Windows 7 or Linux for laptop

[Inception9269]

I haven't used my laptop pretty much at all this year, I only really got it to use when at friends place, and even then I found myself not even taking it out much for that.

 

I had it since 2013 and it's still a pretty good computer, it being a Samsung something, it having an i5-32XX or 33XX cpu (don't remember exact cpu model). It isn't really able to handle gaming aside from casual shit. When I bought the pc in 2013 it originally had Windows 8, and when Windows 8.1 came out it pretty much fucked up my pc, due to Samsung never releasing 8.1 (or later 10) drivers for it. Because of this I can't run 8.1 or 10 at all without having annoying issues. I eventually replaced the hdd with a 120gb ssd and installed Ubuntu in it, which fixed most issues. But a really annoying issue I had was with the backlight, unless I had the laptop plugged in when I turned it on, it would have no backlight at all, it only having a backlight when plugged in cause me installing various scripts. I eventually got annoyed with it and just torrented a cracked version of 7 home premium, that working perfectly fine for me, Samsung having drivers for 7, so things worked most swimmingly.

 

Then my interest and use of the laptop died down a lot, me rarely taking it out before I just stopped using it. One issue I had that also contributed to me not using it much is the cmos battery being dead, every time I'd use the pc I'd have to keep setting it to legacy mode to boot into 7, always having to reset system clock (it being an annoyance since I couldn't just buy a new battery at the store, it using a type of cmos battery that I'd need to order specifically). In the last month or so my ssd in my media center pc died, and I just went and threw in the ssd from my laptop in it, doing a clean install of windows 10 on my media pc, me throwing in the hdd my laptop originally came with.

 

I've been thinking about fixing my laptop to use it again at some point, I ordered a replacement cmos battery for it. My little issue is I don't know what to do for the OS. Windows 8.1 and 10 aren't an option, and Windows 8 is an obvious no.

I am open to giving Linux another shot, but not sure which distro to use. I had a lot of backlight issues with Ubuntu, anyone know a version that it shouldn't be an issue with? If all else fails I'll just use cracked 7 home premium again, my issue with that though is using the original hdd instead of the ssd will mean it will be slow as fuck. With a hdd I remember Ubuntu was super quick starting up, compared to windows.

[YedZed]

14 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

and just torrented a cracked version of 7 home premium, 

[ProjectBox153]

25 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

My little issue is I don't know what to do for the OS. Windows 8.1 and 10 aren't an option, and Windows 8 is an obvious no.

Have you ever tried the Windows 8 drivers on 8.1 or 10? And what's so bad about 8?

[Guest]

8 is probably the objectively best version of Windows. 

Ignoribg tilez and start being gone, searchibgis super fast with a mouse, and it's core os components are really well done. Yet it also lacks the telemetry 10 has. 

 

Id go for 8, cracked 7, or a version of Ubuntu. 

[H0R53]

On 7/30/2017 at 11:55 PM, Inception9269 said:

I haven't used my laptop pretty much at all this year, I only really got it to use when at friends place, and even then I found myself not even taking it out much for that.

 

I had it since 2013 and it's still a pretty good computer, it being a Samsung something, it having an i5-32XX or 33XX cpu (don't remember exact cpu model). It isn't really able to handle gaming aside from casual shit. When I bought the pc in 2013 it originally had Windows 8, and when Windows 8.1 came out it pretty much fucked up my pc, due to Samsung never releasing 8.1 (or later 10) drivers for it. Because of this I can't run 8.1 or 10 at all without having annoying issues. I eventually replaced the hdd with a 120gb ssd and installed Ubuntu in it, which fixed most issues. But a really annoying issue I had was with the backlight, unless I had the laptop plugged in when I turned it on, it would have no backlight at all, it only having a backlight when plugged in cause me installing various scripts. I eventually got annoyed with it and just torrented a cracked version of 7 home premium, that working perfectly fine for me, Samsung having drivers for 7, so things worked most swimmingly.

 

Then my interest and use of the laptop died down a lot, me rarely taking it out before I just stopped using it. One issue I had that also contributed to me not using it much is the cmos battery being dead, every time I'd use the pc I'd have to keep setting it to legacy mode to boot into 7, always having to reset system clock (it being an annoyance since I couldn't just buy a new battery at the store, it using a type of cmos battery that I'd need to order specifically). In the last month or so my ssd in my media center pc died, and I just went and threw in the ssd from my laptop in it, doing a clean install of windows 10 on my media pc, me throwing in the hdd my laptop originally came with.

 

I've been thinking about fixing my laptop to use it again at some point, I ordered a replacement cmos battery for it. My little issue is I don't know what to do for the OS. Windows 8.1 and 10 aren't an option, and Windows 8 is an obvious no.

I am open to giving Linux another shot, but not sure which distro to use. I had a lot of backlight issues with Ubuntu, anyone know a version that it shouldn't be an issue with? If all else fails I'll just use cracked 7 home premium again, my issue with that though is using the original hdd instead of the ssd will mean it will be slow as fuck. With a hdd I remember Ubuntu was super quick starting up, compared to windows.

Go with 7. I use 7 on my HP DV7 1127 CL (link in sig), and have had no problems.

 

 A 32GB SSD is only $20, and a 64GB SSD is only $40. Since you don't use it for games a 64GB would work, won't it?

 

I use 7 on my workstation, and Server 2008R2 on my NAS. I have W8 on my HTPC because it works, is activated, and I just don't feel like changing it at the moment.

 

Ubuntu has been advancing quickly lately as people support their server core OS. I use Ubuntu 16.10 on my Chromebook.

