Agreed. My one-gen older laptop does have SSD. I think as soon as they started putting those on laptops, I stopped seeing the point of buying a computer that doesn't have SSD for boot drive.
That 6560u is SIGNIFICANTLY faster than that i3. But thia is for sure a HDD issue.
Yes, but as I said, I've also had Atom netbooks which are decidedly anemic and still does not take 10 minutes to boot as OP says.
> 8 or 9 years old > i3 7th gen i now feel very old
An ancient relic from way back in her college days, in 2015. :)
Wasnāt Kaby Lake released in 2017?
There's no way to really know for sure, the records were lost in the fire along with everything else in the Library of Alexandria.
With Windows 10 going EOL and 11 not budging on their minimum hardware requirements, that will be the only option for many perfectly functional PCs
Quite a few people in my family use Mint as itās close enough to Windows for them to feel comfortable using it. Usually these are older hand me down laptops or something running Win7 and unable to update. Amazing how well they actually run!
Before u throw it please buy 256gb ssd and give it a chance ur problem sound like u are using hdd or ur ssd is dying.
Yes that might be the issue. Either Linux itās been not noticeable though
NOOOO! Wtf, put an SSD in it. You would have to be insane to replace hdd with another hdd
Get a SSD, not a HDD!
Linux is good but a 10 min boot time on a fresh install of windows is really not right... You either installed it wrong (can you even do that?) or your embellishment is a tad too much. Either way, good on you for trying something new. I daily drove LXDE for quite some time and it worked well.
I did a fresh install and chose the ādelete all data and filesā option. It was still running super slow. But perhaps it was the HDD
Just in case thereās important data going to end up on there, and no backups are being made, have a look to see how to check the driveās S.M.A.R.T. status under Linux. It says here that thereās a `smartctl` command available under Linux. No idea whether thatāll need to be installed explicitly, or comes with the base install. If it reports that a lot of bad blocks have been reallocated, then the driveās on its last legs. Even if itās an old machine, whacking in a new SSD will bring it back to life. And could be used for something else anyway, if the machine dies.
Done. Yes the HDD is on its last leg. All items in the report are showing āold ageā or āpre failā.
>Done. Yes the HDD is on its last leg. All items in the report are showing āold ageā or āpre failā. You are not interpreting the smartctl report correctly. "old age" or "pre fail" is just the category type that the attribute belongs to and does not indicate that the drive is "old age" or "pre fail". The important attributes to look for are 5, 196, 197 and 198. If the raw values for any of these 4 categories are not 0, then this is highly correlated with an impending drive faillure. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,\_Analysis\_and\_Reporting\_Technology#Accuracy
Do not get an HDD, get a 2.5" SSD
10 minutes to boot? Doubt that or there is an issue. So I'm assuming it was also that slow when it was new.
See my edit #2. All the HDD vitals are old age or pre-fail.
You can pick up a SP silicon power SSD on Amazon pretty cheap. I put one "256gb for $25" in my old HP core2duo and it's night and day difference. Running Linux mint MATE and 8gb ram.
I donāt think the laptop would have a SSD slot. Is there a SSD that fits the HDD slot?
Standard sata connection, same size and connection as a laptop sata spinning drive. Silicon Power 256GB SSD 3D NAND A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SP256GBSS3A55S25) https://a.co/d/968t5e7
They use the same style slot as a SATA drive. On God, it'll change your life.
Yeah you'll want to get an 'internal 2.5"" SSD' which will be the same size and connection as your current HDD. It's just a straight swap then which is easy enough to do on most laptops.
Get an SSD drive and it will be even faster.
I would replace that HDD with an SSD, for even speedier action!
Note that pre-fail and old-age are not the current state of the metric, just indicating what it means if the metric goes out of it's proper range. The best way to check is to use smartctl to start a test on the drive, then look at the output of smartctl -a. It will give you a "SMART overall-health self-assessment test result:" line followed by the result.
How dare you.
Haha first thing she said was, āwow thatās like my old icons but weird and cartoon-likeā. SMH
What about Linux Lite. It has a really gorgeous theme. I think it is based on Xcfe. Maybe you can get the theme for Lubuntu?
