GNU/Linux works fine on those old Lenovo laptops

A few years back, I suffered one of those computing hardware disasters. I had to submit a completed document online by the end of the week and my Ubuntu/Windows dual boot laptop decided that its inner hardware would suffer what I would describe as an electrical appliance’s equivalent of a coma. Everything just froze and gradually died.

I had been astute enough to have a 3-2-1 backup program in place and it was just a case of getting hold of a laptop quickly to access the copy of the partially completed document from my SpiderOak encrypted at rest cloud storage. My local external hard drive also had a copy but not with the latest revision before my laptop’s hardware issues.

I acquired a laptop to finish the job. It was a Lenovo Yoga 510 14AST which, with its limited specifications, was asthmatically running Windows 10. I managed to install Libreoffice and the SpiderOak client and finished off my document.

Since then, I have bought my current GNU/Linux workstation from Entroware and also recently bought a reconditioned HP Elitebook 840 G1 complete with Windows 10. This means that I had a Lenovo Yoga laying around doing nothing useful.

So this week I thought that I’d put a GNU/Linux distro on the Lenovo Yoga and make it usable. With it running Windows, I had enough time between entering my password and being logged into the working desktop to be able to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea – I literally did that most times using the Lenovo Yoga! So, for all practical interpretations, the Lenovo Yoga was not currently viable as a working production rig.

Of course, I could use the Lenovo Yoga to have a bit of getting my hands dirty fun and mess about with one of Linux From Scratch, Slackware, Gentoo or even Funtoo; but I thought it a good idea for a user friendly install for any visiting children (or even adults) to play with (we do occasionally have to entertain friends and their offspring).

The following image shows Caja calculating the SHA256 checksum.  I’ve already entered the expected SHA256 checksum for Caja to check against.

One of my forms of relaxation is watching distro reviews on YouTube and, more recently, also on LBRY.tv so I had a few distros in mind for the job. I also noted a few videos discussing the recent announcement from Lenovo that they will be certifying all their future machines to be Linux compliant and will also be supplying pre-installed linux machines. So, in keeping with the announcement, were the best options Fedora or Ubuntu?

I also searched for which distros installed better with the Lenovo Yoga and it seems that with this particular model Pop_OS has worked better than Ubuntu. Hmmm, great news there! Pop_OS has some great recent reviews and with this being based on Ubuntu, just like my main driver Ubuntu-Mate, the additional learning curve will be close to non-existent.

Caja, the Ubuntu-Mate file manager, allows easy checksum verification via the right-click menu on the downloaded file. I’ve a couple of screenshots with this post showing how easy it is to do this. So, another quick prod to those scared by the command line, that nowadays many GNU/Linux distros can be used without jumping into the terminal.

The SHA256 checksums match so this ISO download is genuine

There is also the built in functionality within Ubuntu-Mate to copy this ISO file to a USB drive so that it is bootable on another machine.

Gone are the days when you have to jump through many hoops to do the most usual things in GNU/Linux.

I had to turn on the Lenovo Yoga, and press Fn+F2 to get into the UEFI menu. Secure boot switched off – check! Boot via USB – check! Reboot machine and install Pop_OS.

Now, I get into a working Pop_OS desktop in less than a minute, quicker than the time it took the previous Windows install to just ask for my password, even! I just need to set a few things up and then visiting fidgeting children can play about to their heart’s content.

Do I still care about the same things?

Go back a few years, and it was easy to realise how much I cared about certain things.  I worried about how girls were always the first to suffer in any culture experiencing war or extreme poverty.  I was angry that a day’s work was not always rewarded with a fair wage.  I was repulsed at any form of discrimination.

I still care about the same things, you may be pleased to know.

Nowadays, I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve so much as before.  I don’t have a sob story about why this is – I just approach life a little different.

I don’t want to go on about how great a human being I am.  I’m as flawed as most people.  I’ve come across numerous people of integrity who care about their fellow human beings.  It’s always good to have faith renewed in the humanity of others.

