Anyone used Linux on an HP2000 laptop?

[Guest 6.8 AR]

It's different, alright. That's my problem with it. But I was happy with Win98. They have changed the damned stuff all the time.

It's that goofy "app look" that takes up two pages of the gui before you get to anything you may have added. Now, I'm no sys

admin, I just like things simple and usable. What, ten years ago, when Linux was getting a big push with Red Hat, Debian

and a million others, that's when I got my exposure to it. I loved it, back then, and stuff was always getting added and fixed

the next week. It wasn't necessarily the os for me, but it made me think. Just figuring out the different ways to install and start

programs and learning what's under the hood made it fun for me. I have the time again and am going to go back to playing

with it.

 

And that damned laptop with it's little circle of HP activity until it whirs to life(seemingly forever), yeh, it's time to play anarchist,

once again. Just something else to tinker with. I was so excited thinking about ripping Win8 off that HP, I left it in Clinton.

 

 

Well, another week or two. I have a box I can try Mint on first. Thanks for all the replies, guys.

Edited January 20, 2014 by 6.8 AR

[tnguy]

You could always try a live CD first if you want to see if you want to go to the (minor) hassle of a full install

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That's what I'm up to, now. Of course, I'll have to wait for my laptop.

 

Man, I was wrong when I said ten years ago for Linux. It was closer to twenty. Time flies!

[mikegideon]

It's different, alright. That's my problem with it. But I was happy with Win98. They have changed the damned stuff all the time.

It's that goofy "app look" that takes up two pages of the gui before you get to anything you may have added. Now, I'm no sys

admin, I just like things simple and usable. What, ten years ago, when Linux was getting a big push with Red Hat, Debian

and a million others, that's when I got my exposure to it. I loved it, back then, and stuff was always getting added and fixed

the next week. It wasn't necessarily the os for me, but it made me think. Just figuring out the different ways to install and start

programs and learning what's under the hood made it fun for me. I have the time again and am going to go back to playing

with it.

 

And that damned laptop with it's little circle of HP activity until it whirs to life(seemingly forever), yeh, it's time to play anarchist,

once again. Just something else to tinker with. I was so excited thinking about ripping Win8 off that HP, I left it in Clinton.

 

 

Well, another week or two. I have a box I can try Mint on first. Thanks for all the replies, guys.

 

First thing I do with a new HP laptop is blast it back to the Stone Age, and load a new OS from scratch. Just gotta make sure you have compatible hardware drivers. The manufacturers, including HP are bad about only writing drivers for the "latest and greatest" OS. They're a lot less likely to do that on enterprise class machines, because they've had too many large IT organizations refuse to use their latest. Like I said earlier, while the Vista debacle was in full swing, we wouldn't buy any hardware unless they could provide XP drivers.

 

So, if it was my machine, I would check for hardware compatibility with Win 7, and then wipe the drive and start from scratch. Piss on the HP add-ons.

[Joseg]

And here I was thinking that you guys ran into some major file corruption. I have a 4 yr laptop running 8.1, a 11.5" touchscreen ultrabook running win8.1 and a desktop running 8.1 and I have yet to experience anything to want me to go back to windows 7. 

 

BTW, I used to run fedora and ubuntu, but started running MS development tools and didn't want to deal with WINE..

[mikegideon]

And here I was thinking that you guys ran into some major file corruption. I have a 4 yr laptop running 8.1, a 11.5" touchscreen ultrabook running win8.1 and a desktop running 8.1 and I have yet to experience anything to want me to go back to windows 7. 

 

BTW, I used to run fedora and ubuntu, but started running MS development tools and didn't want to deal with WINE..

 

Falls under the heading of "Don't fix what ain't broke". I just wanna use my computer.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

No, nothing to do with file corruption or anything like that. But using a desktop or laptop like an Iphone is too much.

When I went to ios7 on my iphone, I have just about decided to get rid of it, also. No backing to ios 6 or 5, unless

you brick it back to original factory default settings. Maybe that will work on the Iphone. Apple went off the deep end

with ios 7, far as I'm concerned, and they won't let you go back. Every time I play an audiobook, it throws an ad up

when I turn the phone sideways, and everything seems to be slower than the last upgrade, like all of them have. Gee,

I got HD on the camera.

 

I knew about HP and the drivers, well you reminded me, Mike. :D I don't follow this stuff enough to claim much knowledge.

