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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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1) we are looking to figure out how to turn this into Chromebook, and others have said that this Lenovo 14w specs seem like it was originally made to be a Chromebook. So if we can find the closest spec'ed chromebook ... maybe we can figure out how to put the OS on this machine. ( I know about cloudready)
2) Continue to find stream-lined version of windows 10 pro/or special version that works with lower specs.
3) Continue to find the perfect Linux OS and best settings.
Maybe by feb or march of 2020, distro's and neverware and other's will have image we can download and install on the 14w that will help us.
I'm thinking that many people have bought this cheap laptop the last month, and it's probably going to be offered again during BF, the hacking community may assist us too.
But the performance, absolute night and day. it no longer feels like the laptop is stuck in syrup. I'd urge anyone to return this, it's very easy through Lenovo they will email you a shipping label, and get a real laptop. Thrilled with the Vivobook for 200.
I strongly dislike 1366X768 displays, (the vivobook is 1080 btw, but no longer available) but again honestly if thats the sacrifice you need to make, do it. Just dont get something molasses slow. Get something fast enough to be usable.
as is always the case with deals, it's wasted $ if the product is no good. yes you cant get anything else for 129, but that's 129 thrown away, that you could put toward something decent, if the product is bad.
The Ryzen 3 Octane scores around 21000, similar to the 22k my SD855 phone scores and my core m3 Chromebook scores, all of which are fast machines. Now, my SD835 SD Galaxy Tab S4 I just picked up for 155 on a SD, only scored over 10k, and it's still fast, whereas the Lenovo and my N2840 Chromebook both scored ~8k (some runs 10k on the Lenovo IIRC), and are slower than dirt, so obviously the octane bench is not perfect.
Once you play with it a bit more, how is the battery life? What about fan noise and heat?
Thanks.
Proceed with extreme caution on this tutorial as it may contain outdated information: a user on the forums followed step 1 and ended up with an unbootable computer (bricked).
The above is better achieved by using Plop Boot Manager; a safe way to enable booting from USB on computers that (no longer) support booting from USB. Plop can be put on a CD or installed to your MBR from Windows or Linux. See documentation at http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.ht
I didn't try it
Here are the list of the best experiences right after install(all are 64bit):
#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
#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.
I tried Mint OS and Ubuntu Beaver, they are both as I expected...meh, heavy, slow. But hey everything functions so if you need robust functions, I'd recommend you to get a better laptop lol.
Ok as for the new King... or rather the new Co-King at the top rank spot for the 14w is .....drumroll..
Zorin OS 15 Lite 64bit that is just out today or yesterday, here's the link I used https://zorinos.com/download/15/lite/
Everything works out of the box, for me all I have to do is change touchpad to tab to click and install Htop in terminal(it'll prompt you, fast and easy) I love the OS look(flat, material look) that is very clean. You can certainly do the same with Xubuntu but I don't have THAT much free time on my hands. Again this is for a burner linux laptop use so I don't want to spend too much time customizing. Seriously go check out some pictures of the screens it looks great, I opted for the darker theme.
Everything runs smoothly that I have tested in the past 2 hours while cooking, following youtube videos and recipes. Anything above 1080 will you experince lag, like 60fps will lag. (all linux os lag that I tried)
Sometimes even 1080p will lag if the video isn't prebuffered. But again, par for the course for all the distros I tried.
It runs about 200mb over Xubuntu but I noticed no discernible speed difference. The highest workload I put on it is video loading on youtube.
-------------------------------------Here's my new linux ranking for this device--------------------------
Light use burner laptop with video watching and light office work.
#1 Zorin OS Lite 15. Fast, light, great clean visuals. Only edit you need is enable tap to click on touchpad, install htop for stats. Runs 200mb higher ram vs Xubuntu. But MUCH BETTER LOOKING stock, it is very similar to windows, windows users will have no issues with this set up.
#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
#4 Ubuntu and LInux Mint: everything works, just slower and laggier.
#5 Crunchbang++, keeps freezing and having issues
#6 Debian cannot start
#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
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Zorin OS 15 Lite 64bit that is just out today or yesterday, here's the link I used https://zorinos.com/download/15/lite/
Everything works out of the box, for me all I have to do is change touchpad to tab to click and install Htop in terminal(it'll prompt you, fast and easy) I love the OS look(flat, material look) that is very clean. You can certainly do the same with Xubuntu but I don't have THAT much free time on my hands. Again this is for a burner linux laptop use so I don't want to spend too much time customizing. Seriously go check out some pictures of the screens it looks great, I opted for the darker theme.
Everything runs smoothly that I have tested in the past 2 hours while cooking, following youtube videos and recipes. Anything above 1080 will you experince lag, like 60fps will lag. (all linux os lag that I tried)
Sometimes even 1080p will lag if the video isn't prebuffered. But again, par for the course for all the distros I tried.
It runs about 200mb over Xubuntu but I noticed no discernible speed difference. The highest workload I put on it is video loading on youtube.
Thanks for the update. I'll have to try Zorin 15. Good news.
When you get around to testing another distro, can you install MX LINUX! It sits in top spot in Distrowatch and I have heard good things about it, and I noticed a few people thought it worked on this laptop. But seems like you have the most experience in trying all the distro's. Keep up your updates. Thanks.
MXLinux personally I don't like it. I do like Kubuntu, right now playing around ubuntu stu, I am really pleased to hear about the Zorin news would try it next. thanks
1 thing to add, firefox streaming is sad, vlc playing 1080p download clip 38-58ish% cpu(normally in 40% range), the other plor player would use about 10% more cpu than vlc.
Similar thing happen in chromebook, streaming youtube in chrome browser NOT as good as in youtube android app.
I should probably note that this thread now includes a clam and a pickle.
When you get around to testing another distro, can you install MX LINUX! It sits in top spot in Distrowatch and I have heard good things about it, and I noticed a few people thought it worked on this laptop. But seems like you have the most experience in trying all the distro's. Keep up your updates. Thanks.
SennamonTea seems like the perfect guy to try out MX Linux on this laptop, don't you agree?
Did you try MX Linux?
I was just suggesting the one guy who tried a number of distro's to report back to us how his review of it went.
Now if you did install MX Linux on this laptop, can you tell us your experience.
If you haven't tried MX Linux yet, I'm not suggesting you install if if you have your laptop the way you like it.
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SennamonTea seems like the perfect guy to try out MX Linux on this laptop, don't you agree?
Did you try MX Linux?
I was just suggesting the one guy who tried a number of distro's to report back to us how his review of it went.
Now if you did instead MX Linux, can you tell us your experience.
If you haven't tried MX Linux yet, I'm not suggesting you install if if you have your laptop the way you like it.
Hilariously, the 3700x with an rx550 card still doesn't want to accelerate the youtube videos in hardware.