I still care about drinking whisky

One other thing that I also care about is free and open source software (FOSS).  I will use proprietary software, but prefer to use FOSS if it is available.  I won’t choose FOSS if it means compromising on functionality, I will add.  For example, I prefer using GIMP to the proprietary alternatives I have tried.

I don’t like excess data being collected about myself and others, and this is a major reason why FOSS is so important.

Everyone needs privacy.  Those who say that they have nothing to hide must be happy to shower in the middle of town in a see-through bathroom whilst having everything that they say reported on the news.  And if your data is on a server somewhere, it’s only a data breach away from appearing in your next door neighbour’s RSS feed.

I do like using GNU-Linux.  Why so?  Well, not to prove how great I am at fiddling about with software.  I am at ease with doing command line stuff but you can use GNU-Linux and never touch the command line should you wish.

Windows is a horrible operating system to use in that it is so rigid in its implementation.  It can be so very clunky.  And the update process for Windows is so painful!

Some people love Windows, and I won’t try to convert them – that’s their preference but not mine.  It was using Windows in my younger days that led me to swapping my operating system because of its limitations.

The start of my transition was dumping Internet Explorer and using Opera.  Opera isn’t the browser it was, unfortunately, and today I am very much a Firefox and Chromium user.  But, anyway, it was using Opera that led me on the road to the choices out there.

My first jump into using GNU-Linux was setting up a dual-boot on a Windows laptop I had.  I first used Linux Mint as my main workstation before going to Ubuntu and now to Ubuntu-Mate.  I’ve used a few other GNU-Linux distros in VM machines – it really is a case of using the best distro for you depending on your fiddle level and your knowledge of computer programming.

I’ve never used a BSD based distro or used an Apple Mac in anger.  Maybe one day, but at present everything is working for me as I want so all is good.

So, I still care about the same things in general.  I wish that I was able to save those subjected girls around the world.  I wish discrimination was a thing of the past.  I also wish for less collection of personal data and more usability in major operating systems.

I also wish that sandwiches were the secret to losing excess weight – but sometimes I wish for the impossible.

Text Editor Warzone

So, I was finding it all very frustrating. Windows is a well-funded operating system and yet it comes with the worst text editor imaginable.

Eventually, this week at work, I asked aloud, “Is Notepad the worst text editor of all.”

The reply I received suggested a different text editor, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Software is a strange thing, or, to be more precise, the reaction of a number of people to software is a strange thing.

The amount of arguments that I have witnessed over whether the PS3/4 or XBox is better; or whether Windows, Apple, Linux or BSD is better; or which is the best text editor. Actually, I haven’t witnessed many text editor arguments but search for text editor wars, or just editor war, and you will find that in the online world, this argument gets strangely heated. There are even mock religions for these editors (I know!).

The big fight seems to be between users of VIM and EMACS. NANO and ED are also drawn into the fight, sometimes. Well, all four of these command line editors are on my laptop and I can see the attraction with all of them. I am diving into VIM most of all, but I would love to have known of either VIM or EMACS in those days when I used to build some websites. VIM and/or EMACS would make website building more of a breeze than using an alternative GUI based text editor, such as Bluefish.

As you can tell, using Linux opens up a world of text editing possibilities. There are alternatives that you can use on Windows, but all of the editors that I am about to discuss ship with some or most Linux distros as standard.

So, what is the difference between all the editors?

There are some great GUI text editors. I’ve mentioned Bluefish, but better alternatives include gEdit, and its Mate desktop environment fork Pluma. They are both very capable and robust. The KDE Advanced Test Editor aka Kate adds more functionality to the mix, but has the downside that a number of dependencies are pulled onto your desktop environment if you are using anything other than KDE as your desktop environment.

I personally believe that even the deliberately lightweight Leafpad is more pleasant to use than Notepad, even if the functionality is not much different.

Okay, that’s my brief nod to the GUI editors that put Notepad to shame.

What are the attractions that the text based editors that I mention?

For ED, not much at all. This is a really old line based editor and is a forefather of the others, so to speak.

NANO is a simple editor which has so many more options than Notepad. The options can be gained mainly by pressing the CTRL key along with another key.