I'm just one who doesn't care for some of the change that came with Win8. 95, ME, 2000, XP, and enough is enough to me.

Red Hat Linux was the last distro I played with, and I liked it, but Wine didn't work well enough to do many things in the Win

world, so I went back to XP. I like leaps in technology, but win8 leaps out the door to me.

Edited January 20, 2014 by 6.8 AR

[mikegideon]

No, nothing to do with file corruption or anything like that. But using a desktop or laptop like an Iphone is too much.

when I went to ios7 on my iphone, I have just about decided to get rid of it,m also. No backing to ios 6 or 5, unless

you brick it back to original factory default settings. Maybe that will work on the Iphone.

 

I knew about HP and the drivers, well you reminded me, Mike. :D I don't follow this stuff enough to claim much knowledge.

I'm just one who doesn't care for some of the change that came with Win8. 95, ME, 2000, XP, and enough is enough to me.

Red Hat Linux was the last distro I played with, and I liked it, but Wine didn't work well enough to do many things in the Win

world, so I went back to XP. I like leaps in technology, but win8 leaps out the window to me.

 

Go here...

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Hacks-Windows-7-Start-button-Metro-UI-Desktop-Mode,21161.html

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Thank you, Mike. I like what they call the gui. "Metro", as in metrosexual, I'll bet. That's a hoot!

 

The one I want is in "Minority Report". Remember where they are using there hands to move pages around on an

invisible screen? I bet that screen alone costs several grand, and it's probably called "Badass" gui, especially for

Hollywood.

[tnguy]

No, nothing to do with file corruption or anything like that. But using a desktop or laptop like an Iphone is too much.

When I went to ios7 on my iphone, I have just about decided to get rid of it, also. No backing to ios 6 or 5, unless

you brick it back to original factory default settings. Maybe that will work on the Iphone. Apple went off the deep end

with ios 7, far as I'm concerned, and they won't let you go back. Every time I play an audiobook, it throws an ad up

when I turn the phone sideways, and everything seems to be slower than the last upgrade, like all of them have. Gee,

I got HD on the camera.

 

I knew about HP and the drivers, well you reminded me, Mike. :D I don't follow this stuff enough to claim much knowledge.

I'm just one who doesn't care for some of the change that came with Win8. 95, ME, 2000, XP, and enough is enough to me.

Red Hat Linux was the last distro I played with, and I liked it, but Wine didn't work well enough to do many things in the Win

world, so I went back to XP. I like leaps in technology, but win8 leaps out the door to me.

 

Android/Google is starting to go off the rails in major ways too. I'm actually considering seeing if I can work getting a Ubuntu phone going. It's nowhere near ready for primetime yet but... OTOH, Ubuntu have already tipped their hand a little with the invasive crap.

[mikegideon]

Android/Google is starting to go off the rails in major ways too. I'm actually considering seeing if I can work getting a Ubuntu phone going. It's nowhere near ready for primetime yet but... OTOH, Ubuntu have already tipped their hand a little with the invasive crap.

 

I fixed my Android problem with an iPhone V. Got tired of rebooting the damn thing, and that's just scratching the surface.

[tnguy]

Apple are currently even worse in my opinion.

[mikegideon]

Apple are currently even worse in my opinion.

 

And, you're entitled to that :). We depend on our phones, up to and including using VNC over VPN. I didn't just dump the Droid and go back to the iPhone. My whole department did, with much enthusiasm. We had to reach into our own pockets to get it done too.

 

And BTW... we couldn't even get VPN to work on our Droids, and we have Cisco AND Juniper connections available.

Edited January 21, 2014 by mikegideon

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Apple phones are fine, until this latest ios upgrade, and the fact that you can't go back without jailbraking the phone, and that is

said to be difficult.

[mikegideon]

Apple phones are fine, until this latest ios upgrade, and the fact that you can't go back without jailbraking the phone, and that is

said to be difficult.

 

I'm fine with the last upgrade. I waited until they patched it a few times before I let them do it. I wonder if you had a hiccup while it was doing the upgrade.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I don't think so. Hell, maybe. What do you do in that case? Reinstall? It works, just lousy, sluggish.

 

funny thing about wife's 4s and mine. Hers is 4g and mine is 3g, like that really matters. I usually get

on the internet around a wifi network much as possible.