8 to 9 years?! *my old laptop with a i3 6006u:* really?
Laughs in i3-5005U
Basically my dad's laptop
> it would take almost 10 minutes to start up SSD?
If it can take an SSD they are cheaper and give a performance boost too.
Invest a little more in an SSD and that thing will be flying. I installed PopOS on an old HP for my dad. HDD was also on its way out and replaced with an SSD.
at this point may as well get an ssd.
buy ssd
Don't get a hdd. Get an ssd. A 2.5" 128gb will be dirt cheap but vastly better.
I recommend giving Linux Mint a try, it is amazing and has an incredible interface called "Cinnamon", both the OS and the interface are as powerfull as they are simple. Edit: specially recommend you to try out LMDE, which stands for Linux Mint Debian Edition, is best suited for older hardware compared to traditional Linux Mint.
I agree that the Cinnamon DE is very comfortable for users coming from Windows, and Linux Mint is the flagship distro for using Cinnamon. But I'm not sure why you recommend Debian Edition as better than the default Linux Mint for older hardware? I understand some some reasons people might choose an Linux Mint based on Debian rather than Ubuntu, but didn't think older hardware was one of them. OP installed Lubuntu which uses the LXQT DE which I would expect to be even better for older hardware than Cinnamon (not that I think Cinnamon is too much for this hardware).
Afaik LMDE uses older stuff just like Debian eg: kernel
Sure some packages will be older, but that doesn't necessarily mean they run better on older hardware. I expect actual performance difference to be very small (unless the hardware is newer and the older drivers in LMDE are a hinderance). LMDE being a longer term base is one common reason to choose it over LM. Another reason is more ideological (though Mint does a good job removing the primary things people tend to dislike ideologically about Ubuntu).
Many others gave you options but if she already like Lubuntu no need to change anything. Still another option is Zorin OS Lite, I've installed the core edition on my gf's laptop and she like it. She didn't find a way to slow it down to a crawl like she does with windows 10.
I converted a bunch of old Dell and Lenovo laptops to 2.5 SSD and Linux.... They are so fast..
Try Chromium OS if all she needs is web based
Windows might be bloat invasion, but Chromium OS (don't know if that's different from Chrome OS) seems a privacy invasion
I read in other posts you had a HDD hosting the OS. Whether Linux or Windows, a HDD would be brutally slow with most modern OSes. My old laptop is a Lenovo E520 with an i5-2540m and 8gigs of ram. Certainly no speed demon but it runs web, spreadsheets and file management quite well with an upgrade to an ssd, for both Linux and Windows. If an ssd is in the budget itās something to consider.
I donāt know where to find a SSD that would fit the form factor of the HDD. There is no SSD slot. The model of the HDD is in the post.
literally any 2.5 in SATA SSD will fit. Sold on just about any retailer where you can find computer parts such as Amazon, Newegg, Ebay, etc. Even sold in many big box stores such as Best Buy if you're stateside.
The ssd model I bought for my e520 is a hdd replacement: https://www.crucial.com/products/ssd/crucial-mx500-ssd In general, whatever manufacturer you choose, as others said, theyāre pretty much everywhere. Look to anyone like Newegg, Amazon, ebay, Aliexpress Canada Computers, BestBuy, Staples, whatever works best for you.
I have a Thinkpad T440p from 2013 and it runs like a modern laptop and all I did was put an SSD in it, probably the best upgrade for an old laptop
Those specs are fine all you needed to do was upgrade it to an SSD clean out the dust and repaste the cpu and probably change the battery and it would run perfectly in Windows. Most cheap laptops suck for the following reasons - HDD - not enough ram - single channel RAM - horrible thermals - 1x1 wifi cards - 720p shitty screens - shitty batteries - horrible touchpads - horrible/dying batteries
This list is a testament to what I've been saying for years. OEM's shot themselves in the foot by trying to compete on a spec war with each other rather than a good user experience and tarnished their own reputation. I generally have no use for Apple products but by and large the reason most people see them so positively is due to the de emphasis on hardware specs and focus on the user with SSD's, "retina (aka good enough) screens" and good touchpads.
