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hpmini
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Hello guys

Post by hpmini »

I'm using an old Dell Inspiron Mini. After a couple of days of research and testing various Linux distros, I settled for Linux Mint. The distros I tested were Lubuntu and Kali. But I find Linux Mint the most fit for my use for this old laptop. It is slow and only has 1G of RAM. But I still cherish this old laptop because it is durable. It does not wakeup from suspend when closing the lid. But the suspend menu does work. I used this laptop to learn more on bash utilities, Python, Rust, Golang and C++ programming.
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kc1di
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Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:44 pm
Location: Maine USA

Re: Hello guys

Post by kc1di »

Hello hpmini,
Welcome to the Linux Ming Forums, enjoy the Journey! :)
You may want to use XFCE if you haven't already found that as it's a bit lighter on resources that Cinnamon or Mate.
Easy tips : https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/ Pjotr's Great Linux projects page.
Linux Mint Installation Guide: http://linuxmint-installation-guide.rea ... en/latest/
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deepakdeshp
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Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:00 am

Re: Hello guys

Post by deepakdeshp »

Welcome to the forums.
If I have helped you solve a problem, please add [SOLVED] to your first post title, it helps other users looking for help.
Regards,
Deepak

Mint 21.1 Cinnamon 64 bit with AMD A6 / 8GB
Mint 21.1 Cinnamon AMD Ryzen3500U/8gb
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NORD
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Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2022 2:08 am

Re: Hello guys

Post by NORD »

Hello and welcome
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NM64
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Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 11:34 pm

Re: Hello guys

Post by NM64 »

hpmini wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 5:58 am I'm using an old Dell Inspiron Mini. After a couple of days of research and testing various Linux distros, I settled for Linux Mint. The distros I tested were Lubuntu and Kali. But I find Linux Mint the most fit for my use for this old laptop. It is slow and only has 1G of RAM. But I still cherish this old laptop because it is durable.
Considering that Mint since version 20 is only available as a 64bit version, I don't suppose that your Dell Mini is the Mini 10/10n (1012) or the Mini 10v (1018)? One can easily tell by the USB ports - when counting both sides in total, the "1012" has three USB ports while the "1018" only has two.

Basically, if you happen to be willing to get your hands dirty, have you considered simply upgrading the RAM? It's not soldered and it's actually relatively easy to access on the "1012", but if you have the "1018" then getting to the RAM is quite a bit more involved. The "1012" uses DDR2 while the "1018" uses DDR3 but, sadly, it seems that the chipset may be limited to 2GB max even for the DDR3 model despite laptop DDR3 coming in capacities way larger than 2GB (but emphasis on "may" - if you have some 4+GB DDR3 laptop RAM laying around already then it could be worth a shot, otherwise don't hold your breath for more than 2GB of DDR3).

Older used laptop RAM goes for really cheap nowadays on places like ebay (like $4 USD for a 2GB stick), and RAM, likes CPUs, are one of those things that have extremely low chance of "wearing out" over time and therefore are also one of the safest computer parts to buy used.

If you're interested, then the following dismantle & upgrade video(s) may be useful (once both the RAM and hard drive are removed you can stop the video): (and at the same one, one could always slap in a SATA SSD to really help speed things up which is just as easy to do on both the "1012" and "1018", making sure that your BIOS is set to AHCI if such a setting for "SATA" or "hard drive" is present; an SSD will also make a small capacity of RAM more tolerable)
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