Edit 2: to everyone suggesting an SDD: i know. Look, if this guy had enough $$$ for an SSD, he could buy a used lappy less than half the age of this one that has an ssd and 2-3x the memory.

Currently, my buddy has a budget of $0, and, if he ever has money to spend, it will be on a newer computer, not upgrading this one. Thx!

My buddy’s old laptop was useless running Windows 7. I wiped it, put on Linux Mint (MATE), and it’s humming along just fine.

Edit: I really love helping people out like this. This guy is in his late 60s and has no other computer. He told me he hasn’t been able to use it in years (I believe it!), so I told him I could wipe it and make it usable again. He was thrilled!

After trying LM Cinnamon, I found it was a bit too much for this machine (Core 2 Duo “Penryn” @ 2.3GHz, 2.77GB Memory, Intel Series 4 Integrated Graphics). I reinstalled with LM MATE, and found it more responsive. I did the standard secondary installation of all the goodies like multimedia codecs, TTF support, battery tweaks, etc. I set up snapshots and the firewall, and installed UBlock Origin in Firefox. I updated everything. Shockingly, the battery still gets about 90-120 minutes, which blows my mind. The damn thing is 18 years old!

So, it’s still slow to launch stuff, as it’s running off of a slow HDD, but it manages to run most things just fine. It’s certainly far more responsive than Win7, and it enables my buddy to enjoy safe, secure, and modern web browsing (which is pretty much all he uses it for).

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      no landfills here in Florida, they just burn the e-waste and pump the fumes into the local orphanariums, selling it as “Vytameens™".

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      We’re in Florida, so no landfill— they’d just burn it and pump the exhaust into local orphanages, sold as “Vytameenz™”

  • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
    1·
    6 months ago

    A little trick you can do if your friend experiences too much memory limitations when browsing the web is to use the 32 bit version of firefox. I use it in a machine with only 2gb, and it helped a lot.

      • Mac@federation.redEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Fortunately, I did not have that happen before it met the wrath of 8oz of ice cold water

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      Fastfetch has replaced neofetch!

      But there are alternatives, namely the wonderfully queer hyfetch!

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      He certainly didn’t know how to use a windows 7 computer for the 18 years he had that installed as the operating system.

      Now he has a computer that he can use confidently and securely in a modern way.

      And he’s very happy. I called that a win.

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      AkTuALly:

      In this particular instance, due to the microscopic amount of memory in the machine (even for the day, when 4GB was considered “minimum”, this lappy has… 2.77GB?), more memory would probably impact performance just as much as an SSD.

      But, yeah, and SSD would increase app launch performance and other HDD-centric tasks a great deal. But more memory would allow more apps to cache in active memory and quick-launch after first-launch. This might be a better and more cost-effective “first upgrade” before going SSD.

      Also, this dude is in no position to spend money on this machine, so I’m doing what I can to make the most of what he has.

  • e-five@kbin.run
    0·
    6 months ago

    Any reason MATE over Xcfe? Just curious if the performance is close or MATE is better at things, not trying to question your decisions. I have a >9 year old PC at this point and installed Cinnamon on it but was finding it a bit laggy. I tried out the other editions but am sticking with LMDE for now, but sort of feel like I don’t really need nice animations, I just need more CPU for faster compile times, haha

    • gregorum@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      XFCE is so ugly and clunky, I wouldn’t ever suggest that a Linux novice ever use it. It’s fucking horrific. It’s a user interface you choose when you have no other choice and are just that desperate. Suffice to say, I wasn’t that desperate.

      It was important that this user have an interface that he could navigate easily, an XFCE was not that interface, nor will it ever be.

      Edit. I should note that this may be colored with some personal bias I have against XFCE. I just don’t like it and only use it when forced to. So, ya know, keep that in mind…

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    0·
    6 months ago

    We have a crazy old laptop that we used to watch movies on when I was a child. That now also runs Linux Mint really well.

    I think a slim Fedora KDE would also be very fine, as Cinnamon is really quite painful to use. But they have a really nice set of user friendly minimal apps.

    Nothing I would recommend to people switching from other OSes though, as its just too minimal and especially Nemo is awful. Like, no link support??

  • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
    0·
    6 months ago

    If hardware/budget allow it, you might want to throw in a cheap SSD and some more RAM. Something like 50€ could greatly improve usability.

  • BRINGit34@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    01·
    6 months ago

    You may wanna try putting a solid state drive in. It will boost performance so much

  • Petter1@lemm.ee
    01·
    6 months ago

    Replace that HDD or your buddy will soon wake up to grub rescue 😌