Would an SSD speed up a slow Laptop

[ppppenguin]

Gary, Sorry if I was stating the obvious. Most PC users don't have to worry about either boot order or creating bootable USB sticks. Once you have Linux installed, creating a bootable USB is built-in.

I haven't used it, but for those who want to experiment with different operating systems there's Ventoy: https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html This allows you to have multiple ISO files on a USB stick and choose which to boot from.

If you're downloading and installing Windows (any version) you still get an ISO file and have to create a bootable USB stick or CD/DVD. It's certainly not obvious that merely copying an ISO file to a USB stick will not work.

One of the biggest problems with Linux becoming widely used on the desktop is the huge choice. You can't easily go out and buy a desktop or laptop with Linux pre-imstalled. With Windows it usually comes pre-installed and you get what you're given. Actually there are widely used Linux desktops. Chromebooks use a version of Linux. Apple Macs have an OS that's closely related to Linux. All Android phones etc are based on Linux.

You can actually buy Linux installation media. For example: https://thelinuxshop.co.uk/ This doesn't contravene either the letter or spirit of FOSS. "Free" means "freedom" not "beer". The French have different words "libre" and "gratuit". There are many arguments about the precise meaning of "free" and "open source" and the multitude of permissive licences such as GPL.It's a huge can of worms which most of us don't need to worry about. But Linux dominates web servers, devices such as smart TVs, modem/routers, supercomputers, computers in space and much more.

[Radio Fixer]

No! probs: what is obvious isnt to everyone.

Rufus did create me a bootable Mem stick that gets the Laptop to MSDos.  Now its 30 + years ago that I considered myself a Dos expert but its all gone and I cant get it to run the Linux Mate files.

I did try putting the Mate files on the Mem stick as well but of course that wont link to the Rufus Dos prompt.

So moving on I have gone to the Linux Shop and bought a Mem stick from them for Mate at a low price and it will be good to see if that is an easy way to get up and running.  They prob have support so I wont keep having to bothering you    

thanks Gary

[Mike Watterson]

I used Ventoy on Linux to make a boot USB of Win10 and it didn't work due to some BIOS incompatibility on the target laptop.

Current Windows ISO downloads don't work with a standard ISO writer as they are a special MS format, not a real ISO. The program https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng works on Linux to copy an Win10 or 11 ISO download to a USB stick on Linux.

I forget what I used on Windows. Perhaps Ventoy will work on Windows to make a boot for Linux. However security settings in the BIOS might need changed. The Linux ISOs are perfectly standard, so any windows tool, other than the the MS format ISO writing tool, should work.

Many PCs have F12 as select alternate boot device without going to the BIOS.


If a laptop has a PCIe slot for an NVMe SSD this is 2x to 4x faster than a SATA SSD. In such a case having a cheap 500G to 2T SATA HDD for data and the PCIe slot based NVMe SSD is best. I use that on my laptop (1T SATA 2.5″ HDD) and a workstation (it has 4T SATA 3.5″ HDD). The SATA adaptor was €10 when I bought the Lenovo laptop without OS but PCIe slot based NVMe SSD pre-installed.

On Linux extra SATA HDD have a 20G partition for /var and the rest for /home. Label them var and home. Then mount those partitions in /homenew and /varnew using a disk manager with mount by label option. Copy existing /home and /var. Then boot with the USB Linux install media and mount the SSD. Rename the /var and /home on it to /varold and /homeold, then rename the empty /homenew and /varnew to /home and /var (as the SATA HDD is not mounted). Finally find /etc/fstab on the SSD (not the booted Linux) and find the two entries created by your disk manager and edit varnew to var and homenew to home.

This system can also be be on C:\ on windows as Windows allows mounting a partition in an empty folder. On windows you do this with C:\Documents and Settings and C:\Recycler (about 20G to 100 G byte). It's more complicated to setup on Windows, but the principle is the same.

Perhaps use rufus will suit on Windows to make a bootable Linux USB stick.

