A bit of a quandary?

Vrai

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2019
Messages
1,085
Reaction score
1,050
Credits
4,227
So, I bought two of these laptops from Lenovo, one for my wife since her laptop croaked and she has been using mine, and one for my elderly mother-in law. They were on sale for a very good price, $129.00 US each.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/student-laptops/Lenovo-14w/p/81MQ000JUS

I knew they would be slightly 'under-powered' which may be O.K. and I knew they would come with Windows 10 (ugh!). They seem to be quite solid and well built. Sturdy little machines.


I've had both the mother-in-law and wife running Linux Mint for several years now without much, if any, problems.

My "quandary" is - do I wipe out the Win 10 and 'try' to install Linux on these, or just let them rock the Windows 10 for a while?


These machines came with surprisingly little "cruft" on them. No "Candy Crush" or any of that crap. Just mostly the Microsoft nosey big nose stuff trying to integrate and sync everything with Microsoft products. I set them up with an "offline" user account and then went through and shut off and/or deleted anything not wanted or needed. Then I used O-O Shut-Up-10 and O-O App Buster to shut down and remove anything else not wanted (I may have locked them down too much! oops). :) Gave one to my wife and out of the blue she asks me "can you install Linux on it?" Woah! I think I may have a 'convert' here!


Keep in mind the plan here is to have the least amount of 'tech support calls'. Any tech geek who has provided tech support to friends and family will know what I am referring to. They have no clue how a computer works and more importantly, they don't WANT a clue as to how it works! They want it to just work. (patience grasshopper)


The laptop comes with a 64 Gig M.2 hard drive soldered onto the board. Not much room for expansion or for a dual-boot scenario. It does have a SD card slot and several USB ports.


Decisions decisions .... what to do?...
 


My "quandary" is - do I wipe out the Win 10 and 'try' to install Linux on these, or just let them rock the Windows 10 for a while?

Decisions decisions .... what to do?...
The link didn't work for me.

If it's a new laptop then you ain't got much on it so do some research on Linux and Lenovo what ever model you have and see what you find.

Worse case if you wipe off Windows10 you still have a Windows 10 digital license.
If Linux doesn't work out you can reinstall Windows 10.
 
The link didn't work for me.
It didn't work for me either, but I got there (copy/paste).... try this one:
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/student-laptops/Lenovo-14w/p/81MQ000JUS


I've had both the mother-in-law and wife running Linux Mint for several years now without much, if any, problems.
You're a lucky man! :D Stick with what works: Linux. I would make sure both laptops connect to the web so that they are "activated" by Microsoft, and then I'd make a Recovery USB for each one so you could come back to Windows later, if needed. Then I'd blow them away and go Linux-only. The 64GB eMMC is too small for long term dual booting anyway, so Linux is the one to run.

I appreciate the info... I may purchase one (or two) of these myself. Seems hard to beat at that price.

Cheers
 
Before you wipe out Windows 10 you may want to make the recovery disk's/ recovery usb.
Try running a LIve USB of Mint and see how will Linux runs on those laptops.

That was a great price for those laptops.

I think Linux will run well on the M2 drive.

I've got Linux Mint 19.2 installed on my M2 NVMe drive and it runs great.
Good luck with your decision.
 
The link didn't work for me.

If it's a new laptop then you ain't got much on it so do some research on Linux and Lenovo what ever model you have and see what you find.

Worse case if you wipe off Windows10 you still have a Windows 10 digital license.
If Linux doesn't work out you can reinstall Windows 10.
That's what I'm thinking @poorguy
 
Before you wipe out Windows 10 you may want to make the recovery disk's/ recovery usb.
Try running a LIve USB of Mint and see how will Linux runs on those laptops.

That was a great price for those laptops.

I think Linux will run well on the M2 drive.

I've got Linux Mint 19.2 installed on my M2 NVMe drive and it runs great.
Good luck with your decision.
Yes. First thing I did was make the "Recovery" drive! Because the second thing I did was get in there and start ripping stuff out! ;)

I think I will try a Live USB. Ordered 6, 16GB USB thumb drives so I will have "options".
 
I was with Stan.

I have my 16 GB USB stick

Secured in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.” At the bottom of a broken set of stairs, and the light does not work.

