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your laptop is a little weak for image editing, esp. if you have a fairly new camera that provides huge raw files.
all of it: ram, cpu, hard drive.
btw, why 1.6gb ram? it's such a weird number. why not 2gb?Probably is 2gb, was reading off the system info, so that'll be the available memory(?)
the software you listed is ok, what i'd have suggested (except i don't know fotoxx).You should give it a try: great for quick trimming and fixing brightness levels and has some "art" features that give pencil sketch and painting effects. I think a lot of the issues I have with packages like GIMP is that I need to take the time to learn to use them properly rather than doing the "what does this button do?" method
without buying new hardware, things you can do to alleviate the problem:
- make sure you have enough swap (on linux machines usually 1:1 with physical memory)
- play with settings in gimp (edit => preferences => environment) - please search the web or gimp.org for sane defaults.
- disable compositing (very important performance-wise!) and programs running needlessly in the background (systray icons?]That is a nice little list of things to do. I do have a few packages in systray that probably don't need to be there. I am sure GIMP is probably the package I should be using but, as I mentioned, I just need to educate myself on it's use
but yes, if you need to concentrate on image & text editing, you might want to use a distro that saves on other aspects.
also, if you choose a distro based on debian stable, you will be able to use older versions of programs for a little longer, which might be helpful with your hardware.
you might want to try bunsenlabs.
Thank you so much for all your sage advice, nice to know that there are some bits that I can try to improve the running of the system without changing my OS. But, also great, that you have suggested the type of OS I should be considering. Your time and advice gratefully received and I will let you know how I get on
That depends. Linux doesn't have that great of DRM support so sites like Hulu might be a challenge or simply impossible. If you need anything that requires DRM, keep Windows handy.
Microsoft recently canceled Zune and they no longer support DRM.
Re: Photo editing.
GIMP can do anything for you, but there is a rather steep learning curve if you haven't used it before. Fotoxx is a lighter photo editor you may want to look at.
I am sure you're right about GIMP, but you're also right about that learning curve too. It's less steep and more flipping vertical! I am using Fotoxx at the moment and I love it but I have not been able to work out how to get it to allow me to add text to an image, not sure if it even has this function! I add text to images themselves as I (in my current book) have been given permission to use images created by an artist friend of mine and the text allows me to associate the title and copyright details of the image directly to the JPEG. Fotoxx is great for cropping and fixing a lot of brightness/colour saturation issues with both photos and illustrations...good call, my friend! Thanks for taking the time to lend your assistance.
Long term support is always harder for me to get what I need working so I normally choose testing,,, sometimes (with caution to hardware @lest) unstable\experimental but testings worked best for me over the years. Your personal data is all that's relevant for now learn to make copies in and on other media eg DVD\SSD\cellphone\online\&c... then most GNU\Linuces are "free" as in freedom so try all the top ones plus their window managers and\or desktop environments heck even CLI!
Best wishes and have fun each day, even if we have to pretend at first.
:Edited\added.
Thank you so much for the information. I am careful to back up to external hard drives or USB sticks everyday: this is following a nasty experience while editing my first book, last year, when I successfully lost about a weeks work. Luckily I was able to get a slightly older version of the work from my publishers, who I had emailed with my progress! Now I am a very good girl when it comes to saving duplicates of anything I am working on! Your help is much appreciated
I have a laptop with very similar hardware and I stick with the smaller lighter distros to make it run better. On mine, I run MX-14 and it does a good job and the MX support forum is a collection of helpful folks.
Nice to know that I am not the only person with an aged PC! Not heard of MX, so will have a look at the link. Thanks for taking the time to help, I only joined the forum yesterday and it is obvious that I am severely limited in my knowledge but, so far, you have all been really helpful and informative. Thank you.
Yet, strangely, Adobe's Flash DRM works find for Windows users but not so well for Ubuntu users and has been mentioned on here before.
I (.deb) had to start using Chrome for HULU and Prime but have only got it working by installing Chromium (still no vid) with Apt installing over that with Chrome's .deb (by itself won't play vid)
Code:
sudo dpkg -i Chrome.x.x.deb
it returns an error and upon installation has a broken icon but plays the video &c until I fire up the package manager again and have to remove it to do other work (like updates) then I re:
Code:
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package google-chrome-stable.
(Reading database ... 424750 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking google-chrome-stable (46.0.2490.86-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of google-chrome-stable:
google-chrome-stable depends on libappindicator1; however:
Package libappindicator1 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing package google-chrome-stable (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.58) ...
Processing triggers for menu (2.1.47) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
google-chrome-stable
over Chromium again, works for now although I don't recommend it.
Code:
:Added2:
Last edited by jamison20000e; 11-22-2015 at 02:48 PM.
OP: +1 for the kids... most thrift stores by me (big city) have started selling old hardware directly to PC resale shops so I haven't been hooking people up like I use to, friends or the trash still donate sometimes tho.
We (me and my old man) have been resurrecting PC's for the kids in the little Scottish village we live in for about 5 years now. It is a farming community so people aren't exactly rich here! I am disabled and my husband cares for me, so we have quite a lot of time on our hands! We got given about 20 really old IBM desktop pc's about 4 years ago by the company my brother works for and that's where it all really started. We cannibalised the best bits out of the machines and got about 12 up and running (originally with Edubuntu on them) Now some of our desktops are with their 3rd owner, kids have returned them when they get their own PC and we re-tape them and hand them on. There is NO way we would have been able to do any of that if we had been having to worry about Windows licenses etc so Linux distros have made it all possible. There is so much PC based homework and internet research for kids at school now it is a real disadvantage if a child doesn't have access to a computer. We even got given a couple of laser printers by my brother and at one point the kids would bring anything they needed printing to us, as we could source inkjet printers that we could hand out. Calmed down a bit now, but I still get the occasional knock on the door with a friend of my son's bearing a USB stick!
