Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
Thanks Les, for your comprehensive reply. I think the take away will be to get the window manager to be as lean as poss. Kind regards On Mon, 26 Feb 2024, 5:43 pm Les Kitchen via luv-main, wrote: > [I'm replying to the original post, but I have seen the > subsequent traffic.] > > On Mon, Feb 26, 2024, at 13:20, Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: > > I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe > > mainly to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized > > ext, HDD, > > > > When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set > > for boot from USB stick. > > > > Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? > > Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "modern". > > I've got a few old machines with similar specs to yours. I run > Debian on them (current stable or testing), and find that works > fine, considering the machines' capabilities. But as Nic Baxter > pointed out, probably choice of things like desktop environment > (and window manager and filesystem) matters more than the > underlying distro (and configuration, like say switching off GUI > animations). Myself, I mainly use Xmonad (and sway under > Wayland) as tiling window managers, as being lighter weight, and > LXDE for family members who expect a more conventional GUI > interface. (AFAIK, LXDE mainly uses OpenBox as its window > manager.) > > In particular, I have an Asus Eeepc 1000HE, with very similar > specs (Atom N280 instead of N270). For simple things, like > copying files about, it's fine — though it struggles with > Javascript-heavy websites and multiple tabs in a web-browsers, > and with image processing (like for photo editing). I expect > your experience would be similar. > > In general, and especially if you're travelling, having an > encrypted filesystem is a good idea, as Debian and other distros > provide, but not all. > > And as Andrew McGlashan mentioned, upgrading RAM can help — but > I doubt that's possible as the RAM is likely soldered on. It's > a matter of money, but replacing the hard-drive with an SSD > could help quite a lot. (And it's a somewhat orthogonal issue, > but getting a good third-party replacement battery can extend > the machine's useful life.) > > I hope these comments are of some use. > > > — Smiles, Les. > ___ > luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au > To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au > ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
On Mon, Feb 26, 2024, at 18:09, Andrew McGlashan via luv-main wrote: > I wonder if you could do just as well with a USB-C to USB hub device > attaching a HDD to a mobile (or directly without a hub). > > The mobile will be so much faster. Good idea. I've done this. Doing it on a mobile phone with dongles and cables hanging off it is a bit more cumbersome than doing it on a laptop, but it works. And it sure is less to carry. In my case, I took along a such a hub (with SD and μ-SD readers) on my last big trip, intended just as a backup to my laptop, in case of failures. (I also took a small chording keyboard — Decatxt.) But when my laptop became unusable from a broken hinge mount (Librem-13v4, long tale of woe omitted), that backup plan got enacted, with the hub connected to my Pinephone. As the laptop runs Debian and the Pinephone Mobian, I could do all the same stuff (which entails some bulk, scripted, systematic renaming of image files to a consistent pattern across images taken on different cameras and mobile phones, in different time zones). But if all you're doing is copying files, then plugging into any phone and copying via the file manager should do the job — though that might restrict your choice of filesystem on the external drive. A few things to be aware of if you take this route: 1. Some phones can't output enough power through their USB-C port to power the hub and even just one or two attached low-power devices. So you (or your friend) will probably need to supply power to the hub through its USB-C port (for which you can probably use your phone's power supply). If you want to store the photos on your phone as well as on the external drive, then you can just copy the photos off the SD card onto the phone with a suitable reader on one pass, and then copy the photos from the phone to the external drive on a second pass. Then you could do without the hub, though you might need a USB-C to USB-A adapter and a power supply for the external drive. Another variation, if it works, is to put a μ-SD card into your camera (likely with a full-size SD-card adapter), and then slip the μ-SD card into your mobile phone's μ-SD-card slot to get the photos off the card. Then you wouldn't need a separate card reader. But that depends on how much free space you have on your phone, and how many photos you take each time. And on many phones, the card slot isn't hot-swappable, so you have to got through shutdowns and power-ups. Whatever you do, try out the setup before you travel. 2. Some USB-C plugs and sockets aren't snug enough, and can wiggle about, causing annoying disconnections. That's part of what can make it a cumbersome setup, in that you may have to avoid jiggling connections while using the phone. 3. When travelling, my usual regime is to store the photos on my laptop (or on a phone with a big µ-SD card), and on an external drive (or big enough USB flash stick). I make sure, as far as possible, they're kept separately. If the laptop's in my carry-on backpack en route, then the external drive is in the hold luggage; if I leave the laptop in my hotel room, then I take the external drive in my day-pack backpack. For this sort of thing, one immensely useful gadget is a tiny USB-C to USB-A adapter. (I got mine off eBay, but there must be many sources.) It's a USB-C plug attached to a small board with USB-A contacts designed to slip inside the shell of a USB-A plug. I think it does only USB2 speeds, though. Again, I hope this is useful. And thanks to Russell Coker for his comments. Implicit in that is the need to try things out before you travel. I don't know, doing a fresh install is not all that much trouble, I think, so maybe still worth doing even on an old machine. — Smiles, Les. ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