Edited January 21, 2014 by 6.8 AR

[tnguy]

And, you're entitled to that :). We depend on our phones, up to and including using VNC over VPN. I didn't just dump the Droid and go back to the iPhone. My whole department did, with much enthusiasm. We had to reach into our own pockets to get it done too.

 

And BTW... we couldn't even get VPN to work on our Droids, and we have Cisco AND Juniper connections available.

 

*Shrug* I don't use VPN but I set one up to test something recently and it worked no problem. I know it's not always been straightforward though.

[mikegideon]

*Shrug* I don't use VPN but I set one up to test something recently and it worked no problem. I know it's not always been straightforward though.

 

All Droids aren't created equal. We can't get to anything inside our business networks without going thru VPN, and we do a LOT via remote access. All our stuff runs 24 x 7

[mikegideon]

I don't think so. Hell, maybe. What do you do in that case? Reinstall? It works, just lousy, sluggish.

 

funny thing about wife's 4s and mine. Hers is 4g and mine is 3g, like that really matters. I usually get

on the internet around a wifi network much as possible.

 

I'm using a 5. 3g may make a difference, since the new os interacts with the cloud some. Get you a 5

[Joseg]

6.8AR = Win8 new UI interface is called Metro UI (yeah lame name but that's that they called it)

 

Like I said, I don't have issues with Win8 because I go straight to desktop ( I use MSDN version of Windows 8 and not the bloatware versions of manufacturers), but 8.1 made it less painful to use. if I didn't have to use MS development tools to earn a living, I'd probably be on Linux (ubuntu)

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Understand. Just having fun with the name.

[BryanP]

I just finished setting up a new laptop for us at home.  My wife really fell in love with the touch screen laptop she played with at the store, so Windows 8.1 was what I went with.

 

It's annoying at first, but once I installed Classic Shell on my profile most of my complaints went away.  It basically makes it do a decent impression of Windows 7.

 

http://www.classicshell.net/

 

Oh hey, I have my start menu back!

 

 

And here ya go, the file manager / explorer is back to normal:

 

[enfield]

I just installed Mint 16 on my recycled Tigerdirect desktop and it's sweet.  Seems to work better with my ancient hardware than Mint 14 did.

[jgradyc]

Can some tell what you guys are experiencing with Win8? I've been running it since beta and haven't found any reason to go back to win7, btw I'm running 8.1 pro and using it just like I always did, go to desktop and work, go to the MetroUI on occasions...

Here's the problems I had... note the past tense. I'm using Linux Mint now.

 

1. I had to move the cursor to the upper right 3-4 times to get just the right spot to bring up the charms menu.

2. It opened in Metro. I'd have to then open the desktop. (Yeah, this can be fixed now with 8.1.)

3. No list of programs in the start menu. If you download a program to run on desktop and you forget the name... you're out of luck.  This may still be a problem in Win 8.1, I don't know.

4. In a hurry to shut down, I get a message... "downloading new updates. Do not shut down computer."

5. In a rush to check one thing before leaving, so I turn on laptop and get a message, "Installing update 1 of 3. Do not shut down computer." It takes 15 minutes.

6. I'd have to install a virus program. (Don't need to do this with Linux.)

7. No taskbar in Metro!!!!!!!!!  You're in an app and you want to know battery power remaining, time, date, signal strength, or what other programs are running, you have to LEAVE the program you are in. 

 

Maybe 4 and 5 aren't too bad now, but when Win 8 came out, MS was sending out 2-3 updates every week.

 

Every Windows OS I've had would get slower over time. My wife's Win 7 laptop used to boot up reasonably fast. Now, it takes a couple of minutes. By comparison, my $199 Chromebook with Crouton and Linux Mint XFCE boots in about 14 seconds.

 

An OS should be 1) Fast 2) Stable and 3) Get out of the way.   Win 8 failed miserably on getting out of the way.

[Joseg]

Ok. 1,2,3 easily fixed with 8.1. 4,5 is not just win8, win7 does it as well. 6, keep telling yourself that, Mac os is Unix based and they get viruses.. yeah 8 is valid.

Chrome book uses a sad to boot, if I installed one on my ultra book or laptop it will boot as fast as well. But I usually just hibernate my laptops anyways so it's always boots fast..

Not defending MS by anyway, just my experience with the software.. funny thing is that right now it might be crap, but one touchscreens kick in, I'm gonna laugh if other os software don't start doing great the same thing.