If the BIOS has a UEFI or UEFI and Legacy setting, select that. Disable any TPM stuff.
If using SATA make sure it's not set to legacy IDE mode. I've seen Win7 installs using legacy BIOS mode and legacy IDE mode for SATA (XP usually has to, but I slipstreamed XP sata drivers to a new XP install disk).

I use Mate desktop on Mint.
I also have two Lenovo E460 laptops with same 500G SATA HDD. One has Linux Mint with Mate and the other is the current Win10. The laptop has a Win10 key in BIOS and is for Win10. The Linux boots, runs and updates faster. It has real themes like XP and Win98 had, except more so. Win10/11 concept of Themes are an insult by having only light, dark and an accent colour. Also on Win10/11 you can't scale less than 100% font to fit more on a lower pixel count screen. You can scale down on Linux.

The only thing that works better on Windows now is MTP devices. Because MS developed that for the Zune and it's part of Windows & Explorer since Win98 and Win2000. Android switched to MTP at version 4.0

[ppppenguin]

.... Rufus did create me a bootable Mem stick that gets the Laptop to MSDos.  ....

...I did try putting the Mate files on the Mem stick as well but of course that wont link to the Rufus Dos prompt.....

Something sounds very wrong here. You should never be anywhere near MSDOS. I've no idea where that's coming from. You also say Mate files - plural. You should just be putting a single ISO file on the USB stick. If you then look at that in Windows explorer you may well see the contents of the ISO as multiple files.

You also mention Mate. Mate isn't a Linux distro in its own right. It's a desktop and GUI for Linux. It's usually associated with Linux Mint though I guess it can be used with other distros. Just checking you're going to the right places for this.

Start here: https://linuxmint.com/
Click the download button to get here: https://linuxmint.com/download.php
Click on the version you want (Mate in this case) to arrive here: https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=312
Choose where you want to download it from. I often use "University of Kent UK Mirror Service" (PS: That's actually a clickable link that takes you directly to the download)
Wait for the the ISO file to download. linuxmint-21.3-mate-64bit.iso It takes several minutes on my good 80Mb/s connection.

In Linux Mint Cinnamon that I'm using I just need to double click on the ISO and and follow the prompts to make a bootable USB stick. I don't have a suitable windows PC to hand to look at using Rufus. There's no installation needed. Just double click on the .EXE file and follow the instructions. ISTR it asks you to specify the USB stick and the ISO file, then cliclk start and it does the rest.

[Pye Man]

I am am using Linux Mint (19x just out of supprt) Cinnamon on a 2011 Toshiba Satellite laptop. I loaded it on using a CD or DVD from a Linux magazine cover as the laptop has a drive. This was easy; just like the old days of installing a system: first wipe and reformat the hard drive and then follow the prompts. All I have done to it is maxed the RAM. Can’t remember but guess it went from 2GB to 4GB but it ran reasonably well before. I am not a heavy user but it is in use daily and the only drag now is that the battery has all but had it and only lasts 20 minutes but as I use it at home only I use the PSU.

I need a Windows machine to do a few things and the next in line to get Linux is an HP budget machine that came with Windows 10 and is by far the worst performing machine in my forty years of desktop, etc., computing. It only did tasks in LibreOffice Calc and Writer, email and light web browsing, yet I only managed to get it to an acceptable operating standard by stripping out every unnecessary to me service (which meant most of them), limiting the update frequency and disabling every thing that wanted to be ‘helpful’. If I was working on a lengthy document task and didn’t need internet I turned off the wi-fi connection which saved whatever the system, etc., was doing internet wise in the background. If it hadn’t been on the net for some days I had to remember to switch it on a good while before I started serious work for all the updates and logging-in to catch up!

[Mike Watterson]

.... Rufus did create me a bootable Mem stick that gets the Laptop to MSDos.  ....

...I did try putting the Mate files on the Mem stick as well but of course that wont link to the Rufus Dos prompt.....

Something sounds very wrong here. You should never be anywhere near MSDOS. I've no idea where that's coming from. You also say Mate files - plural. You should just be putting a single ISO file on the USB stick.