[noahdvs]

Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment (soon to be discontinued), like GNOME 3, doesn't have many system settings. It's possible that Unity turns off backlighting when running on battery by default and doesn't expose any settings to control that. The KDE Plasma desktop environment exposes more power settings, so maybe you should try KDE Neon, Kubuntu 17.04, Manjaro KDE, Fedora KDE or openSUSE. If you want to stick with something based on Ubuntu, KDE Neon and Kubuntu are your options.

[Inception9269]

On 8/1/2017 at 0:16 PM, H0R53 said:

Go with 7. I use 7 on my HP DV7 1127 CL (link in sig), and have had no problems.

 

 A 32GB SSD is only $20, and a 64GB SSD is only $40. Since you don't use it for games a 64GB would work, won't it?

 

I use 7 on my workstation, and Server 2008R2 on my NAS. I have W8 on my HTPC because it works, is activated, and I just don't feel like changing it at the moment.

 

Ubuntu has been advancing quickly lately as people support their server core OS. I use Ubuntu 16.10 on my Chromebook.

Not sure if I'd spend money on a new SSD, this laptop only getting used once in awhile, like maybe once every other week.

[Inception9269]

2 hours ago, noahdvs said:

Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment (soon to be discontinued), like GNOME 3, doesn't have many system settings. It's possible that Unity turns off backlighting when running on battery by default and doesn't expose any settings to control that. The KDE Plasma desktop environment exposes more power settings, so maybe you should try KDE Neon, Kubuntu 17.04, Manjaro KDE, Fedora KDE or openSUSE. If you want to stick with something based on Ubuntu, KDE Neon and Kubuntu are your options.

I am open to giving a Linux a solid chance, so I'll look into KDE Neon and Kubuntu. although all else fails I'll probably just get cracked 7 home premium.

[H0R53]

2 hours ago, noahdvs said:

Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment (soon to be discontinued), like GNOME 3, doesn't have many system settings. It's possible that Unity turns off backlighting when running on battery by default and doesn't expose any settings to control that. The KDE Plasma desktop environment exposes more power settings, so maybe you should try KDE Neon, Kubuntu 17.04, Manjaro KDE, Fedora KDE or openSUSE. If you want to stick with something based on Ubuntu, KDE Neon and Kubuntu are your options.

Unity isn't getting discontinued any time soon, where'd you read that?

4 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Not sure if I'd spend money on a new SSD, this laptop only getting used once in awhile, like maybe once every other week.

Hmmm.

[Inception9269]

1 hour ago, H0R53 said:

Unity isn't getting discontinued any time soon, where'd you read that?

Hmmm.

another reason i want to get my laptop working again is at some point in the next few months I might be moving into a place that has many rooms, instead of this place that only has one, so I want this pc fixed so I could use a pc in other rooms if wanted

[noahdvs]

1 hour ago, H0R53 said:

Unity isn't getting discontinued any time soon, where'd you read that?

Hmmm.

Ubuntu 17.10, which comes out this October, will have GNOME 3 instead of Unity. Ubuntu 16.04 will still have Unity since it's an LTS release and it would be stupid to change it, but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will have GNOME 3 instead of Unity as well. Where did I read it? Ubuntu announced it. https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/

[H0R53]

11 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

Ubuntu 17.10, which comes out this October, will have GNOME 3 instead of Unity. Ubuntu 16.04 will still have Unity since it's an LTS release and it would be stupid to change it, but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will have GNOME 3 instead of Unity as well. Where did I read it? Ubuntu announced it. https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/

Interesting that they got rid of GNOME2 in favor of Unity, and now they're scrapping Unity for Gnome3.

 

Canonical is weird.

[noahdvs]

Just now, H0R53 said:

Interesting that they got rid of GNOME2 in favor of Unity, and now they're scrapping Unity for Gnome3.

 

Canonical is weird.

I don't blame them. They switched to Unity when GNOME 3 happened. GNOME 3 was a mess. It got better, but it's still stupid how inflexible it is and how little functionality it has by default. Unless the extensions Ubuntu is going to include by default (they did a poll asking which extensions people found useful) really improve GNOME without significantly affecting resource usage or stability, I don't know if I'll recommend stock Ubuntu after 17.04.

[H0R53]

4 hours ago, noahdvs said:

I don't blame them. They switched to Unity when GNOME 3 happened. GNOME 3 was a mess. It got better, but it's still stupid how inflexible it is and how little functionality it has by default. Unless the extensions Ubuntu is going to include by default (they did a poll asking which extensions people found useful) really improve GNOME without significantly affecting resource usage or stability, I don't know if I'll recommend stock Ubuntu after 17.04.

Why not install Gnome2? Huge theme support, far better resource management, etc.

[noahdvs]

5 hours ago, H0R53 said:

Why not install Gnome2? Huge theme support, far better resource management, etc.

Because GNOME 2 wasn't going to be developed anymore, MATE didn't exist, the GNOME 2 versions of software would conflict with GNOME 3 versions (this is why MATE uses renamed GNOME 2 apps, Caja vs Nautilus) and Canonical had a vision for mobile-desktop convergence that wasn't going to work with GNOME 2 or 3.

[H0R53]

9 hours ago, noahdvs said:

Because GNOME 2 wasn't going to be developed anymore, MATE didn't exist, the GNOME 2 versions of software would conflict with GNOME 3 versions (this is why MATE uses renamed GNOME 2 apps, Caja vs Nautilus) and Canonical had a vision for mobile-desktop convergence that wasn't going to work with GNOME 2 or 3.

I had 16.04 on a Dell Latitude D630 that I removed Unity altogether and slapped Gnome2 on. It was beautiful.

(this was a very long time ago).