Onoff Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: MSDOS Just been using that to try and unblock the loo here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 1 minute ago, Onoff said: Just been using that to try and unblock the loo here. Defrag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 6, 2020 Author Share Posted January 6, 2020 16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Defrag AND some anti virus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 That will be cc cleaner then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 6, 2020 Author Share Posted January 6, 2020 Well I have come to a conclusion on this project. It is simply not going to get linux on it. So it will live as a working windows XP machine of very limited use. I am surprised at the speed of a fresh XP install, and even more surprised that the current version of Firefox still works on XP. So its set up as a web browser and email tool for emergencies, e.g if the main computer(s) croak. I will keep looking for a better candidate to make into a linux machine to replace this one before it falls apart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 3 minutes ago, ProDave said: I will keep looking for a better candidate to make into a linux machine to replace this one before it falls apart. What sort of things do you want to do n a Linux box? Raspberry Pi Zero W costs a tenner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 6, 2020 Author Share Posted January 6, 2020 15 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: What sort of things do you want to do n a Linux box? Raspberry Pi Zero W costs a tenner. I was just trying to find a replacement for this computer, my "downstairs computer" Just used for a bit of light browsing and keeping an eye on my emails. I don't do much else on this computer (most serious stuff is done on the desktop pc in the office) though I have done all the Arduino programming on here. This PC is on it's last legs. The battery is knackered so it has to stay tethered to the power supply, and it's falling to bits in various ways now. The idea of linux is that's usually (though not in this case it seems) a good way to usefully use an old computer. So still looking for a suitable doner machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 1 hour ago, ProDave said: So still looking for a suitable doner machine. I'm so, so sorry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 Made me feel peckish that has As I am visiting my Mother, I may take a trip to the kebab van later. There are no truly great kebabs in Cornwall (or Indians for that matter). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 6, 2020 Author Share Posted January 6, 2020 1 hour ago, Onoff said: I'm so, so sorry... That's a DONNER machine. And I thought my spelling was bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 In Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is the Canadian capital of donner kebabs, they spell it donair. And doner. https://cultureatz.com/donair/ But they should be honest, and spell it what it is made from, donkey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 15, 2020 Author Share Posted January 15, 2020 Round 2: Doner computer No 2 An old Toshiba Satellite. I have had this one a while but it has always been completely dead Upon powering on, all that happened was a brief spin of the cooling fan and that was it, nothing else whatsoever. No signal with an external monitor etc. So I had assigned it to junk. I read lots about this model and how the problem was corrupt bios and tried at least 3 "solutions" to that, but none worked. Anyway today I decided to take it apart. What I found was the BIOS battery was soldered to the main board. I unsoldered one connection, waited 10 minutes and re soldered it, and the machine now booted. It currently has no HDD fitted at all. So I booted it from the Zorin DVD and it has booted, found the wifi, and connected and I am typing this with it. So off to order a SSD for it and install Zorin properly. P.S the other one that I tried and failed with is now working with a fresh install of XP and available as a spare computer. It only has 256K of RAM, so for the princely sum of #4.18 I have ordered 2GB of ram for it from Ebay from China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Davies Posted January 15, 2020 Share Posted January 15, 2020 5 hours ago, ProDave said: #4.18 So, still configured for a US keyboard then? Strange coincidence but I also ordered a 2GB DIMM last night. I have an oldish Acer Aspire One netbook (bought 2012) with 1GB of RAM which I use for odds and ends away from my desk or home which has been running Debian/LXDE for a while. For no immediately apparent reason I decided to update it from Debian 9 (Stretch) to Debian 10 (Buster) but it failed for some reasons. I'm getting pretty fed up with Debian package management breaking all the time (have had problems on Raspbian as well, Ubuntu is Debian based but is fine) so decided to give Manjaro/XFCE a play. Ran OK booting from a USB stick but refused to install as it says it needs 1GB of RAM - I guess there's some shared video RAM or something which means it's just under its requirement. So watched a couple of YouTube videos, opened it up, took the existing RAM out, put it back in, rebooted OK, so ordered the maximum it can take, 2GB. Bit more expensive (£16) but coming from the UK so should be here at the end of the week or early next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 15, 2020 Author Share Posted January 15, 2020 Yes it is not configured properly yet, no HDD in it at all so just booted from the DVD as a live session. Not much option there to configure things. I was surprised how well it actually worked like that. So far I quite like the look of Zorin, definitely more "windows like" than Ubuntu. The SSD is coming from the UK so I should have that soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 20, 2020 Author Share Posted January 20, 2020 SSD arrived today, so Zorin now installed. Very pleased with the performance on this reasonable but not startling laptop. Everything just seems to work quickly with no hanging about, boot, shut down and sleep all very fast. And I like the look and feel of Zorin, it is well presented and logical, and a lot less klunky than the old computer with Ubuntu. Definitely recommend it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 just to highjack this thread, running win 7 and this could be a realistic option to win 10. is it worth paying for the ultimate over the core? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 20, 2020 Author Share Posted January 20, 2020 Here is the comparison https://zorinos.com/download/#compare I chose Core. If I want any more programs I will seek them out and download them. I like the default layout so no wish to have alternatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 14 minutes ago, Simplysimon said: just to highjack this thread, running win 7 and this could be a realistic option to win 10. is it worth paying for the ultimate over the core? cheers I was an early fan of Zorin OS on the forum here. Saying that Mint is well worth a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 20, 2020 Author Share Posted January 20, 2020 If rebuilding a laptop, I highly recommend buying a new SSD rather than just re formatting the old HDD. It is a game changer in terms of performance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 18 minutes ago, ProDave said: If rebuilding a laptop, I highly recommend buying a new SSD rather than just re formatting the old HDD. It is a game changer in terms of performance. tbh the laptop runs fine it is a few years old but it was well specced at the time, just had a new keyboard and battery. it was more that win 7 is no longer supported that i thought to update having followed this post. an ssd in the future would be the logical option Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 I've been a long term user of Mint, but switched my Linux box over to Zorin Core a couple of weeks ago. I'm impressed with Zorin. Easy to install, seems to work reliably, pretty user friendly and it seems less resource hungry than Mint. I'm running it on a fanless mini PC, that has a 512GB M.2 SSD, 8 GB of RAM and a Core-i7 7500U processor. The same machine previously had Windows 7 Ultimate installed, and one noticeable change is that it idles at a much lower power level running Zorin. When running Windows it used to idle at around 6 W and peak at around 15 W. Running Zorin it seems to idle at around 3 to 4 W, but will still peak at around 15 W when working hard. The case of the machine feels noticeably cooler now, and as these Mini PCs run from a 12 V DC supply I'm seriously thinking about building a dedicated 12 V battery supply for them, charged from excess PV generation. I don't use my old big PC at all now, just two similar fanless Mini PCs, the Linux box, plus a Core-i7 8550U box, that has a 1TB SSD plus 16GB of RAM. The Core-i7 8550U is supposed to be a fair bit faster than the Core-i7 7500U, yet there's no noticeable difference between the two. I suspect that Windows 7 Ultimate on the Core-i7 8550U just uses a lot more processing power to do the same stuff as Zorin does on the slower Core-i7 7500U. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 22, 2020 Author Share Posted January 22, 2020 One observation with my "new" laptop was it ran hot around the CPU fan. It was not blocked just running hot. I had a look in the BIOS and changed the CPU speed from automatic to "low power" This slows the machine down but it runs a lot cooler and the battery should last longer. The whole thing runs so fast that the reduction in speed is barely noticable. I bet there are not many people who deliberately underclock their computer? The only issue I have yet had with Zorin was it is unable to browse the network to find network drives. I soon found a work around. I believe the current Ubuntu has the same issue. Strange really as it found the network printer okay and set that up without problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 27, 2020 Author Share Posted January 27, 2020 Exploring the foibles of Zorin a bit mroe. This is the first PC I have had that has an HDMI video out, so I thought I would plug it into the tv and try on line tv through it. First observation, the tv screen resolutiuon is so different to the pc screen that I could only get it to work sensibly if you selct tv only (a pop up selection comes on the screen when you plug the hdmi in) If you try and run both screens together you end up wither with only part of the tv screen filled, or bits chopped off and the aspect ratio buggered up. Then there was no sound from the tv, the sound still played from the PC speakers. I then found you have to manually select the sound to go to the hdmi using a built in program "Pulse audio" but that is a 2 stage process because the hdmi does not appear in the list of output devices until you go into configuration and select hdmi (and then what flavour of output you want) And of course none of those selections relating to hdmi are there if no hdmi display is attached, and are forgotten if you unplug the hdmi display. So rather tediously you must do that each time you plug in the hdmi display. It then went on to play stuff from the various providers versions of on line player, even with our poor broadband speed. The only one I cannot get to work is itv hub. It tells me I must change a firefox setting to enable DRM content. Having done that, it still tells me the same thing and refuses to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 28, 2020 Share Posted January 28, 2020 11 hours ago, ProDave said: It tells me I must change a firefox setting to enable DRM content. Having done that, it still tells me the same thing and refuses to play. Does it do it after a reboot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 28, 2020 Author Share Posted January 28, 2020 21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Does it do it after a reboot? Yes. I have also deleted cookies (another itv suggestion) and it still does not work. I might have to load a different browser, e.g. chromium just to see if I can get itv hub to work with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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