Best os for batterylife? (for backup laptop)

[Deathcorner]

Currently i got a modded win10 running on it with AtlasOs.

I'm very curious if a Linux OS would be better for batterylife. All i want to do on it basically office work on it. Surfing the web etc.

What i'd like to do is get the most out of my 11year old laptop.

 

These are the specs:

Dell Lattitude E6530

I7 3630QM

16gb 1600mhz

NVIDIA NVS 5200 1024mb

Intel SSD 500gb

97wh battery (3years old)

 

With the 97wh battery i get like 4-5hours of use. Would a other OS be better?

Btw i always turn it off fully after use.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Inception9269]

59 minutes ago, Deathcorner said:

Currently i got a modded win10 running on it with AtlasOs.

I'm very curious if a Linux OS would be better for batterylife. All i want to do on it basically office work on it. Surfing the web etc.

What i'd like to do is get the most out of my 11year old laptop.

 

These are the specs:

Dell Lattitude E6530

I7 3630QM

16gb 1600mhz

NVIDIA NVS 5200 1024mb

Intel SSD 500gb

97wh battery (3years old)

 

With the 97wh battery i get like 4-5hours of use. Would a other OS be better?

Btw i always turn it off fully after use.

 

Thanks in advance.

Using AtlasOS is honestly one of the worst techtips I've seen Linus ever give out, especially with the major security issues surrounding it.

 

There are two that I recommend to a linux newcomer that's used to using Windows. Linux Mint and Zorin OS. Between the two I'd say Mint would probably be your best choice.

 

Linux is pretty straight forward, especially if it's a basic pc that you're not going to be doing any gaming on. There's tons of Linux youtubers out there that do have videos to walk you through an installation of Mint, with it not being hard at all.

 

Mint does have a GUI for updating and installing drivers & updates, but you should take advantage of the terminal. Once you get used to it, it is a whole lot more convenient than opening and navigating through the windows. Mint uses the apt package manager, so to check for updates you simply type in "sudo apt update" which will scan for updates, and if there are any you would then type in "sudo apt upgrade" to install them. You could also put -y at the end for "sudo apt upgrade -y" to automatically say yes to all updates, to save a bit of time.

 

If you have any NTFS formatted drives that you wish to use with the laptop, you might need to install something called "NTFS-3g" (don't remember if it's installed by default in mint). It's simple to install it, you can either search for it in the software center, or you could just type "sudo apt install ntfs-3g" into the terminal. Also if you ever wish to use programs native to windows, you will need to install wine, which is incredibly simple. You'd just type "sudo apt install wine", winetricks being another thing that's recommended to install, all you'd need to do is run "sudo apt install winetricks". To use wine to launch a windows program, you'd navigate to where you have that file saved, then with the terminal you'd just type "wine whateverprogramsnameis.exe/msi/whatever"

[Deathcorner]

1 hour ago, Inception9269 said:

Using AtlasOS is honestly one of the worst techtips I've seen Linus ever give out, especially with the major security issues surrounding it.

 

There are two that I recommend to a linux newcomer that's used to using Windows. Linux Mint and Zorin OS. Between the two I'd say Mint would probably be your best choice.

 

Linux is pretty straight forward, especially if it's a basic pc that you're not going to be doing any gaming on. There's tons of Linux youtubers out there that do have videos to walk you through an installation of Mint, with it not being hard at all.

 

Mint does have a GUI for updating and installing drivers & updates, but you should take advantage of the terminal. Once you get used to it, it is a whole lot more convenient than opening and navigating through the windows. Mint uses the apt package manager, so to check for updates you simply type in "sudo apt update" which will scan for updates, and if there are any you would then type in "sudo apt upgrade" to install them. You could also put -y at the end for "sudo apt upgrade -y" to automatically say yes to all updates, to save a bit of time.