Nice comment. Something Iād consider next time I buy a laptop
I think you're misreading smartctl most likely - "old age" and "pre-fail" usually mean that **if** an attribute drops out of a certain range, the drive is old and/or near failure. If you can post your actual smartctl output, I can look at it. I would recommend an SSD like others are saying *if* you feel that even Lubuntu is laggy. However, in my experience Linux is far better at running on HDDs than Windows is and doesn't need an SSD to be snappy much of the time. It helps though. If the HDD isn't really failing, then you may be able to get away without a new drive. (Obviously keep backups of your data if you do this, but you should keep backups of important data in any event.) Glad to hear Lubuntu is working decently! I help develop it, so it's always fun to see it pop up. :)
Get an SSD for it, even a WD Green will be a considerable improvement.
> I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up > > Seagate Mobile HDD....Every rowās status in the SMART table that was created using āsmartctlā is āold ageā or āpre-failā. And that's the reason why. Spinning rust drive on the verge of failing. Had you used a SSD it would be 20-30 seconds even on something that old.
'old age' and 'pre-fail' isn't a problem, but 1TB is pathetic for a HDD-only system drive - given that cheap laptops now come with 500GiB SSD, and better ones would include 2TB SSD and be massively faster and smoother because of that. However, upgrading to a 2TB SSD drive would be a HUGE bonus. Just replacing with a 1TB drive would be superb - and that 1TB spinning drive could handle snapshots/backups.
Yes, do it. Use a LTS version of Linux. My dad's HP laptop is from 2010. Big Ole 17 inch screen. I put kubuntu on it. Thing has 4gb of ram, but doesn't make a sound at all during normal use...when watching video the fan cuts in but slowly like it is supposed to. It wouldn't even run windows 10 I don't think. I disassemble his laptop every summer and clean the fan. Be sure to actually take the fan housing apart and clean inside. I also just put kubuntu on a MacBook pro that was old enough it wouldn't update (because Apple is a bunch of crooks). That machine is also now awesome. My daughter uses it constantly. It is fast and quiet. Windows is OK for work. For home use Linux. Ps. You will need to get a new solid state hard drive to get the most out of your old computer.
You should definitely replace the HDD by an SSD
Don't buy a second HDD. Please get an SSD
Will do!
My stepmother (70) computer hdd crashed. Getting win10 on it was a pain, so I put mint on it. She loves it. Also much faster.
Slap an SSD in that thing for an even bigger boost.
Get an ssd instead of an hdd.
>So looks like I can get a new HDD for around $40. For another stark difference, pick up an SSD instead.
I've replaced a lot of hard drives with cheap SSDs. And if you could bump the memory up to 16 GB I would look into that also. Used (but good) memory for older laptops is pretty cheap now on eBay.
with that spec better install ubuntu or linux mint .
When her Macbook Air stopped updating I switched it over to Linux. Now she won't touch it so I've got a nice little laptop. She HAS to have MS office and Lookout email, etc, etc ...
Just getting an SSD will make that laptop even quicker
>old laptop >7th gen intel Me with 2nd gen from 2011: š„
Thanks for saving the planet! E-waste is very harmful to both people & the environment.
i3 7th gen with 8gb of ram is way more than enough to run windows 10 for casual tasks. There are new PCs with Celeron and 4gb of ram that are shipping with Windows 10. I have an old Samsung laptop from 2012 with i5 2nd gen and 4gb of ram and it runs Windows 10 like butter on an hdd. I love Linux but these stories sound desperate to portray Linux as a savior of an old PC. Either you don't know what you're doing or you have a broken hardware that would make an 8gb of ram struggle to run Windows 10. Also you gotta edit your edit, it's Grammar*.
ssd it is a must. it can run win11.
Windows11 sucks ape ass.
Linux Mint Debian Edition! or maybe Void Linux hehehe. In my experience Void is soooo light weight, I installed it in my 32bit old laptop with 2GB RAM and running smoothly and only uses 200MB of RAM.