Hi, On 26/2/24 4:43 pm, Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: > The specs are here: > https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Ideapad-S10e.15950.0.html That link dates back to April 16, 2009 ... https://web.archive.org/web/20090416210118/http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Ideapad-S10e.15950.0.html Okay, so it looks like it is at "maximum" RAM for the device: https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/lenovo/ideapad-s10e The Atom N270 is limited to x86, so only 32bit distos are an option, not all distros are 32bit capable these days. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/36331/intel-atom-processor-n270-512k-cache-1-60-ghz-533-mhz-fsb.html - single core, with [CPU] really low power usage as well. I wonder if you could do just as well with a USB-C to USB hub device attaching a HDD to a mobile (or directly without a hub). The mobile will be so much faster. Cheers A. ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
On Monday, 26 February 2024 13:20:58 AEDT Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: > I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe > mainly to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized > ext, HDD, > > When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set > for boot from USB stick. Does the system that's on there support the interfaces to his camera in the way he wants? If he just wants to mount a SD card then not much has changed on the software side in that regard for about 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card If the hardware supports the SD format needed (note that there are 4 formats listed in the Wikipedia page and the laptop in question may only support the first 2) then it should just work. If it doesn't support SDXC then you can just use 32GB cards (which is a lot if you regularly copy them off) or use a USB adaptor to support higher capacities. If he wants to use gphoto2 then the version on there might not support his camera if it's a newer camera. But compiling a recent gphoto2 for an old system might be easier than doing a fresh installation. It's an old laptop and isn't going to be used for demanding tasks so probably not worth the effort of a reinstall. But if I was going to install on it I'd use Debian. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Bloghttp://doc.coker.com.au/ ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
[I'm replying to the original post, but I have seen the subsequent traffic.] On Mon, Feb 26, 2024, at 13:20, Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: > I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe > mainly to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized > ext, HDD, > > When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set > for boot from USB stick. > > Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "modern". I've got a few old machines with similar specs to yours. I run Debian on them (current stable or testing), and find that works fine, considering the machines' capabilities. But as Nic Baxter pointed out, probably choice of things like desktop environment (and window manager and filesystem) matters more than the underlying distro (and configuration, like say switching off GUI animations). Myself, I mainly use Xmonad (and sway under Wayland) as tiling window managers, as being lighter weight, and LXDE for family members who expect a more conventional GUI interface. (AFAIK, LXDE mainly uses OpenBox as its window manager.) In particular, I have an Asus Eeepc 1000HE, with very similar specs (Atom N280 instead of N270). For simple things, like copying files about, it's fine — though it struggles with Javascript-heavy websites and multiple tabs in a web-browsers, and with image processing (like for photo editing). I expect your experience would be similar. In general, and especially if you're travelling, having an encrypted filesystem is a good idea, as Debian and other distros provide, but not all. And as Andrew McGlashan mentioned, upgrading RAM can help — but I doubt that's possible as the RAM is likely soldered on. It's a matter of money, but replacing the hard-drive with an SSD could help quite a lot. (And it's a somewhat orthogonal issue, but getting a good third-party replacement battery can extend the machine's useful life.) I hope these comments are of some use. — Smiles, Les. ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