 

If you have any NTFS formatted drives that you wish to use with the laptop, you might need to install something called "NTFS-3g" (don't remember if it's installed by default in mint). It's simple to install it, you can either search for it in the software center, or you could just type "sudo apt install ntfs-3g" into the terminal. Also if you ever wish to use programs native to windows, you will need to install wine, which is incredibly simple. You'd just type "sudo apt install wine", winetricks being another thing that's recommended to install, all you'd need to do is run "sudo apt install winetricks". To use wine to launch a windows program, you'd navigate to where you have that file saved, then with the terminal you'd just type "wine whateverprogramsnameis.exe/msi/whatever"

Tonight i realised that i can play Half Life on my laptop since i replaced the thermal paste. Tried some games before but the laptop ran very hot. A week ago when i replaced the thermal paste it turned out the paste was rock solid.

 

So i'm thinking of doing windows 10/Linux Mint dual boot after your advice. That way if i'm on vacation i can play old games and for office/media work Linux. AtlasOS brought me like 1hour of extra batterylife but with the security issues ill do a normal windows installation. Should be interesting to use Linux since i've never used it before. Curious how good Linux is for the batterylife.

[Inception9269]

16 minutes ago, Deathcorner said:

Tonight i realised that i can play Half Life on my laptop since i replaced the thermal paste. Tried some games before but the laptop ran very hot. A week ago when i replaced the thermal paste it turned out the paste was rock solid.

 

So i'm thinking of doing windows 10/Linux Mint dual boot after your advice. That way if i'm on vacation i can play old games and for office/media work Linux. AtlasOS brought me like 1hour of extra batterylife but with the security issues ill do a normal windows installation. Should be interesting to use Linux since i've never used it before. Curious how good Linux is for the batterylife.

It would be good to keep your windows partition handy. That said, you shouldn't have any problems playing a game like Half Life on Linux. You'd just need to install Steam, which can either be done with the software center, or just by typing "sudo apt install steam" into the terminal. Once steam is installed and you're signed into it, you'd just go to settings, then go to Steam Play, that being the last tab on the settings, you'd then select enable steam play for supported titles, then also select enable steam play for other titles. By default Steam should use Proton Experimental for the compatibility, which should be fine for Half Life. You can also right click on games and go to properties, and if need be for certain games you can force it to use different versions of proton for compatibility. Again though, for Half Life you shouldn't have to change anything.

 

As far as battery life, Linux does have a whole lot less background processes than Windows, so even if you don't necessarily gain more battery life, your system should still feel very responsive. There's this one app I've used in the past that's pretty good for helping with battery life, it being a battery optimizer. Not sure if it's available in the software center, but it can be installed by first running "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:slimbook/slimbook" in the terminal, and then "sudo apt update && sudo apt install slimbookbattery" You would then just search for Slimbook Battery from your start menu and launch it.

 

I also recommend taking advantage of flatpaks. When it comes to software support for Linux, there's multiple sources for it. There's the repositories your system uses, with you being able to install things from it using the software center or the terminal. And then there are snap packages and flatpaks. You can look up videos explaining them on Youtube, but for simplicity sake, flatpak is a good one to use. Instead of depending on an app being included with your Linux distro's repositories, flatpaks allow you to download and install a package that's universal and will run on any linux distribution. The nice thing about flatpaks is a lot of times the versions of apps you'll find there can actually have newer features than the versions of the apps that you would find in your distros repositories. Things like discord, obs, emulators, and so on. You can search for them and install them through Mint's software manager, or through the official flatpak site flathub https://flathub.org/

[Inception9269]

Right now on my non-gaming laptop I'm using Mint with that battery optimizer app installed, and even at 60% battery right now the thing says I got 4 hours and 14 minutes left with energy saving mode enabled.

[Deathcorner]

10 hours ago, Inception9269 said:

It would be good to keep your windows partition handy. That said, you shouldn't have any problems playing a game like Half Life on Linux. You'd just need to install Steam, which can either be done with the software center, or just by typing "sudo apt install steam" into the terminal. Once steam is installed and you're signed into it, you'd just go to settings, then go to Steam Play, that being the last tab on the settings, you'd then select enable steam play for supported titles, then also select enable steam play for other titles. By default Steam should use Proton Experimental for the compatibility, which should be fine for Half Life. You can also right click on games and go to properties, and if need be for certain games you can force it to use different versions of proton for compatibility. Again though, for Half Life you shouldn't have to change anything.

