Lenovo B50-30

Sorry WhatsApp web we is now available on Linux versions.

Linux Mint MATE 64 bit latest version I can support you on that...

I have no DVD, only a slot, which can take an extar drive if I want.

You lost me.

Thanks.

What about sound drivers, etc?

All included.

MINT will give you out of the box everything you need except POSSIBLY the best video drivers and the wifi drivers. Because these are 'non free' but once the machine is up preferably on the internet via a CAT5 cable, you can launch the 'drivers' program that searches the hardware and tells you what else you need. As long as you have an internet connection it will then update itself to the suggestions if you click OK

I checked and it runs whatsapp web in firefox OK

The beauty of taking the existing drive out and making it a USB drive is that you can copy data off it and even put it back in if all else goes wrong.

TBH the default installation covers 99% of what you will probably need. I install a few more multimedias apps and a few more desktop publishing apps on the desktop, but the laptop is pure vanilla 19.3 mint these days plus only VLC

As you have seen, lots of people recommend Mint. I use Slackware myself, but that's not suitable for everybody; although sometimes Debian if it's not a machine I need to micromanage.

I am not familiar with Mint, but for a low powered laptop, the choice of window manager can be important. I tend to recommend xfce as one that will seem friendly enough but will not overtax your system, as e.g. kde or gnome might.

#Paul

Thanks very helpful. So....

1. Buy an external HDD holder from Amazon for £7 or so.
2. Put a new SSD in that.
3. Plug it into the USB port.
4. Ensure the SSD is formatted.
5. Download Linux Mint installing it on the USB SSD.
6. Ensure the machine can boot up from the USB SSD on Linux Mint.
7. Swap the HDD for the SSD.
8. Ensure the machine boots up from the SSD which is now in the same position as the older HDD which should be the boot up drive.
9. Done.
10. If problems the old HDD still has Windows 10 on it, so the machine can work if a problem with Linux Mint on the SSD.

Is that right?

No

1. Buy SSD
2. Buy external HDD holder
3. Buy pen drive (or external USB DVD drive - whatever)
4. Download linux image and put onto pen drive (Or DVD)
5. Change bios boot order and try booting from pen drive(or DVD) Note at this point you haven't changed anything on the computers normal settings or hardware.If booting successful then...
6. Take a screwdriver to the lenovo, remove hard drive and put that in the external hdd holder.
7. Put the SSD in the lenovo
8. plug lenovo into network with cable
9. Boot and install linux on the SSD.
10. Run the package update software to get everything as new as can be
11. Use the drivers part of the control panel to get wifi and or video working to best performance.
12. plug in the old disk and recover off it anything you need.

Thanks.

I am foggy on this....

The machine boots up from a USB stick (pen drive). The SSD is empty as it has just been swappped intohte HDDs location. The Linux Mint image is on the UB stick.

So, just copy the image over from the USB stick drive onto the SSD?

No. When you boot Mint it actually boots a full blown linux that runs from RAM and the boot media.

It has a preconfigured menu that allows you to either play with linux, use it to do system hardware checks etc or install itself. You just click on that option, tell it to use the whole disk, who you are, where you are and it does everything else automagically.

Once installed it will allow you to do updates to latest patches and so on.

XFCE is a good choice BUT for a windows user I think MATE is instantly more familiar.

I can assure you it works fine in 2GB RAM: The big hog is not the desktop manager it is the likes of Firefox and Thunderbird.,

Mate was built over gnome, but IIRC its now running on the GTK toolkit and is lighter weight as a result

Cinnamon is prettier, but I found it less functional than mate. XFCE is a bit like going back to windows 3 in terms of a very plain flat look

this is worth looking at

This is also a very useful video

I used this:

Can a normal Unix window using standard Unix commands be found?

Isn't there a man page? :-)

#Paul

Lucky you. My dual boot laptop is now borked as a result of 1909.

Fortunately I'm now having to curtail all my social and external activities so have lots of time to sort it all out.

Please Mr m$oft - when you are going to do an update as I switch off to go to bed tell me what your are going to wreck first. No wonder so many resist any updates and my most reliable system remains this XP that I'm now typing on - a Lenovo 3000-N100 if anyone wants to know, purchased 01/10/2007

right click on desktop: select 'open in terminal'

Seems like an overly complex way of doing it. How large is the current HDD? More to the point, how much space is actually being used on it?

I would normally just suggest that you clone the existing HDD onto the SSD, then replace the HDD with the SSD. But after that you won't need it. (you can keep it as a disaster recovery backup). (you can use a simple USB to SATA adaptor to plug the new drive into the computer on a short term basis to facilitate the copy - it does not need a complete external caddy as such.

However if you are planning to replace windows entirely with a linux, then just swap the drives, and boot the laptop from a USB thumb drive with your chosen version of linux on it, and do a fresh install.

Usually - although it would be worth doing a search the model number to see if others have had drivers issues. Most stuff works, but you can sometimes get problems with things like laptop track pads.

Pick one of the well known ones, and you will have a better selection of users to ask questions of. People here like mint, but loads of people use Ubunto - however that might be a bit to big and heavy for a lower spec machine. Lots of non geeks use Debian since its basically what the Raspberry pi runs.

As an experiment, download a copy of this and make a USB drive from it: