Paul Whybrow
Full Member
I previously detailed why I went over to using Linux, and after using it for a year, I thought I'd share my experiences. Overall, it's something that I'm very glad I did, as my nine-year-old laptop was rejuvenated. Also, life on Linux is hassle-free compared to MS—who operate as if they hate their users and want to screw them out of every penny. Simply not being constantly threatened with viruses is reason enough to go over to Linux. Hackers rarely attack Linux; it feels tranquil, rather than being in a state of war.
When I first began using Linux, I wondered if my laptop was running hotter than it did with Microsoft. The threat of overheating is something I'm paranoid about, as it's a real computer killer. The worst thing to do with a laptop is use it on your lap. I've long used a cooling cradle, fitted with fans to provide ventilation.
I chose the Mint distribution (distro) of Linux, which was recommended as being the most sorted and easy to use for a newbie. Linux offers software apps that are easily accessible through its Repository, saving you having to search online for them.
To monitor the temperature of the hardware, I installed Psensor which is a GUI tool that allows you to monitor CPU, GPU, hard disk temperature along with fan rotation speed. It provides a real time graphical way to show the requested data.
To prevent the chance of overheating in Linux, I installed three different tools, which all do more or less the same thing but don't conflict with each other.
*TLP power management tool is a daemon that is pre-configured to reduce overheating as well as improve battery life. You just need to install TLP and restart your system. It will be auto-start at each boot and keep on running in background.
*thermald is another tool that monitors and controls the CPU temperature, resulting in reduced overheating.
Both of these tool run in the background, and for more hands-on control I installed:
* CPUfreq lets you choose the mode you want the laptop to run in. There are four modes,: Performance, Conservative, On Demand and Power Saver. Running the laptop in Power Saver mode reduces overheating, quickly dropping the temperature by 20C. The tool is easy to use, as it sits in the system tray and clicking on the icon allows me to alter the mode.
I honestly can't say that Linux runs hotter than MS Vista did, but I'm a belt & braces type of guy, so prefer to be safe than sorry.
A life-saving tool is TimeShift, which creates fallback points to allow you to restore your operating system to a time when it worked without problems. It's tunable, letting you decide how many snapshots to take. Mine is set to Start-up, Daily, Weekly and Monthly. This means a lot of information is saved on the hard drive, taking up space, so I delete old snapshots every few days; TimeShift automatically sends you a reminder when there's less than 1GB of space left on the hard drive.
I was glad to have TimeShift, when I had what appeared to be a disaster after entering a long line of code into the command line, to get an app that wasn't available in the repository, which promptly removed all of the folders from my screen, leaving just the wallpaper!
They may well have returned, had I rebooted, but I didn't want to take the chance they were gone forever, so selected a snapshot on TimeShift which promptly restored normality.
Linux Mint is a great distro to start your Linux experience. That's not to say that I haven't had a couple of strange problems. The most frustrating was trying to access some files that I saved to the hard drive and a memory stick, while I was still using MS Vista. I have a folder on the memory stick which contains 1,000 images of famous paintings, that I can't access for some reason.
More obviously, MS overlaid DRM on forty music albums that I'd ripped to the hard drive, while leaving 360 others untouched. I couldn't see why it had made some music files unplayable on anything other than a MS operating system, as they were of many dates of release, going back to the 1980s. I spent hours looking for a solution, including posting questions on Linux forums, as well as downloading a dozen different media players, which claimed to be able to play DRM files—none of them could.
The obvious solution was to rip the albums again while in Linux, but then I discovered that the CD/DVD drive had gone bad through the laser lens failing. D'oh! A £4 bargain buy on eBay gave me a replacement, which I installed. Fortunately, I still had all of the albums and they ripped to the hard drive using Asunder CD Ripper.
All except one, that is, which is an enhanced CD containing a 20 minute video of the musician in concert. For reasons that I've been unable to fathom, this CD won't even play on any of the dozen media players, and it certainly won't rip. It's as if it has a force field around it, when in my laptop, though readily plays in other machines. I'm searching for a solution.
What else has gone wrong? I initially installed Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon, but updated to 18.2 Sonya. Weirdly, this crashed about once a day, for no apparent cause, but came straight back up when commanded to; it was deemed 'buggy' by Linux users. They must have stomped on the bug, for since installing fresh updates (what MS users would call patches) all has been totally stable.
That's it for problems. With Linux, I feel like I'm a part of a community that will help me, should I encounter glitches with an operating system that's constantly being developed and improved. With Microsoft, I was constantly watchful for problems, especially viruses, and felt like MS were disinterested in helping me, as they abandoned support for Vista, while flogging their latest operating system.
I've retained MS Vista on my laptop, doing a dual boot and selecting Linux Mint. I've kept it, just in case there's any stored information I can't access from Mint, but I haven't used Vista for eight months—no need—Linux is superior!
When I first began using Linux, I wondered if my laptop was running hotter than it did with Microsoft. The threat of overheating is something I'm paranoid about, as it's a real computer killer. The worst thing to do with a laptop is use it on your lap. I've long used a cooling cradle, fitted with fans to provide ventilation.
I chose the Mint distribution (distro) of Linux, which was recommended as being the most sorted and easy to use for a newbie. Linux offers software apps that are easily accessible through its Repository, saving you having to search online for them.
To monitor the temperature of the hardware, I installed Psensor which is a GUI tool that allows you to monitor CPU, GPU, hard disk temperature along with fan rotation speed. It provides a real time graphical way to show the requested data.
To prevent the chance of overheating in Linux, I installed three different tools, which all do more or less the same thing but don't conflict with each other.
*TLP power management tool is a daemon that is pre-configured to reduce overheating as well as improve battery life. You just need to install TLP and restart your system. It will be auto-start at each boot and keep on running in background.
*thermald is another tool that monitors and controls the CPU temperature, resulting in reduced overheating.
Both of these tool run in the background, and for more hands-on control I installed:
* CPUfreq lets you choose the mode you want the laptop to run in. There are four modes,: Performance, Conservative, On Demand and Power Saver. Running the laptop in Power Saver mode reduces overheating, quickly dropping the temperature by 20C. The tool is easy to use, as it sits in the system tray and clicking on the icon allows me to alter the mode.
I honestly can't say that Linux runs hotter than MS Vista did, but I'm a belt & braces type of guy, so prefer to be safe than sorry.
A life-saving tool is TimeShift, which creates fallback points to allow you to restore your operating system to a time when it worked without problems. It's tunable, letting you decide how many snapshots to take. Mine is set to Start-up, Daily, Weekly and Monthly. This means a lot of information is saved on the hard drive, taking up space, so I delete old snapshots every few days; TimeShift automatically sends you a reminder when there's less than 1GB of space left on the hard drive.
I was glad to have TimeShift, when I had what appeared to be a disaster after entering a long line of code into the command line, to get an app that wasn't available in the repository, which promptly removed all of the folders from my screen, leaving just the wallpaper!
They may well have returned, had I rebooted, but I didn't want to take the chance they were gone forever, so selected a snapshot on TimeShift which promptly restored normality.Linux Mint is a great distro to start your Linux experience. That's not to say that I haven't had a couple of strange problems. The most frustrating was trying to access some files that I saved to the hard drive and a memory stick, while I was still using MS Vista. I have a folder on the memory stick which contains 1,000 images of famous paintings, that I can't access for some reason.
More obviously, MS overlaid DRM on forty music albums that I'd ripped to the hard drive, while leaving 360 others untouched. I couldn't see why it had made some music files unplayable on anything other than a MS operating system, as they were of many dates of release, going back to the 1980s. I spent hours looking for a solution, including posting questions on Linux forums, as well as downloading a dozen different media players, which claimed to be able to play DRM files—none of them could.
The obvious solution was to rip the albums again while in Linux, but then I discovered that the CD/DVD drive had gone bad through the laser lens failing. D'oh! A £4 bargain buy on eBay gave me a replacement, which I installed. Fortunately, I still had all of the albums and they ripped to the hard drive using Asunder CD Ripper.
All except one, that is, which is an enhanced CD containing a 20 minute video of the musician in concert. For reasons that I've been unable to fathom, this CD won't even play on any of the dozen media players, and it certainly won't rip. It's as if it has a force field around it, when in my laptop, though readily plays in other machines. I'm searching for a solution.
What else has gone wrong? I initially installed Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon, but updated to 18.2 Sonya. Weirdly, this crashed about once a day, for no apparent cause, but came straight back up when commanded to; it was deemed 'buggy' by Linux users. They must have stomped on the bug, for since installing fresh updates (what MS users would call patches) all has been totally stable.
That's it for problems. With Linux, I feel like I'm a part of a community that will help me, should I encounter glitches with an operating system that's constantly being developed and improved. With Microsoft, I was constantly watchful for problems, especially viruses, and felt like MS were disinterested in helping me, as they abandoned support for Vista, while flogging their latest operating system.
I've retained MS Vista on my laptop, doing a dual boot and selecting Linux Mint. I've kept it, just in case there's any stored information I can't access from Mint, but I haven't used Vista for eight months—no need—Linux is superior!
