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Elementary OS on a 2011 Macbook Pro
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Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 27, 2020 at 12:16 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>I’ve no idea about Chromebooks, alas. But the sunsetting seems to
>me singularly dishonest, given Chrome’s minimal footprint.
I don’t find this dishonest. You get good value for money.
AFAIK, separate versions of Chrome OS are developed for each hardware model (which is partly what makes Chromebooks more secure), so with the proliferation of new models it would be increasingly expensive to develop updates for decreasing numbers of aging hardware.
Considering that most Chromebooks are cheap and cheerful, the hardware rarely lasts more than 3 years with daily use. My Chromebooks lasted about 2.5 years on average.
However, now that more premium and better built machines are appearing more frequently, Google have actually extended end of life to 8 years for new models from 2020 onwards.
But the option is still there to convert an old Chromebook to a Linux machine or install CloudReady.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 27, 2020 at 12:22 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
MadaboutDana wrote:
>>I’ve no idea about Chromebooks, alas. But the sunsetting seems to
>>me singularly dishonest, given Chrome’s minimal footprint.
>
>I don’t find this dishonest. You get good value for money.
I guess where dishonesty might come in is with retailers who are selling older models without making it clear to the uninformed buyer that the OS has a shelf-life, some of which has already been spent.
So yes, if you buy a 2017 model in 2020, you will have lost 3 years of shelf life.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 27, 2020 at 06:10 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
For those with older notebooks, I can thoroughly recommend Xubuntu.
>It’s been around for a long time, and keeps getting better. The
>footprint is minimal, so it runs like the blazes even on much older
>notebooks (like my 11-inch Asus Eeeeeee - anyone remember those?!)
Yup, I got one of them in the drawer, with XP on it still. I even bought a bigger battery for it, but haven’t turned it on for a couple of years now. Do you have a link for how to go about installing Xubuntu on it?
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 28, 2020 at 09:17 AM
Er, from memory, I just downloaded Xubuntu, put it on a USB stick, launched it from said USB stick (where it resided as an executable) and then instructed it to install itself on the hard drive. I don’t remember the Eee having any BIOS restrictions on installation (e.g. being locked to Windows or anything). When you instruct Xubuntu to install itself on the hard drive, you have the option of telling it to take over the entire hard drive, or simply creating a new partition and installing itself alongside Windows. I opted for the Total Nuke option and now Xubuntu is the only OS on the machine. XP was running ridiculously slowly in any case!
Oh, hang on, having sniffed at the Xubuntu site, I see that the old Windows executable doesn’t appear to be available any more. Okay, so here are some instructions: https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Xubuntu
It’s not super-complicated, although it’s a bit fiddly.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 28, 2020 at 11:08 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>Oh, hang on, having sniffed at the Xubuntu site, I see that the old
>Windows executable doesn’t appear to be available any more. Okay,
>so here are some instructions: https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Xubuntu
Thanks for the link. Maybe this will be my chance to dip my toe into the Linux world finally.
I did a bit of Googling, and apparently there is even a reddit sub called EEE PC Master Race :-)
https://www.reddit.com/r/eeepcmasterrace/comments/7w4nu0/best_operating_system_for_eee_pc/