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It was slow for me too, guys, but if you tweak the system, allocate virtual space for ram, etc., It is actually pretty decent...
My worries were ram and hd, I fixed those though, thankfully. My secret?: Tweek (not the powder or rocks, ie ur settings, fix them n00bz) Create virtual memory from the he, I allocated 16gb so for me I have 20gb of ram on this, 4gb + 16 virtual Get large memory card, I have 256gb and may upgrade, as needed ... |
Ok so I've had this laptop for a few days now and tested almost all the LInux Distros for those interested.
Here are the list of the best experiences right after install(all are 64bit): #1 Zorin Lite 15 #1 Xubuntu 18.04, only edit you will need is change touchpad behavior to disable trackpad while typing(enable and set it to 0.2 seconds, increase time if you need to). Other minor gripe is it doesn't come with htop, but it'll prompt you in terminal on how to install. Super fast start up(~5seconds to log in from cold) #1*Peppermint 10, this distro actually works the best right out of the box, all hotkeys work and everything. HOWEVER, this is a big however. I cannot get this distro to install, it errors out at configing since it doesn't have the controller for the eMMc drive. If you can get it to install I figure it'd be just as good if not better than Xubuntu #2 Manjaro 18.1.2XFCE, very good but has some screen flicker at max brightness and slower than Xubuntu. Also sometimes on start up it has graphical glitches. #3 Lubuntu 18.10. Everything good except one thing, which for me is a pretty big no, default driver for touchpad does not enable tap to click on touchpad, I didn't stay long enough to enable it. #4 Lubuntu Mate18.04.3 :good but slower than previous distros, also has more screen tear for me on youtube #5 Crunchbang++, keeps freezing and having issues #6 Debian cannot start Edit: I haven't tried installing to the eMMC, but the machine runs Debian stable reasonably well installed on a USB 3.0 dongle. I highly recommend the 5.2 backports kernel & the backports firmware-atheros package. Bluetooth is working. #7Bodhi LInux 5.0.0: freezing/slow/slow startup #8 PopOS: I tried a heavier OS for fun, this seems to work just fine, a little slower than the rest but as expected for a heavier specced OS I didn't try Linux mint or Ubuntu, those are heavier distros that I did not want to touch. They usually work with everything but not my purpose of using this laptop. Hope this helps you. |
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VERRRRY SUSPICIOUS. Virus.
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30 seconds flat with Fast Boot enabled
What 48 hour time limit? I believe you have 30 days from invoice.
I believe it was engineered to be a Chromebook, but then Microsoft wanted in on the action.
48 hour is the wait time after I went online started a return, then they have to approve the return - they take 48 hours for that (already exceeded). In days of Amazon, this is like being in early 2000s with return process
win+X to activate
On the Win 10 speedtest app I am showing 6ms 365.69 mbps dn / 293.12 mbps up
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From the back of my head windows needs 30% to 50% free disk space to run smoothly?
Personally I really feel sorry for this laptop and what MS did to it.
MS should slap Windows 7/8.1 in and call it "Simple OS", for these type of laptop. It should run smoothly and problem free.
Windows 7/8.1 Requirement(about the same):
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor*
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
So you have windows 10 pro installed on your laptop, and use Debian on a Stick with spicy sauce of your creation on the 64gb stick. Amazing job! Can you maybe post some if it in wiki 2nd/3rd post with how you did it (links). Cool bro.
I have a now-retired Ubuntu computer that I upgraded in place every 6 months from April 2005 until I put it out to pasture a couple of years ago (when it was running Ubuntu 18,04 bionic, the current long term support release). It was still usable, but why bother with a single core overclocked Athlon XP 1700+ CPU and 1.5 GB of DDR1 when you can buy a new laptop that has 3+ times as much memory and a processor that is 7 times as fast for $130?
So like I said, I just installed Debian on a USB stick a few years ago, and cloned it with dd [wikipedia.org] so I have several configured operating systems in case I lose one or it goes hind-end up.
When you take a Windows hard drive and transfer it to a new computer you often scramble the operating system unless you uninstall all the hardware from the Device Manager before you transplant it (or at least that used to be the case back in the early naughts when I still used Windows). Even then, often the OS isn't quite right and you might want to do a fresh install (and a reinstall every couple of years when the system slowed down). That isn't the case with Linux, 15 years ago I was astounded when I took an old suse install and put it in a new machine prepatory to formatting and reinstalling and found that everything was working properly after I edited my xorg.conf file for the new graphics driver (even that is generally not necessary these days).
So I just took my USB stick on which I'd installed Debian with another computer a couple of years ago, and inserted it in the 14w, went into the UEFI BIOS with the F2 key, went to the Boot menu, disabled secure boot and enabled Legacy Support and made Legacy the first booted option. Linux came up and everything was working but the wireless. So I attached a USB hub with ethernet and installed the latest backports version of the atheros firmware (sudo apt-get -t buster-backports install firmware-atheros), and while I was at it, I figured I might as well install the latest backports kernel as well, since the Lenovo was relatively new hardware ( sudo apt-get -t buster-backports install linux-image-amd64). And of course I updated every other package on the installation while I was at it, which just requires a single command (UG is my command line alias for "apt update ; apt full-upgrade"). You can do all that with user-friendly GUI programs, of course, but Debian and Ubuntu have been my daily driver for 15 years, so it is just faster and more efficient for me to use the terminal.