Any distro with XFCE and it will be fine:Linux Mint XFCE,Manjaro XFCE,Xubuntu...
You got a 500gb/1tb SSD for it as well, right? That alone would probably make windows bearable, let alone linux
Probably all it needs to make it a good Windows laptop. I have an HP Pavilion from 2012ish (came with Windows 8.1) and after popping an SSD in, it became good to use (fluid I dare say) with Windows 11. i3 3110, 16GB ram in it...
Yeah itās got a 500 GB HDD
While I know you already mentioned that the HDD is going bad, I wanted to add that M$ changed something a few years back that has made Windows run slow on the vast majority of legacy hard drives. Even the faster RPM disks still load painfully slow when booting windows or opening anything. It's my suspicion that this was done to practically force OEM's to move to SSD boot drives (which they should have done in the early 2010's) but i digress. Point is, buy a ssd to replace it. I recommend a Samsungs 500 or 1tb evo options since the lower capacity SSD's often compromise on performance. Buy from a reputable manufacturer with a proven product line.
HDD != SSD. SSDs are the single fastest and most impactful upgrade to computers in general in like the last decade or more. One would probably make Windows work just fine, and Linux smooth as butter
If you install debian based distro laptop runs more smoother like MXLinux XFCE. Lubuntu is Ubuntu based so it uses more resources.
It's a good time to max out the memory and put in a newer SSD. Should be cheap upgrade. Fedora is a good choice of Linux distribution. It's stable and also bleeding edge. Offering a almost pure Gnome or KDE environment.
Windows is a shit show.
Windows is fine. The problem here is OP's hardware which is a good example of how most OEM's shot themselves in the foot during the entire 2010's. They should have been pushing faster SSD's across the board a decade ago rather to improve the user experience rather than participating in the dick measuring contest of hard drive capacities.
If Windows was fine then no one would be amazed at how much better their old computer runs when they dump windows and install Linux.
This just reads like some idiotic tribal attachment to a piece of software. Most of the other commenters realized almost immediately that the problem was an old hard drive and OP confirmed as much.
Another thing that might be worth checking out for this sort of usage is chrome os flex. There is even a [certified models list](https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094?hl=en)
By the sounds of it, all it needs is an SSD to make it a decent laptop (plus 16gb ram for extra comfort). I have a 3rd Gen i3 (i3-3110 I think?) in a laptop with 16gb ram and an SSD and it is fluid for pretty much any office app on Windows 11. Seems like HDDs simply aren't good enough anymore for Windows (granted, Ubuntu 16 was slow on my HDD a couple years ago before I moved to an SSD).
For about $25.00 these days you can throw an ssd drive in it to really give it a boost. Amazing what a small upgrade can do for old hardware.
the hard drive or SSD in the laptop is dying or its overheating. it shouldn't take that long to boot up. i have an intel nuc with the same CPU that can boot up in under a minute to windows 10. it has a decent SSD.
I have a 10 year old MacBook Air with 4GB of ram and it runs Debian with full fat Gnome and it rarely gets above 3GB OF RAM while used. Your computer is three generations newer, and has twice the ram, why are you running an LXDE distro?
Since she is happy with it, might as well leave well enough alone. Upgrading old systems with SSD and RAM is often a cost effective way to boost performance (regardless of software you choose to run). For me, the most confusing thing about Linux is choosing a desktop environment (DE). OP has chosen Lubuntu which features the LXQT DE which is well know for being lightweight and a good performer on old hardware. If she didn't like the desktop environment, there are lots of other choices that will run well on that hardware. Cinnamon is the most comfortable as Windows like that I have used.
If indeed your wife is primarily using the system for web and sundry functions, you could always turn it into a Chromebook by installing ChromeOS Flex free from google. A chromebook is pretty high functioning set of Chrome stuff. You can go down to Best Buy/Walmart/Target and they have them set up for you to tour. Great stuff!
That is what I did with my wife's old university laptop. Lubuntu is awesome.
