ares35

on my arch-based systems, i use repos first, aur second. appimages third. i do also have a couple minor things (that are self-contained with no dependencies) that were just ‘unzipped’ into their own directories and links added to menus where appropriate. note that i don’t game on these systems. i don’t have a lot of aur packages installed, so updates and subsequent recompile time isn’t an issue.

i have yet to run into anything i want or need that isn’t available in those. so no flatpaks or snaps.

hard drives are going to be slow af copying data to itself, or moving data to a different partition on it.

then you’re also adding partition size manipulation to the mix, which will also be slow af when data has to be moved off the ‘end’ of partitions to ‘make room’ to enlarge or create another with a different fs.

your best option is to get another drive, even if it’s also a hard drive instead of ssd. use that to move (copy, really, to preserve the original as a backup for the time being) all the data to that you want to preserve.

upgrades have been working fine here, both linux and windows, for well over a decade.

only if a system is also being repurposed at the time of the ‘upgrade’, or if i’m changing the connection type of the boot drive (such as from sata to nvme, or switching an older system to ahci mode) do i install ‘from scratch’.

definitely keep windows on it to begin with. once you’re fully settled-in on linux and haven’t even looked at windows for at least a couple weeks, make one last backup… then nuke it or repurpose it.

upgraded here. no problems. didn’t even notice the version increment until i went looking for it.

those were so long ago they’re small enough that windows would still be able to format them fat32 even with its built-in limitations on formatting that filesystem.

what would be completely useless is scrolling through a larger flash drive’ or card’s files, one or two at a time.

you should be able to ‘rufus’ an installer for that. the instruction in the ‘new’ minimum requirement dates back to 1st gen.

i just directed someone to a 12th gen laptop (i5-1235u) with 16gb ram and 512gb nvme at dell for $430 in a ready-to-ship configuration, search their site for nn3520gsbbs to find it.

you mean debian, right?

they count clicks on a distro’s page on their site, not usage or anything else.

if they dared put hanna montana linux on there, it would be the perpetual #1 listing.

i use private windows mainly so i don’t clutter up browser histories with useless stuff i won’t go back to (if i do run across something to save, it gets bookmarked or printed to pdf).

if they put all their tv/cable channels online and had a comparable ease-of-use of turning on a tv and flipping channels (without jacking d+ rates up–except espn; sports channels should be separate), they’d see a huge influx of subs and higher long-term retention of them.

but, they won’t do that. they have the cable and satellite companies by the balls, and they squeeze regularly. gotta extort higher overall profits from that dwindling customer base–and they do.

if it supports the basic hardware, there’s nothing wrong with peppermint for basic stuff like your use case. after the base system is installed, add a browser and libreoffice and you’ll have a nice little system for writing on.

if you want to keep using windows on it, you’ll probably have to ‘start over’ with a plain install of windows (without hp’s junk, and to a clean–partition table cleared–‘hard drive’), uninstall the useless crud like candy crush that comes with the base windows install, ensure compactos is enabled (it should be automatically enabled with those specs), install your browser and word processor. you shouldn’t have to do thing where you connect an external drive for ‘working’ space for updates (something i’ve only ever had to do twice on 32gb emmc models) anymore as long as updates stay relatively current.

but with only 2gb ram and a 10 year old ‘atom’ based cpu, i’d probably go straight for peppermint.

if they don’t need a new printer, and if mom is happy with what she has… don’t fix what ain’t broken (in mom’s eyes). or just look for 3rd party ink for it. many and good reviews, reputable seller. it may take a couple tries to find some that work. hopefully mom hasn’t allowed an hp firmware update that nixes that option and doesn’t let you roll it back.

if you do replace the printer:

if they’re low volume, can live without color, or are sporadic printer users, get a laser. a b/w brother with the features you want, that has 3rd party toners and drum kits available.

if they’re higher volume and regular printer users (they don’t not print for weeks or months at a time) and ‘need’ color, you could consider one of those ‘tank-based’ color inkjets. do not let it run out of ink and always leave it plugged in to the power (let it go into power-save on its own). they also usually have 3rd party ink available. you may want to see if and how the printheads themselves get replaced when needed and whether or not you can actually buy them (we’re binning one here because the printer says it needs a new printhead—but you can’t buy them!).

for photos, stick 'em on a flash drive and go to walmart or a drug store that has the self-service photo printing stations or use an online service that ships. it’s much cheaper than printing photos at home.

read the box, and all its fine print. some printers (mostly, but not exclusively hp) are shipping with strict blocks on 3rd party consumables. hp had previously reserved the hardcore blocking to the first firmware update you’d get after setting it up (let that update come in, you were screwed. disabled firmware updates and you were ‘ok’)… but not anymore.

duplex printing (both sides, automatically) is something we use a lot. a sheet feeder (adf) on top for copies and scans is another feature we couldn’t live without at the office. even though it might only be used occasionally–when it is needed, it saves so much time.

two other features that are often overlooked is a second input feed (even if it’s ‘manual’/one sheet at a time) for envelopes, letterhead or a sheet of labels… and a main input tray with a decent capacity… the one i’m using now only holds 50 sheets (about 30 in practice, because if you dare to fill it, it will misfeed frequently), and that’s just not enough.

for printing from phones and tablets. look for that feature in the printer specs, then when you set it up at home, set it up as a wifi printer.

samsung sold their printer business to hp in 2017.

messed around some with slack 0.99.

but first one to actually see some regular usage was buzz, which progressed over time through to potato.

and the first to get its own dedicated box long-term was woody.

but I just don’t get who was using it.

way more than you realize. i’ve been supporting home users and small businesses for thirty years. i run into wordpad users frequently.

wordpad has always been gimped to keep it from taking any sales away from word. if microsoft wasn’t worried about wordpad, they would have tossed a spellchecker into it back in the 1990s (when wordpad replaced write) and it would, ya know… still exist (in upcoming versions of windows).

wordpad gets kicked to the curb because microsoft thinks they can sell a few more office subscriptions if the most basic of word processors wasn’t included with windows.

meanwhile. notepad, the basic text editor that lacks even the basic formatting features found in wordpad, gets the spellchecker users have wanted in wordpad since windows write for windows 1.0

you don’t even need a player script; browsers today can play media on their own.

and scripts with added features is a very crowded market.