Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
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@ClancyParliament Cliché question, but what do you want to *do* with it?
@Flux
The most demanding thing the one needs to do is play Minecraft (Java), other than that just email and web browsing, it's mostly a backup laptop
The other one is for playing mp3s and streaming music -
@ClancyParliament Linux Mint would work fine on both of those machines. The recommended amount of RAM is 4Gb but can use as low as 2Gb. My mom used it for years and found it very easy to work with.
The deal with Minecraft however is a little tricky with Linux. There's no Bedrock support: Windows Store, Consoles, and Phones. Only Java launchers: prismlauncher, and the outdated official launcher on Linux, and a launch option on Windows
So unfortunately they wouldn't be able to cross-play with all of their friends even on realms. Just be prepared for a little bit of friction there unless Microsoft decides to play nice.
@lich_silvae
That's fine, we pretty much only use Java Minecraft around here -
@Flux
The most demanding thing the one needs to do is play Minecraft (Java), other than that just email and web browsing, it's mostly a backup laptop
The other one is for playing mp3s and streaming music@ClancyParliament then, honestly, it doesn't matter? Mint.
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@lich_silvae
That's fine, we pretty much only use Java Minecraft around here@ClancyParliament Awesome, good luck with everything!
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament ZorinOS is Ubuntu based (and Ubuntu is based on debian). ZorinOS is designed to be very stable, and it's also marketed as being designed for revitalizing older technology. It's a familiar layout to windows, and has a LOT of custom patches to make windows apps, and windows related things easy for someone who may never want to touch a terminal.
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament@mastodon.online
Want it to look and feel like Windows? Use Mint
Want to ensure it can game? Use Bazzite
Want a modern OS with all the cool and nice to have features in a polished package? Use Fedora
Ubuntu, Debian are never bad choices.
Note: I don't use any of these because I am insane and have lots of free time - but this is the 'common' wisdom -
@ClancyParliament ZorinOS is Ubuntu based (and Ubuntu is based on debian). ZorinOS is designed to be very stable, and it's also marketed as being designed for revitalizing older technology. It's a familiar layout to windows, and has a LOT of custom patches to make windows apps, and windows related things easy for someone who may never want to touch a terminal.
@Eleyon @ClancyParliament I second this comment. ZorinOS is pretty rock solid, and they have made the transition from Windows really easy.
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They’re pretty low powered laptops, even for their age. One is used mainly as a music player (streaming and mp3s) and the other is mostly a backup laptop, and for Minecraft if the kid has a friend over.
I used to have some Ubuntu machines back in the 2010s, but I’ve been out of the loop on Linux since I no longer live or work with a bunch of Linux knowers.
I’ve heard good things about Mint? Is that a good one for old, underpowered laptops?I'm using Devuan on a fleet of old Lenovo X-220 laptops. Very pleasing.
Devuan is a systemd-free distro, which removes quite a bit of cruft searching for a problem to solve.
Welcome to devuan.org | Devuan GNU+Linux Free Operating System
Free GNU+Linux base OS. Devuan is a fork of Debian without systemd. Devuan provides a safe upgrade path from Debian, to ensure the right to Init Freedom and avoid entanglement.
Devuan GNU+Linux (www.devuan.org)
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@ClancyParliament Linux Mint would work fine on both of those machines. The recommended amount of RAM is 4Gb but can use as low as 2Gb. My mom used it for years and found it very easy to work with.
The deal with Minecraft however is a little tricky with Linux. There's no Bedrock support: Windows Store, Consoles, and Phones. Only Java launchers: prismlauncher, and the outdated official launcher on Linux, and a launch option on Windows
So unfortunately they wouldn't be able to cross-play with all of their friends even on realms. Just be prepared for a little bit of friction there unless Microsoft decides to play nice.
@lich_silvae @ClancyParliament Correction: there's no official Bedrock support. There are unofficial launchers available, however:
https://minecraft-linux.github.io/
I've used this, and while it works I generally find it's a pain. You have to be very careful of version numbers, the launcher is slower to update than phones.
If you don't mind hosting a Java Minecraft server, you can mod it with Geyser and Floodgate so Bedrock and Java players can play together, plus ViaVersion/ViaBackwards allow for some flexibility with Minecraft versions on the Java side.