[QUOTE=crichiegirl;5453664] Awesome. I've sold a few to classmates over the years (for a few dollars more than paid never more than $20) and lots of fun hacking plus my two nephews have had one each since two years old. I wonder how much and in what ways recycling have changed the after uses? I will admit people have good points on old PC's power and heat use but devices nowadays should not be so quick to through away. http://one.laptop.org/, https://www.raspberrypi.org/
In that case, you may want to back up critical files and settings, and opt for a total reinstall using the entire disk.
I might try something like SPARKY LINUX. Based upon Debian testing, it is light, fast, and running the 4.2.0 kernel. If the AMD will handle it, that kernel supports the very latest versions of nearly everything.
If you want something a little less 'cutting-edge', one of the lighter Ubuntu variants like "Elementary" or "Lubuntu" may serve well.
Those get you fairly current base and kernel, without the overhead of core Ubuntu to drag it down. I detest the update schedule for Fedora, but it might be fun to play with.
The extreme other end would be Puppy or TinyCore. These should FLY on that machine, but will not run the standard districbutions of the applications you will need so I cannot recommend them for this purpose. I mention them because you might want to keep one about on CD or a USB Thumb drive (even the small/cheapest ones should be big enough: both together do not make 512Meg!) to run when you do not want that full instll running and vulnerable.
This is important: all of these are either primarily live-cd capable, or have a live-cd run option. That means that you can try them out before you install ANYTHING to disk. I recommend running a few around the blick, kicking the tires, and weeding out any that clearly do NOT meet your approval.
Oh, and let us know how that goes and what you decide!
About laptops, there are going to be some holiday deals soon. Almost anything new will have a gig or more ram, half a T or disk, and those with decent AMD or INTEL processors will run Linux well. You need more. For video editing and any more serious work you need more and faster cores, more ram, and a decent disk that will not top out on you. The work and requirements for the applications trump any linux OS requirement.
I wish I could advise, but I have not been looking for new hardware in a long while. All I can say is that the cheapest machine may not make you at all happy.
There are a couple of companies that specifically market linux laptops. Fewer in the US than in the UK, but I am not familiar with the UK market and cannot name even one.
Perhaps someone more local to you can chime in with advice on that market.
I recently bought a refurbished laptop for a friend whose junkie ex boyfriend had cleaned out her account and sold her laptop and iphone.
newandusedlaptops4u on ebay sold me "FAST Windows 7 Dell Latitude E5420 Laptop Core i5 HDMI Wireless CHEAP 8GB DVDRW" for 150. Immediately replaced the Windows with Manjaro, and she loves it - she can't believe how fast it is or how much better than Windows - this would happily handle your work. Service and delivery was fantastic - I had a minor query which was dealt with instantly over the phone. You don't have to use them, but there are some great value machines out there without buying new
BTW For serious DTP take a look at scribus. takes a bit of learning but . . .
Manjaro installed quite happily with a few clicks - but we weren't concerned about keeping Windows
Last edited by normanlinux; 11-22-2015 at 02:44 PM.
Reason: additional info
We (me and my old man) have been resurrecting PC's for the kids in the little Scottish village we live in for about 5 years now. It is a farming community so people aren't exactly rich here! I am disabled and my husband cares for me, so we have quite a lot of time on our hands! We got given about 20 really old IBM desktop pc's about 4 years ago by the company my brother works for and that's where it all really started. We cannibalised the best bits out of the machines and got about 12 up and running (originally with Edubuntu on them) Now some of our desktops are with their 3rd owner, kids have returned them when they get their own PC and we re-tape them and hand them on. There is NO way we would have been able to do any of that if we had been having to worry about Windows licenses etc so Linux distros have made it all possible. There is so much PC based homework and internet research for kids at school now it is a real disadvantage if a child doesn't have access to a computer. We even got given a couple of laser printers by my brother and at one point the kids would bring anything they needed printing to us, as we could source inkjet printers that we could hand out. Calmed down a bit now, but I still get the occasional knock on the door with a friend of my son's bearing a USB stick!
if you are doing this kind of stuff you should really put a little thought into what distro you are using to put on these machines.
distrowatch has search options for "old computers", but its list is not complete... e.g. the fabulous bunsenlabs is not on it.
it is, btw, born from the ashes of crunchbang, which is discontinued, but still enjoys security updates from debian (oldstable), afaiu (on the bunsenlabs forums you can fight threads on how to keep on using crunchbang. very friendly community).
i mention this in a lot of detail, because debian oldstable is likely to run with less hassle on such old machines, and both crunchbang and bunsenlabs are very lean distros.
PS on libreoffice: imho it's not light at all, at least not enough to run comfortably on the hardware you first mentioned.
Some CLI tools might be good, the lists go on and on... they were the first apps. I use vi a lot these days and on my old laptop General Purpose Mouse(GPM).
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for HULU and Prime but have only got it working by installing Chromium (still no vid) with Apt installing over that with Chrome's .deb (by itself won't play vid)