Editing my blog post draft in NANO

Both EMACS and VIM boast so much more. Syntax highlighting, comparing files for differences and copying different lines from one file to the other, split screens to work on multiple files simultaneously and shortcut instructions to jump around the file and manipulate text quickly and easily.

Editing my blog post using EMACS

So, I am preferring VIM out of all the text editors at the moment. I’ve used EMACS a little bit, but I am preferring VIM. Both of these editors are fantastic.

Editing my blog post using VIM

Anyway, just a quick tip if you are using VIM. If you want to paste the contents of your copy buffer from outside of the VIM, there is an easy way to do it. Just type the following command
“+gP

That snippet of advice seems to be hard to come by.

Oh, yes, which was the editor that my work colleague suggested as worse than Notepad? WordPad! Man, that suggestion is so right.

I searched for any uses for WordPad and one posting suggested that it can save RTF files. Okay, it can save RTF files but any text editor can save RTF files, and why would you want to? They are massive in comparison to other formats.

Oh…I think that I am joining a different text editor war!

The new laptop arrives

Okay, I am going to be very traditional man in this post and waffle on about my latest electrical gadget.  Please forgive me and be assured that I am still as modern a man as before, I still do the cooking in our house for a start.  I never fail to make the Yorkshire Puddings rise when I cook the roast, and my Sunday joint comes out of the oven juicy and tender…anyway, back to this post.

The new laptop arrived on Friday and I am already enjoying playing with it.  I would drive up to the Entroware office to thank all their staff personally but I hope that my payment to them tells them everything that I want to say.

For the first time in my life, my choice of new laptop has not been almost entirely dictated by price tag with whatever scant specification I can be lucky enough to get.  I enjoyed this position as I had been saving specifically for the event of having to replace my laptop especially as it was clearly reaching the end of its useful life.

Ubuntu-Mate lets you choose from several different desktop layouts – I opted for Netbook with a dock (plank) as an extra option

I was running a Linux OS (Operating System) on my old laptop and was finding that I had time between pressing the on switch and subsequently seeing the logon prompt to switch on a kettle and throw a teabag in a mug.  Oh, and start the washing machine!  Man, it was like I had been running Windows XP rather than Ubuntu.

A little research showed that I would be not be charged a premium for getting a laptop with Linux pre-installed, and so I decided early on that I would take this course.  I weighed up a few different providers and narrowed my search after eliminating  Elementary OS as my choice of Linux OS.  It seems a very solid OS but I find Elementary OS a bit boring, to be honest, but don’t let that scare you off if you like the look and feel of Elementary OS.  The reason for so many Linux distros is that a multitude of wants and needs are being provided for.

I settled on Entroware as they had two things that I particularly covet.  They seemed to offer quite a lot of specification in return for each pound spent as well as also enjoying favourable reviews online for after sales care.

I had to choose between Ubuntu and Ubuntu-Mate to be pre-installed and opted for the latter OS.  I prefer the Ubuntu-Mate desktop to Ubuntu and was finally persuaded on choosing Ubuntu-Mate on noting that Entroware is named on the Ubuntu-Mate website (ubuntu-mate.org) as one of the four main sponsors of the development of the OS.  Hmm, I thought, there’s a good chance that Entroware may have provided some machines for testing during development, so Ubuntu-Mate is likely to fit Entroware laptops like a glove (to use a cliché).

I decided on the Aether model and opted for the default size SSD (solid state drive) on which the Ubuntu-Mate OS is installed.  SSDs are lightning fast in comparison to HDDs (Hard Disc Drives) and opening LibreOffice has never been so quick for me.

As an upgrade on the default specification, I both upped the processor as well as opting for a second disc drive on which I am storing my files.  The second drive is a 1TB (terabyte) HDD and appears to be the only moving part that makes a noise in my new machine.  I realise that a SSD should last almost as long as a HDD under normal use and so this was not the reason I opted for an additional HDD rather than choose a larger SSD.  The reason that I opted for a HDD for my file storage is that I could get more space for my money.  HDDs are cheaper than SSDs and storing my files on a slower HDD will have a negligible effect on the laptop’s overall speed.

Everything is dramatically faster on the new laptop than my old machine and not just in the start up times.  Uploading files to my SpiderOak account is so much faster, for example.  I can upload in excess of 1GB (gigabyte) of data in the same time that my old laptop would take to upload five or six LibreOffice documents.  This is entirely down to the laptop’s performance as my internet connection is no different now than it was a month ago.

So, that’s the end of me reverting to type as a man and banging on about my new gadget.

I should now be able to get a lot more done in the same time which is the important thing.  I’m not a gamer but do most other things online, such as bill paying.  And yes, in case you are wondering, my VPN was one of the first things that I configured in Network Manager.

Where the heck have I been?

That really is the question, isn’t it. Why have I been largely absent from WordPress, Google+ and Twitter for several months and, perhaps more importantly, what changes have I made to my life to prevent this from happening again in the future?

There are three reasons for my dismal level of social media interaction over recent months:

• A lack of personal organisation

• Suffering from ‘flu for the first few months of the year

• The recent demise of my ageing budget laptop

All of us are given twenty four hours every day. Whilst some people use the time to create business empires or to be active within civil rights pressure groups, I was somehow struggling to even find time to vacuum the car on a regular basis. So, come October when I needed to find extra time for some studying on top of the tasks I was already failing to fulfil, I put myself under unnecessary pressure.

Even Amazon struggled. They took six weeks to deliver my Jerry Harrison: Casual Gods CD

I needed to organise my time much better. After a lot of soul searching, I have (in theory) managed to find the necessary time to do everything. I listed everything that I need to achieve and now have time slots for all necessary tasks during the week. It means that WordPress and Google+ will get my attention on a Saturday, around the time that I back up my computer files to my external hard drive (I also sync to an online encrypted cloud account). I’ll delve into the Twitter account whenever I get a few moments during the working week.

Last year my health was great right up until November when I started to catch every cold or bug that was doing its rounds. Boxing Day was when I succumbed to one of the strains of ‘flu that ravished Britain last winter.

I had trouble to get the help that I needed from the NHS which I am certain lengthened the time that I suffered.

I was even sent back to work too early by one doctor and within two days was back off work worse than ever and needing another course of antibiotics to treat the return of the secondary bacterial infection that for weeks had taken my left lung hostage.

I never want to go through that again.

My fruit and vegetable intake has since vastly increased and I have promised myself a ‘flu jab every year. Paying about £20 a year is a small price to sacrifice if I can avoid a repeat. I know that it isn’t likely that I will catch ‘flu every year but avoiding one future battle with that virus is something I am desperate for.

I need to lose some weight again now. After the ‘flu went, I started eating more and exercising less; but I have started to turn this around.

And finally, my ageing budget laptop had become increasingly temperamental over recent months. (Can laptops catch ‘flu?) Eventually, a fortnight ago with two study assignments due within days, it stopped effective service. It logs in but stops working within about fifteen minutes. I could get it fixed no doubt but it looks to be a three figure sum repair bill, so a new machine became a reasonable option.

Anyway, I mentioned that I started studying and any delay would prevent submitting my final assignments whose deadlines were only days away.

I bought a cheap Windows laptop for immediate use and this will become my wife’s main laptop in the next few weeks. Gloria’s been after her own laptop for quite a while and so is looking forward to sole use of the PC. This will be her’s on receipt of the much beefier laptop I have treated myself to, which will come with Ubuntu-Mate installed as the operating system. Man, am I looking forward to that.

(Incidentally, I found that my old laptop running Ubuntu worked better at connecting to Adobe Connect rooms than some of my fellow students’ Windows machines when attending online study meetings. Linux is more software friendly than you may think.)

So, there were three reasons that affected my output to which I have sourced three solutions: planning how I will use my time better, an annual ‘flu jab and a new (as yet undelivered) Ubuntu-Mate laptop which should last me a decade or more with careful use.

I just hope no-one cursed me too much these last few months whilst I was mostly absent…or, maybe, these events were due to someone’s curse on me.