[ale] Linux on 6GB Dell notebook?
DJPfulio at jdpfu.com
DJPfulio at jdpfu.com
Mon Nov 15 11:37:32 EST 2021
How much storage any user needs is very dependent on their needs/goals. For years, my laptops running "lite ubuntu flavors" have used less than 60G of "important" storage. Any extra storage available is for stuff I keep elsewhere. I do not backup the "extra stuff" <--- actually mount it to /stuff/ so I know clearly this isn't important.
My 20.04 main desktop disk layout:
$ dft
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vgubuntu--root ext4 19G 11G 7.1G 61% /
/dev/mapper/vgubuntu--home ext4 12G 6.9G 4.3G 62% /home
/dev/vda1 vfat
My laptop isn't powered on, so it isn't easy to grab that layout. It has a 500G SSD. Most of my storage is on NFS storage, so local disks aren't necessary for me. Hang on, I do have the disk layout captured as part of my backups ....
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 511M 4.5M 507M 1% /boot/efi
/dev/sda2 721M 174M 510M 26% /boot
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--mate--vg-root 25G 18G 5.4G 77% /
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--mate--vg-home--lv 74G 23G 48G 33% /home
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--mate--vg-stuff 99G 58G 36G 63% /stuff
On that laptop, over 50% of the LVM storage isn't allocated:
# more vgdisplay.txt
--- Volume group ---
VG Name ubuntu-mate-vg
System ID
Format lvm2
VG Size <464.54 GiB
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Alloc PE / Size 52341 / <204.46 GiB
Free PE / Size 66581 / 260.08 GiB
Sorry, I don't snag the lvs/vgs/pvs output ... yet.
Today, I'd many the root LV 35G and would make /boot 600MB and might add an LV for /var/ to keep that separate. But thanks to LVM, to add 10G more, is 3 seconds on the running system:
sudo lvextend -r -L +10G /dev/mapper/ubuntu--mate--vg-root
I've never seen the EFI partition on any of my systems use more than 10MB, so I'd probably make that 50MB next time instead of the default. Pffffft.
I would never suggest anyone **without** a top-of-the-line system, RAM, CPU run the default Ubuntu. That comes with Gnome3 or Gnome4 which is bloated just like iTunes and MS-Outlook are. Excellent GUIs and full flavors exist with 3-5 yrs of support by Canonical. Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu-Mate, Xubuntu. These are all great choices for almost anyone.
Moving a little farther away from Ubuntu it is possible to gain even more usability by using PopOS or Linux Mint.
For anti-systemd people, there is MX Linux. It uses apt, but has a compatibility layer so systemd-integrated programs don't crash/refuse to run.
Today, if Mom were alive and had a "reasonable" computer, I'd put her on Mint. At ALE-NW, we have a number of Mint fans. For people with less hardware, PopOS or Xubuntu or Lubuntu are pretty light, but I think they dropped 32-bit support (i686) in 2019.
Learn about the Ubuntu Releases. 3 of 4 over any 2 yr period should be ignored by non-technical people. Even years, April, are the only releases I run seriously. These are called "TLS" - long-term-support. Every other release gets 9 months of support, so 21.04 support ends January. That's April, but an odd year. I have a 21.10 (<--- is 2021 October) release installed to play with. Meh. I'm not impressed. Non-LTS releases are just too much hassle, unless you have hardware that is so very new that the LTS updates haven't been released to support the new hardware.
You probably know all this LTS stuff already, but there are always new people lurking.
My normal desktop has 4GB allocated to it. 6G would be fine. On a new system for end users, I'd get 8G just because.
$ free -hm
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3.8Gi 906Mi 1.2Gi 8.0Mi 1.7Gi 2.7Gi
Swap: 4.1Gi 0B 4.1Gi
I don't use Gnome, but it is running all sorts of GUI stuff with plenty of bloat - thunderbird, firefox (w/ 30 tabs) for example.
I've run lite versions of Ubuntu on 2GB - 4GB systems for years. Just ensure the swap is 4.1G sized for any Ubuntu desktop. If you have 16G+, having a little swap - perhaps 1G is still recommended.
Mint doesn't push Canonical's Snap packages. That's a huge plus in my mind. Most of the Ubuntu flavors from Canonical preinstall snaps for crazy reasons. They are part of the core GUI stuff:
$ snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
bare 1.0 5 latest/stable canonical✓ base
chromium 95.0.4638.69 1810 latest/stable canonical✓ -
core 16-2.52.1 11993 latest/stable canonical✓ core
core18 20211015 2246 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core20 20210928 1169 latest/stable canonical✓ base
freemind 1.1.0-Beta-2 4 latest/stable jibel -
gnome-3-28-1804 3.28.0-19-g98f9e67.98f9e67 161 latest/stable canonical✓ -
gtk-common-themes 0.1-59-g7bca6ae 1519 latest/stable canonical✓ -
scrcpy v1.19 302 latest/stable sisco311 -
snapd 2.52.1 13640 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd
On Ubuntu, chromium is ONLY provided as a Snap package. Snaps .... Oh snaps ... that's a completely different thread with about 5 good reasons and 20 bad reasons.
I'm not a fan of HP PC/laptops. Dell and Lenovo seem to make the most Linux compatible laptops, IME.
ALE-NW
Almost at every ALE-NW meeting, we'll do an install of some Linux distro - thanks to Mark. Sometimes those go really well and he'll setup remote access for anyone who likes so we can check it out. Yesterday, he loaded the alpha-alpha-alpha Ubuntu 22.04 pre-release. There was some issue and we were talking BTRFS, so he reinstalled using BTRFS ... which went badly. ;( We are still meeting virtually, every Sunday. Had some regulars from NC and California, plus a few non-Atlanta area people join most weeks.
On 11/15/21 9:22 AM, Neal Rhodes via Ale wrote:
> So, Thanks for the advice on helping friend with virus scan on their 6gb Dell notebook.
>
> I think that got it to the point of occasionally running ok, but also often needing more than 6GB for Win 10, and starting to thrash.
>
> It's one of those Dells without a RAM door on the bottom.
>
> The recommendation from HL computer was to swap the drive with a 500GB SSD, and virus scan the new drive. They wanted $260 for that.
>
> I'm seeing Walmart is peddling an HP I3 with 8GB RAM, 220GB SSD for $270 this week.
>
> Which is actually a better proposition. Friend's finances are limited.
>
> I'm debating telling him I'll give him $100 for the old notebook and reformat it for linux. Likely Ubuntu.
>
> Guessing Ubuntu will run fine in 6GB.
>
> It's been a couple of years since I did that. Are there new hurdles with doing a fresh install? EUFI? What about audio? Audacity? TeamViewer? Ultimaker Cura? Zoom?
>
> regards,
>
> Neal
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