I still can't believe what a hassle it is to update a Windows installation, the hunting and pecking for various programs and endless reboots, and the insane amount of time. Then the damn machine hangs you up for often many minutes both when you shut down and restart while it installs the updates. And then it sometimes requires running the whole cycle 2-3 more times! My server has been running for a couple of weeks and done several complete updates to the latest versions of all installed packages, but is still humming along fine, though I guess if I felt like it I could restart it to refresh a few services.
The reason I called it *buntu is that Ubuntu comes in a variety of different flavors depending upon the desktop. Ubuntu itself is based on Gnome 3, which requires above average hardware to run smoothly (and it is kind of OSX-like and I don't really like it personally). But there are several other flavors of *buntu, as well that run different desktop environments. It doesn't much matter which one you start with, you can easily install other desktops as well later, and I have never noticed anything but occasional cosmetic issues and program duplication (and every once in a long while package version conflicts which are easily resolved if you are an experienced user). Check out this web site [itsfoss.com] to read about some of the versions of Ubuntu. There are also a lot of other Linux "distributions" based on *buntu but they add their own repositories, as well. These include Mint Linux, Peppermint, Zorin, Pop!_OS, which have all been mentioned on this thread, as well as many, many others. There are also many distributions based on Debian (and in fact, Ubuntu is based on Debian, but Debian and Ubuntu use different repositories and are not interchangeable). Frankly, I think the "based-on" distributions are more trouble than they are worth. They are often much harder to upgrade to the next major version if you are not an experienced user, and frankly, don't bring all that much to the table that you can't get from stock *buntu or Debian. So if you want Cinnamon desktop that comes with the standard version or Linux Mint, for instance, just install another stock version of *buntu like Ubuntu-Mate, and then install the cinnamon desktop, which you can do with a single command like "sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment" (I'm on Debian so can't check the exact package name). BTW, if you are interested in learning about different open source operating systems (often called distros) I recommend checking out a web site called Distrowatch [distrowatch.com].
So I (stupidly?) have 9 different Linux desktop environments installed on my flash drive, but I'd recommend against using some of them on this underwhelming but adequate bit of kit. Gnome 3 is a very heavy desktop, Ubuntu itself (which uses Gnome 3) wouldn't be my choice on this box. Likewise, budgie and cinnamon don't really show their chops best on slower hardware.
KDE/Plasma (called Kubuntu https://kubuntu.org/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.
BTW, to image the downloaded Linux installer ISOs to a flash drive a good tool is a program called Balena Etcher [balena.io], it is free, cross-platform, and open source.
Ubuntu-Mate [ubuntu-mate.org] features the mate desktop, which is perhaps a bit lighter than KDE, and is also very configurable. Heck, with a package called mate-tweak [dedoimedo.com] you can easily make it look like your preferred proprietary operating system if that is something you would want to do. Personally, I occasionally find Linux desktops introducing features that I think are ungodly stupid, and then I almost always find out that they are copied from Windows, or, even worse, OSX. Luckily, it is Linux, which is all about personal choice, so it is easy to de-dumb the desktops. Anyway, you can download the 19.10 version of ubuntu-mate here [ubuntu.com].
Lubuntu [lubuntu.me] is the lightest of the *buntu herd, based on the LXDE desktop. It is Linux, so you can de-uglify it if you feel so inclined (the attractive Peppermint distro has elements of LXDE), but out of the box it is kind of plain. Download 19.10 here []http].
Xubuntu is based on XFCE, another light, traditional desktop. I think it is an excellent choice, configurable, stable, and after KDE, my favorite desktop. There is a reason why it has been so highly recommended in this thread. http://cdimage.ubuntu.
If you want to fool around with various distros without downloading them and running a live USB there are web sites [ostechnix.com] you can visit where you can remotely test drive hundreds of options.
BTW, UpbeatPickle3430, I didn't say I got great speed, exactly, rather it is adequate and not frustrating to use (at least in Linux). That is saying quite a bit since I have it installed on a slow USB dongle. It would be much faster if installed to the eMMC drive, blowing away Windows (or dual booting with it). I would make this 14W dual boot from the eMMC myself, but I like encrypting my Linux systems (which are really the only ones I really use), and that would be more of a hassle without blowing away Windows. Besides, Windows uses half the eMMC after updating, and if Windows were to get actually used it would require some room to grow, so I'd have to pare my Linux install down to maybe 15GB, which is OK, but would feel a bit cramped to me. A few years ago I built an i7 with 3 SSDs (Linux, OSX & Windows) and 32GB of RAM for some video editors I know, this box isn't that beast. The Lenovo would be a wrong choice for that kind of work load, but it is just fine for web browsing, email, office applications, multimedia consumption, etc.
Only do this if you like the challenge. The usb 3 stick works already, so keep taking us forward in getting this laptop to kick ass!
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For all the cry baby, like myself. You will not get anything better at this price point.
But better doesn't necessary translate to useable, depending on your need.