Setting Up my Old HP Laptop as a Linux Machine

My sister is a long-time Linux user, as was my late brother. Neither of them had used either Windows or any other software in a LONG time.

I'm poly-OS - CPM, DOS, Windows, Apple, Novell, Unix, and Linux. Have mostly used Windows and Apple products for some time, although my SBitX radio is Raspberry Pi based.

But, I knew that laptops could be temperamental about Linux Installs. So, once I had received my new HP laptop, meant for my business (which does use a fair amount of dedicated apps necessitating Windows/Apple OS), I decided to turn my underpowered HP into a true Linux machine.

I headed over to her house, and we proceeded to give 'er a go.

NOT entirely easy. First, we had to gather the data about the machine's specs, IDs, and other hardware info.

Once we did that, we had to create the bootable USB in Windows.

Mary not only had forgotten a lot about Windows operations, but my machine had neither a touchscreen nor a mouse. It was driving her nutso, so I offered to handle the trackpad (which to be fair, was kinda twitchy).

We had to work through the BIOS parameters a few times before we could move through the menu without errors (try doing it without a mouse or touchscreen). It was kinda a bugger.

But, we persevered. And, once we finally were able to download Linux Mint, it was not that hard.

I've been busy setting up my desktop, browser, and increasing the size of the fonts. Setting up the printer was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to find the right file to do so. It was only a few minutes later that I printed out my test page from the wireless printer - I was quite impressed that the system was able to do that install.

I owe her big time.

In about a week-and-a-half, I'll be accompanying her to a cardio stress test. I plan on treating her to a meal after. It's the least I can do.

The  new system runs a treat. VERY fast and responsive, compared to the Windows setup. I freed up a ton of hard drive space, and am not placing such heavy demands on the RAM.