I decided to play around with LXDE on a cheap laptop I bought in an employee auction recently (on which I’m running Linux Mint Debian Edition). Everything works great – I forgot how fast and comfortable LXDE is to me, since it’s been quite a while since I used it regularly.
However, the keybindings don’t work for adjusting the screen brightness, and I had to struggle for a bit to figure out how to get them properly mapped to this functionality. Here’s how I did it.
Just so you know, this isn’t a review. It’s just a discussion on what I did to make some old hardware useful again.
I’ve made mention from time to time the Toshiba Satellite A75 that I have that has been a backup machine for me for years now.
Well, with my 3+ year old System76 laptop on its last legs and suddenly developing a short in its screen connection, I decided to blow the dust off that trusty old Toshiba again and use it as a stopgap until I get something newer.
The problem is, this Toshiba Satellite is from 2005, has a single core 32-bit Pentium 4 processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, and a 60 GB hard drive. Needless to say, it’s a bit out of place in today’s world, so I had to put some thought into how to best optimize this machine’s return to productivity or it’d be pretty painful to use.
It’s been a little over a year since I reviewed the first Peppermint OS, and while I liked the first effort on this new project, I’ve been really looking forward to Peppermint Two. Well, my wait was over as of last week, so I was able to kick the tires and get a good feel for it after installing and using it for a few days.
And it didn’t disappoint!
Real life gets crazy sometimes, and blogging outside of the quick and sometimes poorly-thought-out rant takes time, so I haven’t been updating here anywhere near as often as I’d prefer.
So I thought I’d pound out a few quick paragraphs on what I have going on lately in terms of technology… what I’m running where and why.
The folks over at Linux Mint have just released their newest, latest and greatest, Linux Mint 9 “Isadora”. This time, though, instead of having a single LiveCD to Rule Them All, they offer a LiveCD, LiveDVD and an OEM CD that does not create a default user account. Since I don’t have immediate access to a DVD burner here, I’ll be using the LiveCD. Let’s take a look, shall we?
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Most of us who are familiar with Linux are familiar with the advantages of running Linux as a desktop OS. We frequently bemoan the fact that others don’t know what we do about the reality of Linux on the desktop, and we seem to be hampered by difficulties in spreading the word outside our own circles. Recently, I was able to get outside the circle of Linux users and perform a live demonstration of Linux (and LXDE) to a group of professionals in a conference setting. Here’s my story.
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In my post last week, Time For A Linux Laptop, I discussed how my options were rather slim when it came to combining Linux, good processing power, and machines on the smaller end of the laptop scale.
The bar by which I had been measuring everything was the now discontinued Darter Ultra, by System76, which was what I had planned to buy this month, at least, until it vanished from their website’s selection of laptop computers back in the end of February.
Well, despite my lack of options, I’ve made a purchase, and it’s arriving today.
I’m guessing some of my regular readers are thinking “Why don’t you just rename this blog to Linux Mint Critic and get it over with already?“, right?
Well, I’ve been discussing Linux Mint a lot lately, because it’s the distro in which I have the most interest at the moment, but I do still have other topics.
Like Linux laptops. I’m buying a new laptop in April, and I’m not exactly floored by a dizzying array of options. As if I already hadn’t come to the conclusion that I needed a new laptop, my old laptop completely locked up on me while I was writing this post today. So I’m definitely in the market. Read on.
Dear Dell,
I know that in the past you have offered a handful of paltry Ubuntu options, though I confess I don’t understand why you bothered at all.
With the exception of your two netbook offerings, I have yet to have seen you offer anything else that indicates to me that you have any intentions to make Ubuntu a real option for your customers.
Oh, I know… for a while you offered Ubuntu on your Inspiron 15n laptop, and there was even an XPS M1330 notebook for a brief time available on your website.
But both of those were very limited in what was available for CPU options and RAM upgrades. Even the desktop option you offered for a little while was an underpowered, unimpressive castoff compared to what’s available elsewhere on Dell.com.
Bet you guys thought I forgot about this blog, huh?
Well, as I mentioned in my last post (ugh, all the way back in November already?), I’m gainfully employed again, and busier than a one-legged man in an…. well, you get the idea.
I get home from work and the LAST thing on my mind is writing any kind of intelligible technology articles.
That said, I DO need to start contributing some content to my own Linux blog again, so here goes.
The Linux Critic 