Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

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MurphCID
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Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

I replaced my old linux laptop which died a horrible death during the hurricane last year with a new HP Spectre X360 i7 laptop. After booting into Mint, it installed like a champ, no issues with wireless, no issues with anything. Just amazing, and I have 18.3 up and running on the laptop. I missed linux a lot. It is good to be back. I picked the HP since I have had good luck with HP laptops It has 8 gb of ram, an i7 processor, and a 256 gb ssd with a 1920x1080 13" display. It is nice and light and supposed to have amazing battery life.
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Minterator

Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by Minterator »

I have my eye on that one too, except the Ryzen version for obvious reasons -- HP ENVY x360 15z

Is the keyboard backlit?
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

Yes it is. I wanted the Ryzen, but decided to go for this one since it is so small and compact.

Minterator wrote:I have my eye on that one too, except the Ryzen version for obvious reasons -- HP ENVY x360 15z

Is the keyboard backlit?
Minterator

Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by Minterator »

Enjoy : )

Watch out for HP battery recall: https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com/
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream! (Snag hit)

Post by MurphCID »

Well the laptop lasted less than 24 hours. I went to start it up, and while the power came on, nothing, no boot screen, no nada. Instead the battery got so hot that the laptop was almost too hot to touch. So I wonder if there is an issue with Mint and HP Spectre x360 laptops with power or something else? Best Buy replaced it with a better version (more $$$$ of course), so I am going to run Windows for a couple of days to make sure that there are no issues before I put Mint back on this laptop. I have never had a battery do that on an HP laptop, it was just strange. Plus when I turned it on, I could see the LCD screen lit, but nothing, no boot, no login, nothing. I could not even get to bios.

Minterator wrote:Enjoy : )

Watch out for HP battery recall: https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com/
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

I am so stupid. I did not turn on legacy boot. No wonder it failed. I admit it, I am a noob.
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by Spearmint2 »

LOL, I bet they wish they'd not named it "Spectre" now, with all this latest news about Meltdown and Spectre.
All things go better with Mint. Mint julep, mint jelly, mint gum, candy mints, pillow mints, peppermint, chocolate mints, spearmint,....
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

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It is working great, in fact I am using it right now to post. The change to legacy boot made all the difference in the world. I am so dumb, I should have checked that earlier. I wonder if that was the cause of the overheating on the other laptop?
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

Man, battery life on this thing is really inconsistent. I somehow think that power management is not as efficient as I had thought. I am still getting a good three hours (or better) on most days for just some emails, web surfing, word processing, etc. On the upside the HP pen works well, and the touchscreen is pretty nice even though I do not use it often. I (as I have written of other posts) still hate the trackpad not turning off properly while I am typing. I have to go in and manually disable the trackpad to keep my cursor from jumping all over the page. But all in all, I love this HP laptop, and have no regrets about buying it, and installing Mint. I even used it to get a hipster to consider Mint over Windows.
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream! (Snag hit)

Post by Spearmint2 »

MurphCID wrote: Sun Jan 07, 2018 10:39 am Well the laptop lasted less than 24 hours. I went to start it up, and while the power came on, nothing, no boot screen, no nada. Instead the battery got so hot that the laptop was almost too hot to touch. So I wonder if there is an issue with Mint and HP Spectre x360 laptops with power or something else? Best Buy replaced it with a better version (more $$$$ of course), so I am going to run Windows for a couple of days to make sure that there are no issues before I put Mint back on this laptop. I have never had a battery do that on an HP laptop, it was just strange. Plus when I turned it on, I could see the LCD screen lit, but nothing, no boot, no login, nothing. I could not even get to bios.

Minterator wrote:Enjoy : )

Watch out for HP battery recall: https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com/
You were lucky to catch that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aOICtMyKTk
All things go better with Mint. Mint julep, mint jelly, mint gum, candy mints, pillow mints, peppermint, chocolate mints, spearmint,....
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

I know, I did not want to set fire to my house, or worse have the thing blow up in my lap! For the most part this thing is really nice even though battery life is inconsistent. But battery life never gives you the projected hours from the manufacturer. I take it with me all the time these days since it is so light.
Ronnybaby

Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by Ronnybaby »

BEWARE OF THE NEW HP LAPTOPS...

I had an ENVY X360 and had numerous issues with it. (Intel Version)

Read this about the Ryzen version: https://community.amd.com/thread/224760
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

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SO far so good. I have really liked the HP, and it runs Mint 18.3 just like a champ. My only complaint is the battery life and touchpad will not turn off when I am typing. On the battery life, I get about 3-4 hours instead of the 7-10 claimed. And this is just web surfing, typing, some light you tube, and 50% brightness. I suspect that it gets about as good a battery life as the Galago Pro, and it is fine by me. I really like the USB C charging on this unit.
youplaymenot

Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by youplaymenot »

I know it has been awhile, but I wanted to let you know I also have the same laptop. Battery life under Linux Mint is just not great on this laptop. I don't know of any distro which has good battery life, I tried a lot and so far Kde Neon and Kubuntu surprisingly have the best at around 5hrs. I actually use Windows 10 still also in the dual-boot and I do get around the claimed 7hrs - 8hrs.
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

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youplaymenot wrote: Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:49 am I know it has been awhile, but I wanted to let you know I also have the same laptop. Battery life under Linux Mint is just not great on this laptop. I don't know of any distro which has good battery life, I tried a lot and so far Kde Neon and Kubuntu surprisingly have the best at around 5hrs. I actually use Windows 10 still also in the dual-boot and I do get around the claimed 7hrs - 8hrs.
Battery life, and the never sufficiently accursed track pad issue. It is a PITA to have to manually turn off and then manually turn back on the track pad every time I want to type.
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by MurphCID »

I added TLP and the battery life is much better. Where I would normally get 3-4 hours, now I am looking at 5-7 hours. A rather nice improvement. My next things is to get a 500 gb NvME drive and upgrade the storage on it.
jimhood

Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

Post by jimhood »

I installed Mint on my HP Spectre 13 a few months ago and, like others here, it works great, just you'd expect. The only two glitches I haven't been able to solve involve printing and my right ear. The thing absolutely will not print to any of my Brother printers, which work just fine with my other Linux boxes. It thinks it is printing but nothing happens. If I flip back into Windows 10, printing is normal.

The other problem involves right-channel sound. Left-channel is great, right-channel is completely missing. I wouldn't really care except some of my language lessons use different channels depending on which language is being spoken.

Anyone else encountered this? Any ideas?
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Re: Mint installation on HP Spectre x360 is a dream!

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jimhood wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:18 pm I installed Mint on my HP Spectre 13 a few months ago and, like others here, it works great, just you'd expect. The only two glitches I haven't been able to solve involve printing and my right ear. The thing absolutely will not print to any of my Brother printers, which work just fine with my other Linux boxes. It thinks it is printing but nothing happens. If I flip back into Windows 10, printing is normal.

The other problem involves right-channel sound. Left-channel is great, right-channel is completely missing. I wouldn't really care except some of my language lessons use different channels depending on which language is being spoken.

Anyone else encountered this? Any ideas?
Mine seems to be ok, but on printing, I have an HP printer since my old Epson and Canon would not link well. The HP was utterly painless.
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