Computer operating systems

[CitroJim]

Zel, go for it... It's a very painless and intuitive user interface to use and I reckon you'll take to it like a duck to water...

I felt immediately at home with it... Normally, like you, I can be very resistant to change so if I can immediately get on with it happily that really says something about it

[myglaren]

I would agree to that but then I am fairly easily pleased. Quite happy with Ubuntu and whatever desktop they chuck up (Using Ubuntu now).

[CitroJim]

I'm going to give the Debian based Mint a go today... LMDE2 'Betsy'

See how that goes...

https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

I do like how Mint give their releases feminine names

[CitroJim]

My tests reveal that the Debian-based Mint is a lot quicker and smoother on lower-powered hardware than the Ubuntu-based Mint is...

The user interface is largely the same in the Debian version but installation requires a little more Linux ability than the Ubuntu one does, especially if you want to dual-boot with Windows...

On balance, if you are going for Mint then go for the Debian one...

The more I use Mint the more I'm getting to really like it...

[Zelandeth]

Will definitely take that on board when I next come to do a reinstall somewhere - maybe not on the desktop with it having no less than three operating systems mixed among five drives, I've messed up and installed the bootloader to the wrong one there more than once already!

...plus it's working properly again just now so I'm officially not touching it again until it plays up...old and cranky seems to describe that PC just now.

I rather doubt any bits of that machine will still be going in 20 years unlike a lot of machines in my collection!

[CitroJim]

I've messed up and installed the bootloader to the wrong one there more than once already!

Yes, that's one thing you must tell the installer - where to put GRUB. It offers no clues and doesn't do it automatically as the Ubuntu installer does... Mind you, having said that, the Ubuntu installer does not always get it right...

The machine I have Mint dual-booting with Windows 10 has a couple of boot loaders and at boot time it gets a little confused... F9 sorts it

All my PCs are old and cranky

In fact, I no longer use PCs as desktops - I'm all laptop now and only retain one PC (a mini-tower) as my DHCP and backup repository server...

All this kicked off when I checked my travelling laptop ready for my holiday later in July - I'd not used it for over a year!!!

It needed a lot of updating and TLC before it was happy... Windows 10 does not like being left that long... It was then I go so pee'd off with Windows 10 and how stroppy and cranky it had become that I started looking into dual booting it with something decent...

Debian Mint was the end result... Debian because the laptop in question is not tremendously powerful...

[Zelandeth]

I can't complain at my old desktop really...it was built (in a hurry) in 2007, and has survived three or four house moves, and save for the occasional upgrade has been barely touched. It was recently treated to a new video card, simply because I wanted an extra monitor, and £30 cards are now an order of magnitude more powerful than the one in there (that I paid a couple of hundred quid for!)...Plus the replacement card had passive cooling rather than the whiny little fan on the old card.

I *think* I've tracked down the main problem with it being an issue with the SATA power connections, as when it plays up (processor getting locked up in the IOWAIT state for minutes at a time), taking the side off the case and wiggling those seems to restore normality. Last time in particular I had the backup drive doing the click-of-death - until I unplugged the SATA power and instead used the old school Molex connector (as thankfully that drive is one that's old enough to have either power option). Since then its behaved perfectly.

New PSU is probably the next thing to try if it acts up again...though given the level of disassembly involved in changing that I do wonder if it would just make sense to upgrade the motherboard, processor and memory at that point and hopefully be done with it for another ten years...

[CitroJim]

A PC built in 2007 and still going strong is good going Zel...

Mind you, having said that, the laptop I'm currently using is over 10 years old now and still working very well. When first bought (for my dad) it had the then brand-new Windows Vista on it...

It was a rubbish at running Vista and was eventually abandoned but it found a new lease of life when I installed Linux on it and it runs Debian Mint like lightning...

Replace the PSU as they do age and fail - usual issues with electrolytics and high-value resistors - but why change anything else if it still does the job adequately?

In fact, re-cap the PSU and that'll likely be good for a few more years too

[myglaren]

I'm dual-booting Mint and Ubuntu on the desktop, never had any problems with GRUB, it always just works.

It is amusing though that when one ore the other does a kernel update then that one becomes the default on GRUB.
Last week it was Mint, this week it is Ubuntu. Three weeks ago it was Ubuntu and six weeks ago Mint.

I generally just let it boot into whatever it wants except occasionally when I need access to both systems - Mint can root around in my Ubuntu home folder but Ubuntu can't access the Mint one - it probably could if I messed around with it a bit but hardly worth the effort.

I would like to network them with the laptop (Mint) but fail miserably at every attempt.

[CitroJim]

What flavour of Mint are you running Steve? Debian or Ubuntu-based?

[myglaren]

Ubuntu based. One day I will check the Debian one out but not today

[CitroJim]

Yes, do try the Debian one Steve, the performance difference is significant. Or, at least, it is for me...

[myglaren]

Will do Jim - eventually.

Been putting it off for three years now.
Next time maybe, or when I acquire another laptop

[Zelandeth]

The issue for me Jim, is that everything is so well crammed into the case that getting the PSU out requires removing basically everything save for the drives and expansion cards.

Memory has to come out, and the CPU cooler has to come off, all the data cables have to shift... it's just a case of there's so much being pulled apart I may as well just upgrade the thing - especially as I would occasionally like more horsepower these days. Especially as one of the big projects I'm doing just now is transcoding our media library...upgrading it to being able to handle Blu-ray movies would also be handy - it just doesn't have the grunt to handle those at present unless I fancy waiting several days per disc!

Wouldn't be a whole new system, would be motherboard (which these days I can probably get with more than four SATA ports which would save me an expansion slot), memory and CPU. Obviously the suspect power supply too.

I'd honestly just like to be in a situation where I can leave the case sealed for another ten years...the thing needs to "just work" really. Definitely would upgrade if I could find an ATX server tower case in which I would actually have room for all the hardware! It's a bit crowded in there just now.

[CitroJim]

Gosh, that PC sounds a bit like a Xantia V6 under the bonnet Zel In other words, well crammed!

I'm so used to tower PCs being mostly fresh air inside... I really don't do much with PC hardware any more and never built a system from scratch or enhanced a system in my life bar adding a few sticks of memory or swapping a hard disk. I've always tended to use a PC as found fresh from the skip!

And returning them to the skip when they fail...

Maybe my demands of a PC are pretty much straightforward, just like my software and operating system requirements...

I continue to be very happy with Betsy, the Debian Mint I've installed it on both my regularly used laptops now... Ubuntu is history...