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Dear all,
I've only been a Labdoer for two months, and I've sanitized just a few old laptops. This is my first post in this wall as well.
Last week, I got a donation of an EeePC with only 1Gb of RAM. I've installed Labtix 2 22_04_LTS_EN_160 and everything works fine regarding the hardware. The software works fine too, but it's extremely slow. For instance, it's very frustrating trying to run Firefox and Libre Office simultaneously. I reckon the students won't have the patience to wait for such a long time to start working with most of the applications.
I've checked the Swap partition, and it's the right size, 2Gb. The system is also using SWAP files.
My questions are:
- Should I change Labtix 2 for another Antix / Ubuntu version ?
- Should I install the Labtix 1 instead ?
- Should I change the SWAP partition size ?
Thank you in advance for your help
Josep Sanz
Comments
Dear Josep,
Dear Josep,
I answering for Labdoo Germany. May-be some explanations below would be answered differently from other Labdoo chapters.
I would recommend not to use devices with the specification you listed above. Most EeePC devices do not fulfill our minimum requirements.
DE: https://www.labdoo.org/deu/de/faq#FAQ04
EN: https://www.labdoo.org/deu/en/faq#FAQ04
Or at least try to raise RAM to 2 - 4 GB (you can claim RAM from Labdoo Germany, if you are located in Germany). As you mention 22_04_LTS images are running, so the netbook must have a 64 Bit-CPU? Most EeePC are only able to run 32 Bit images and that is since a long time not state-of-the-art anymore.
ARM CPUs are in most cases too slowly for educational software, especially multi-media content. I-CPUs, fast Pentium or AMD-CPU are recommended. Also screen resolution is often low.
I can only speak for helpers of Labdoo (Germany). Here we remove RAM and disk-drive from a too old/slowly EeePC and keep them with charger as spare-parts. The rest we recycle.
But of cause, each helper and hub can decide him-/herself. But efforts for sanitation and transport should only to made for "good" devices. And they will be in use for "ages" in a school or project.
Best regards,
Ralf
Labdoo.org (Germany)
PS:
Labtix is only the installation tool to clone images, not the Ubuntu based image. Labtix is not to be installed to a laptop, only an image.
I am wondering about SWAP, as 22_04_LTS images have no SWAP anymore. Only older images like 16_04_LTS, 18_04_LTS had SWAP. But these releases are out of maintenance from Linux community.
Dear Permalink
Dear Permalink
Thank you very much for your quick answer and for your suggestions and remarks.
Unfortunately, a high percentage of the laptops that I'll get will be very old. People here tend to keep the computers for a long time, even if they don't use them. The laptop I was talking about has, actually, a 64 bits processor, a nice 1024 x 768 screen and a 260 gB HD and is in very good shape.
These last days I've been checking different Linux packages, as Antix 23 for i386 machines, and they work much faster than the Ubuntu 64 bits installed by Labtix 2. I've also read a lot of pages about Linux on ARM 64 based computers, and it seems that installing a 32 bits OS is the best solution.
So, finally, I've come to install, through Labtix 1, the old EN image based on Lubuntu 18.04 found in the Filezilla repository.
Hardware works fine with a SWAP file of 1 Gb that helps a bit when loading Libre Office or several programs simultaneously. I've loaded most of the educative programs and wiki pages through Xowa and updated the system programs to the last version for this OS.
I think the result is pretty decent, and I hope the machine can be of help for the students.
Josep M.