Don't toss your old computer, breath new life into it

If you are a true techie, a gambler could put a line down in Las Vegas that bets whether or not you have laptops/desktops in your home that are more than four or five years old. That gambler would probably win. So lets say you have an older computer with Window Vista, XP or (shudder the thought) 98. You know you will not be able to upgrade it to Windows 7, 8 or 10. You also know that you will not be able to sell or trade it for any reasonable value. Most communities will not let you throw it in the trash, as they can be considered hazardous. Well forget most of what is written above. Simply download Linux Mint and make that old PC “FULLY” useful once again.

Once the 1.4 gig file was downloaded and the file was made into a bootable USB drive, (CD/DVD options just as easy) the install began. From start to being able to use the laptop took less than 30 minutes. That includes setting up WiFi, email and installing a network printer. The laptop (which previously had a crashing version of Windows Vista) that was used, is a Toshiba Satellite A205 included but is not limited to the following specs (per manufacturers website);

· Processor and Chipset Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor T2330 1.60GHz, 1 MB L2, 533MHz FSB Mobile Intel® GL960 Express Chipset

· Memory4 Configured with 1024MB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM (both memory slots may be occupied). Maximum capacity 2048MB

· Hard Disk Drive5 120GB (5400 RPM); Serial ATA hard disk drive

· Fixed Optical Disk Drive6 DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive supporting 11 formats

· Display7 15.4” diagonal widescreen TruBrite®TFT LCD display at 1280x800 native resolution (WXGA)

· Graphics8 Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 with 128MB-251MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

· Built-in stereo speakers Sound Volume Control Dial

· 86 key US keyboard TouchPad™ pointing device

Mint’s recommend specs ask for a minimum of 512 megs of ram, but suggest at least a gig to enable the full usefulness of the OS. It requires a minimum 9 gigs hard drive space, but suggests 20. It gives you the reasoning on whether to install the 32 or 64 bit OS.

It comes installed with an app that will pretty much do what ever you need. Libre Office is the office suite that is installed. It is full featured and will save in most industry standard formats, including MS Office for PC or Mac. It also comes with graphic manipulation software and is preinstalled with the Firefox browser. Its GUI (graphical user interface) will have familiar tones to all computer users.

This OS, in its fully featured status is clearly a perfect OS for the older PC’s. However, don’t let the fact that this article poses it as such keep you from using it if you want to replace the most current version of Windows. It’s light requirements only mean that it will be faster and more efficient on the newest laptops and desktops.