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@lich_silvae @ClancyParliament Correction: there's no official Bedrock support. There are unofficial launchers available, however:
https://minecraft-linux.github.io/
I've used this, and while it works I generally find it's a pain. You have to be very careful of version numbers, the launcher is slower to update than phones.
If you don't mind hosting a Java Minecraft server, you can mod it with Geyser and Floodgate so Bedrock and Java players can play together, plus ViaVersion/ViaBackwards allow for some flexibility with Minecraft versions on the Java side.
@hjhornbeck @ClancyParliament Very good to know!
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They’re pretty low powered laptops, even for their age. One is used mainly as a music player (streaming and mp3s) and the other is mostly a backup laptop, and for Minecraft if the kid has a friend over.
I used to have some Ubuntu machines back in the 2010s, but I’ve been out of the loop on Linux since I no longer live or work with a bunch of Linux knowers.
I’ve heard good things about Mint? Is that a good one for old, underpowered laptops?@ClancyParliament I had to say goodbye to a old laptop first running on early Win7 (hardware problem).
I still run another Win7 laptop on Linux.
As you are familiar with Linux, I can just say: 'burn' a startup USB stick with the distro of your choice and try it*.
If distro '1' is not the thing for you of the laptop, don't worry, but 'burn' another.Ubuntu LTS is still a safe choice. I use Kubuntu LTS.
With AI ... Let's wait and see if you running an LTS .
All the time in te world.../2
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@ClancyParliament I had to say goodbye to a old laptop first running on early Win7 (hardware problem).
I still run another Win7 laptop on Linux.
As you are familiar with Linux, I can just say: 'burn' a startup USB stick with the distro of your choice and try it*.
If distro '1' is not the thing for you of the laptop, don't worry, but 'burn' another.Ubuntu LTS is still a safe choice. I use Kubuntu LTS.
With AI ... Let's wait and see if you running an LTS .
All the time in te world.../2
The reason I did not use Mint is that in the version I installed KDEconnect did not work. As that is THE program I use to integrate all important devices it became one very important. (Especially when installing everything on a computer again
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament As others have said Mint is a fine choice, but you may want to try this nixOS-based distro that mimics ChromeOS: https://nixbookos.org/
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament whichever distro you choose, you may benefit from using the Xfce edition of it. One caveat: I don't play minecraft, so I cannot say if there would be a conflict between it and Xfce.
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament Can you please share some spec? You should probably go for a distro with XFCE.
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament I used Linux Mint on two of my very old dust collecting laptops. With 4GB ram. Unhandable slow with Windows. Not one special change needed with Linux, it just works including cd-drive.
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament how old are we talking about? do you have some hardware specs to get an idea?
My general recommendation would be to try out plain Debian as a starting point, with a lightweight window manager rather than a full-fledged desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE. If you do prefer to have an actual desktop environment, KDE can be configured to be much lighter than GNOME despite the overabundance of features.
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@gangrif
Haha, yeah that's what I am expecting...The spare Minecraft laptop has 2.2 GHz Intel i5, with 8 GB RAM
The music laptop is 1.35 GHz AMD with 4GB RAM
One small note: AMD supports linux by releasing its various drivers compiled for linux. This helps AMD devices be as performant running linux as running Microsoft.
Distrowatch.com is a useful place for locating some of the many many flavours of Linux; and you can search for mixes which suit your goals.
The graphics/windowmanager is not part of Linux, yet it is what everyone is deliberately not talking about here. 'Pretty' costs performance; try'em all and see!
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament Hi, it depends on your basic knowledge of Linux, but I'd say that with Mint Cinnamon we can sort the problem out.
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Asking Mastodon: Boost for More Reach
Mastodon, I need your Linux knowledge and opinions.
I have some old Windows laptops that aren’t supported anymore and I want to put Linux on them to keep them running, which kind should I use?
#linux #askmastodon@ClancyParliament for the pure backup duty role, I swapped an old laptop to Debian last weekend. It'll live at my in law's place, use sync thing to fetch from phone, and maybe another sync thing link over tailscale to backup to my home nas.