 

As far as battery life, Linux does have a whole lot less background processes than Windows, so even if you don't necessarily gain more battery life, your system should still feel very responsive. There's this one app I've used in the past that's pretty good for helping with battery life, it being a battery optimizer. Not sure if it's available in the software center, but it can be installed by first running "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:slimbook/slimbook" in the terminal, and then "sudo apt update && sudo apt install slimbookbattery" You would then just search for Slimbook Battery from your start menu and launch it.

 

I also recommend taking advantage of flatpaks. When it comes to software support for Linux, there's multiple sources for it. There's the repositories your system uses, with you being able to install things from it using the software center or the terminal. And then there are snap packages and flatpaks. You can look up videos explaining them on Youtube, but for simplicity sake, flatpak is a good one to use. Instead of depending on an app being included with your Linux distro's repositories, flatpaks allow you to download and install a package that's universal and will run on any linux distribution. The nice thing about flatpaks is a lot of times the versions of apps you'll find there can actually have newer features than the versions of the apps that you would find in your distros repositories. Things like discord, obs, emulators, and so on. You can search for them and install them through Mint's software manager, or through the official flatpak site flathub https://flathub.org/

What edition of Linux Mint would you recommend? Just found out there are 3.

 

Had a scare yesterday fan in the laptop stopped working. Opened it up, turns out it came loose. Seems like i didn't plug it in correctly. If it happens agian i'm using a bit of hotglue.

[Inception9269]

5 hours ago, Deathcorner said:

What edition of Linux Mint would you recommend? Just found out there are 3.

 

Had a scare yesterday fan in the laptop stopped working. Opened it up, turns out it came loose. Seems like i didn't plug it in correctly. If it happens agian i'm using a bit of hotglue.

The first option, Cinnamon edition, is the one to go for.

[RollyShed]

19 hours ago, Deathcorner said:

What edition of Linux Mint would you recommend? Just found out there are 3.

I've installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on over 40 laptops and desktops. By default it comes with a web browser, Firefox, and an office suite, LibreOffice. I find Cinnamon more logical for setting up things.

 

There is a good discussion forum to help with any questions.

 

Does your computer have an SSD instead of a hard disk?

 

As for updates, bottom right in the Task Bar/Panel is a wee shield and a red dot on it if updates are there. Simpler to use that than the Terminal.

[Deathcorner]

11 hours ago, RollyShed said:

I've installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on over 40 laptops and desktops. By default it comes with a web browser, Firefox, and an office suite, LibreOffice. I find Cinnamon more logical for setting up things.

 

There is a good discussion forum to help with any questions.

 

Does your computer have an SSD instead of a hard disk?

 

As for updates, bottom right in the Task Bar/Panel is a wee shield and a red dot on it if updates are there. Simpler to use that than the Terminal.

Thanks for the advice. It does have a ssd. But i've found out i need to instal windows with the right partition table as it was MBR and not GPT. Problem is idk how to do that.

[RollyShed]

10 hours ago, Deathcorner said:

But i've found out i need to instal windows with the right partition table as it was MBR and not GPT. Problem is idk how to do that.

You want dual boot? Not something I ever do now.

If however you want single boot with Linux, you simply tell the install USB stick to wipe everything and install Linux Mint.

 

If dual boot, as far as I know you need Windows installed first and then the Linux stick will give an option of dual systems.

 

Check out -

https://forums.linuxmint.com/

 

To put an iso on a stick you burn it, not copy it and if via Windows machine, use Rufus to do it.

The stick with the system burnt to it should allow booting up the computer and use of the computer to see how you like it. The Linux Mint will have a web browser and an office suite (LibreOffice) on it by default. A fully going system, the only limit is saving anything which can only be done to another storage medium, not the stick.