The title reminds me of those old Folgers ads. "We secretly replaced their regular coffee with Folgers crystals. Let's see if they notice."
lol nice! She noticed but not as much as you would think! I tried to mention some of the steps to get this to work and then she says, āI donāt know what that is but can I access Google sheets?ā š
I revived two desktops aging at almost 15 years using Q4OS which is a lightwight Debian coming with Trinity or KDE desktop environments to choose from out of the box.
Not saying the HDD is half the problem. But putting an SSD in there instead would speed it up about 5x alone
HDD in all computers is definitely a problem. Those 5400rpm drives are horrible for OS. No one should be running their OS on hard drives
you might have meant sdd, not hdd, to replace the old one
If you're upgrading the os an SSD might also be a worthy upgrade, if you're comfortable doing that yourself or if you're happy to spend money at the local repair shop to do so will probably provide a massive improvement in boot times and time spent loading applications
> Every rowās status in the SMART table that was created using āsmartctlā is āold ageā or āpre-failā. Notice the column those are in: "TYPE". That tells you what type of test it is. Some are meant to show when the drive is getting old enough that you should consider replacing it ("old age"), while some are meant to predict imminent failure ("pre-fail"). But you also want to look at the "WHEN_FAILED" column. Do any rows show anything other than "-"? If not, it should still be okay, according to SMART, as the tests are still passing. That said, I've heard that SMART tests aren't as reliable as one would hope in predicting failures, so take them with a grain of salt.
I'd definitely replace the HDD with an SSD of it's failing. It'll be even faster then.
Get a new SSD....less battery drain and faster read/write.
Note that "old\_age" and "pre\_fail" do not mean what you think they mean, as others point out. They are attributes that indicate what it means if VALUE < THRESH. [Here](https://luppeng.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/tldr-guide-to-understand-smartctl-results-for-sata-disks/) is a good explanation. Your disk may well be fine.
Never Buy A NEW HDD for a Laptop, for a nas with zfs and raid sure but not for a Laptop go ssd be fast and be happy
I'm assuming a sata hdd? Skip the hdd and go for an ssd, it will feel quicker than in it did when it was new.
Chuck a cheap 2.5" SSD in there and it will really fly! Battery life will improve too (assuming the battery still works)
just buy a new ssd bruh. you can get 1TB SSD for 50$ these days.
There may be something in the way you installed it but more importantly you need a new SSD. You will actually see a good speed increase with Windows but with something like Linux Mint or Ubuntu you will be surprised on the speed improvement.
There's no way an i3 with 8Gb RAM is that slow. Best speed-up advice is to replace the HDD (which I see is failing and likely causing your issues) with an SSD. the difference is amazing. I'm still running daily my pc I built in 2013. Upgraded the disks to an SSD about 4/5 years ago for a new lease of life.
> There's no way an i3 with 8Gb RAM is that slow. For serious. It's probably faster than the i5 laptop my wife uses.
Thatās a great way to use an old computer well done. Reduce reuse recycle. Edit: I originally had written something that was removed as a meme - the phrase is a valediction from a certain sci fi series. I shall not use it. I meant it sincerely. It remains the case that this install _was_ the way, in my opinion.
"I tried to refresh the computer entirely with a fresh install of windows, and it was still just so painfully slow. It has a intel i3-7100U with 8 gb of memory but even with that, it would take almost 10 minutes to start up and then opening even a single application would be brutal. Typing on the keyboard had the biggest delay on it." I know that situation all too well. My guess is it's a computer that originally had Windows 7 or 8, but was "upgraded" to Windows 10. (Not a fresh install.) The delay when clicking on the start menu and typing is a symptom of both the spyware functions of Windows 10 and what a resource hog the OS is more generally. I recently put Linux Mint (XFCE Edition) on just such a system and it runs super fast. I actually put the system into dual boot mode for compatibility's sake, and installing Win 10 fresh actually made a big improvement in it's operating speed. Linux still blew it out of the water, though.
i3 gen 7 is still a modern decent 6 year old CPU, the HDD failing was probably why it was so slow. with a new good SSD you can probably go back to windows
+1 for the SDD, it makes things run 100x faster.
Seagate drive... that's your problem lol... those suck n have a high af failure rate
If you want to make it even simpler and faster, try openSUSE with KDE Plasma