All true. Also you never copy an ISO to a boot media using a file manager or regular copy command (Flash card, USB Stick, SD Card, floppy, CD, DVD), you use the ISA image write in the utility such as Rufus, Nero etc. After writing (not a file copy) the medium is bootable.
Rufus has a command to transfer an ISO to a USB stick. Rufus goes on your OS, not the USB stick to boot, unless you want to boot Rufus.

System Requirements:
Windows 8 or later. Once downloaded, the application is ready to use.

If you have only Win7 or earlier then you need to do something else.

From FAQ ( < Click link and read)

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (NO LONGER SUPPORTED)

Please don't ask for support regarding Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 installations, or even regarding running Rufus on these platforms. Because they have been retired by Microsoft, and supporting Windows 10 and Windows 11 already takes more than enough of my time, I simply don't have the scope to support these versions of Windows any longer.

The last version of Rufus that runs on Windows XP is version 2.18, which you can download here.
The last version of Rufus that runs on Windows 7 is version 3.22, which you can also download here.

[ppppenguin]

I have Windows XP in various virtual machines (using Virtualbox) for assorted older software that needs actual Windows. I also use WINE (in the Winetricks version which is easier to use) to run a couple of other Windows programs. These include the indispensable (to me!) Irfanview for which I haven't found anything as good that's native to Linux.

Apart from problems with networking to the ancient XP and W98 PCs on my bench (they are hosting specialist hardware) I've had some minor annoyances with printing and scanning. A bit of googling has found solutions to most of this, though I still haven't worked out why Libreoffice Writer documents with landscape pages don't print correctly on my Samsung laser printer. I just print to PDF and then print from there. The automatic paper tray selection on my A3 Epson inkjet isn't quite right but it's easy to work around. I've tried a few different scanning apps, none of which I really like but they do the job. Windows is entirely capable of fouling up this sort of thing too.

I don't use Photoshop but if it's essential for you then you must run Windows (or use a Mac). I haven't really played with GIMP which is the main FOSS alternative and which is included in Mint. Libreoffice has occasional compatibility issues with Microsoft Office but probably no worse than between different versions of Office.

At the Broadcast Engineering Museum our IT guru and I put Linux on the various PCs that lurk in odd corners. Except we need real Windows (I don't think a VM will do it) to configure our central video and audio router. We'll find something that works.

[Mike Watterson]

The Mint 19.3 is last 32 bit Linux Mint. Later are all 64 bit only. It's possible to install 64 bit Linux on some PCs that have only 32 bit BIOS/UEFI and only had 32 bit Wi7 or Win10 (there is now no 32 bit Win10), usually Atoms with not enough RAM for Win10 64 bit. Linux can run in 2G RAM. Some Atoms simply don't have the address lines for more than 2G or 4G even if the socket s/mobo supports it.
There are other 32 bit Linux distros still supported.
The biggest issue now with 32 bit is that QT and thus many applications are 64bit only. Such as Calibre (Mac, Linux, Windows). An up-to-date browser is the problem with some 32 bit OS, because many Browsers are now only 64bit. On Linux use Chromium if you think you need Chrome or Edge (though both of those exist for Linux)..

Required CPU performance for Desktop Most -> Least
Gnome 3 or Unity, -> Cinnamon -> KDE -> Mate -> XFCE

Install more than one desktop and more than one user with Admin, so it's easy to fix if you break it. It shouldn't need re-installed.

[Radio Fixer]

Wow! so much info there... no wonder folks just stick to a Ver of Windows or a Mac OS

Any way this is what I have ordered and if it just boots and loads than for me thats the easy way.  If not the Laptop will get a hardware upgrade and have W10 (supported 'til 2025.

thanks Gary

[Mike Watterson]

GIMP has a bit of learning curve and TWO GUIs and numerable themes. Figure that and you'll never use Irfanview again. I used to use it a bit. Many Photoshop users are now using The GIMP on Windows now that it's subscription based.