On 26/2/24 15:04, Andrew McGlashan via luv-main wrote: Hi, On 26/2/24 1:41 pm, Duncan Roe via luv-main wrote: > On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 01:20:58PM +1100, luv-main wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe mainly to get photos off his camera SD card and >> into a suitably sized ext, HDD, >> >> When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set for boot from USB stick. >> >> Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? >> >> >> Many thanks >> >> Andrew Greig >> > I always use Knoppix https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html Hmmm, Knoppix looks pretty dead. I thought it was dead some time ago. The lack of RAM and the machine being quite old, I don't know; if Knoppix does the job, then sure, but I think you might want something newer if it doesn't need more resources. What are the other hardware specs? Which CPU / architecture? What RAM does it take, can it get an upgrade of the RAM if possible at a reasonable cost? Cheers A. ___ > luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au > To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au Thanks Andrew, The specs are here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Ideapad-S10e.15950.0.html But for some reason mine has 2Gb of Ram and 160Gb hard-drive. Initially I was using it to plan hikes using a piece of software from a German dev, Later he sold it nd it became proprietary software. oliver.eich...@gmx.de but when I was having trouble with it he discovered that latitudes in the Southern hemisphere are represented by negative values. Pos for the North , of course. Any way he optimised the program so that this small machine would handle a 4GB scan and zoom in and out at high speed. Could create a route and then copy it to a Garmin ETrex, brilliant, Cheers Andrew ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
Hi Andrew, MX Linux 23.1 with Xfce has a low resource requirement has been completely stable for my use of it, and is very popular at the moment (so lots of info available if you run into issues). 23.2 is out now, but I haven't tried it yet. HTH Andrew On 26/02/2024 1:20 pm, Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: Hi All, I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe mainly to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized ext, HDD, When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set for boot from USB stick. Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? Many thanks Andrew Greig ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au -- Thanks Andrew ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
On 26 February 2024 1:20:58 pm AEDT, Andrew Greig via luv-main wrote: >Hi All, > >I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe mainly >to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized ext, HDD, > >When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set for >boot from USB stick. > >Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? > > >Many thanks > >Andrew Greig > Hi Andrew I'm curious why you need to find a new os to reduce the resource load. One of the great things about Linux is flexibility. Try a low resource window manager such as Openbox. HIH Nic ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 Hi, On 26/2/24 1:41 pm, Duncan Roe via luv-main wrote: > On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 01:20:58PM +1100, luv-main wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe mainly >> to get photos off his camera SD card and >> into a suitably sized ext, HDD, >> >> When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set for >> boot from USB stick. >> >> Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? >> >> >> Many thanks >> >> Andrew Greig >> > I always use Knoppix https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html Hmmm, Knoppix looks pretty dead. I thought it was dead some time ago. The lack of RAM and the machine being quite old, I don't know; if Knoppix does the job, then sure, but I think you might want something newer if it doesn't need more resources. What are the other hardware specs? Which CPU / architecture? What RAM does it take, can it get an upgrade of the RAM if possible at a reasonable cost? Cheers A. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iHUEAREIAB0WIQTJAoMHtC6YydLfjUOoFmvLt+/i+wUCZdwNxAAKCRCoFmvLt+/i +3EEAQCMvybBr2b8CX6tvZdZ+iF33ETRU0XDAw1Sc5/xZjr+cAEAxxcHg/Sm68pE /Gf8Y28QMfRi/1GXLwsWj1wCrmy5Zgo= =UbAi -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
Thanks Duncan, I'll see if I can get a USB iso. Andrew On Mon, 26 Feb 2024, 1:42 pm Duncan Roe via luv-main, wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 01:20:58PM +1100, luv-main wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe > mainly > > to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized ext, HDD, > > > > When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set > for > > boot from USB stick. > > > > Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? > > > > > > Many thanks > > > > Andrew Greig > > > I always use Knoppix https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html > > Cheers ... Duncan. > ___ > luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au > To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au > ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
Re: Lenovo Ideapad (2Gb RAM) - What is the best modern OS for this unit
Hi Andrew, On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 01:20:58PM +1100, luv-main wrote: > Hi All, > > I am intending to lend a friend this device for his travels in Europe mainly > to get photos off his camera SD card and into a suitably sized ext, HDD, > > When I turned it on I found it had a Mageia OS (RPM) I have the BIOS set for > boot from USB stick. > > Any tips for a functional and speedy OS to load, please? > > > Many thanks > > Andrew Greig > I always use Knoppix https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html Cheers ... Duncan. ___ luv-main mailing list -- luv-main@luv.asn.au To unsubscribe send an email to luv-main-le...@luv.asn.au