Works for me
 
Man I wish I needed another laptop. My wife already complains that I have too many laying around; that price is tempting though
 
They were on sale for a very good price, $129.00 US each.
They briefly sold out yesterday when I was looking, then showed "limited stock".... but tonight they seem to have an adequate supply available again. And with free shipping, well, I jumped in and got one too. :D

Most of the negative reviews said the same thing: very slow. But Windows 10 just about explains that by itself. It's not an M2 drive as @Alexzee mentioned, but is eMMC, and I do think that also might explain being slower. I'm sure I will find some purpose for it though, or maybe just give it away later.

Mint Cinnamon might be a struggle on it, but Mint MATE or XFCE stands a better chance if speed turns out to be a problem. Or other options may be better yet, such as Peppermint, Linux Lite, or Zorin Lite.

Thanks again, @Vrai, for the heads-up on this. Looks like something fun to play with for awhile.

Cheers
 
I wasn't familiar with eMMC so I looked it up-

https://www.windowscentral.com/emmc-vs-ssd

Out of curiosity, @Vrai have you come any closer to deciding on running Windows or Linux on those new laptops?
I can only imagine the debate. It would drive me crazy!

With 6 new 16 GB usb thumb drives you'll be well prepared for sure.
Were the thumb drives on sale too?
 
Man I wish I needed another laptop. My wife already complains that I have too many laying around; that price is tempting though
Agreed, it is tempting.
For that price it would be a great gift for Christmas for anyone really:-
 
I wasn't familiar with eMMC so I looked it up-

https://www.windowscentral.com/emmc-vs-ssd

Out of curiosity, @Vrai have you come any closer to deciding on running Windows or Linux on those new laptops?
I can only imagine the debate. It would drive me crazy!

With 6 new 16 GB usb thumb drives you'll be well prepared for sure.
Were the thumb drives on sale too?
The jury is still out! I asked the wife just this morning how she liked the laptop. She replied, "fine".
Haven't given the other one to the mother-in-law yet.
My goal here is to set them up with something easy and simple for them to use. Whereas I am the one who will be providing "tech support" when something doesn't work I am aiming for the 'path-of-least-resistance'. But they were both running Linux Mint just fine :/ *sigh*

I think the first time a Windows update 'borks' the machine will be my opportunity to try to slip a Linux install on it :) Or when they get tired of hearing me grumble about Windows 10 ! Which is why I think my wife asked if I could install Linux on it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The thumb drives weren't 'on-sale' - or not any particular sale price I noticed - but the 16 GiG ones were very inexpensive. I purchased a couple of each of three different brands. My reasoning being that sometimes certain flash drive just act "wonky" - especially when making bootable images with persistence.
 
The jury is still out! I asked the wife just this morning how she liked the laptop. She replied, "fine".
Haven't given the other one to the mother-in-law yet.
My goal here is to set them up with something easy and simple for them to use. Whereas I am the one who will be providing "tech support" when something doesn't work I am aiming for the 'path-of-least-resistance'. But they were both running Linux Mint just fine :/ *sigh*

I think the first time a Windows update 'borks' the machine will be my opportunity to try to slip a Linux install on it :) Or when they get tired of hearing me grumble about Windows 10 ! Which is why I think my wife asked if I could install Linux on it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The thumb drives weren't 'on-sale' - or not any particular sale price I noticed - but the 16 GiG ones were very inexpensive. I purchased a couple of each of three different brands. My reasoning being that sometimes certain flash drive just act "wonky" - especially when making bootable images with persistence.
The path of the least resistance sounds like a good plan.

When Windows 7 kept taking up a lot of time to do updates on my Sony Vaio it wasn't long that I let Linux take over the laptop. I know what you mean by grumbling about Windows.

I have one particular flash drive that acts a little wonky too with making bootable images.
I'm not entirely sure why that happens or what the cause is.
Might do some googling to find out what folks are saying about that online.

Happy Holidays!
 
I have one particular flash drive that acts a little wonky too with making bootable images.
I'm not entirely sure why that happens or what the cause is.
Might do some googling to find out what folks are saying about that online.

Happy Holidays!
I was reading somewhere about making bootable flash drives and the author seemed to think the brand quality made a difference. It is the same situation with optical media and SD card flash memory. If I find a usb thumb drive which does NOT work well at making a bootable Linux drive I will be sure to mention it here.
 
I was reading somewhere about making bootable flash drives and the author seemed to think the brand quality made a difference. It is the same situation with optical media and SD card flash memory. If I find a usb thumb drive which does NOT work well at making a bootable Linux drive I will be sure to mention it here.
Thanks-

The flash drive that I'm having trouble with is a 16 GB 3.0 Micro Center brand drive.
 
I was reading somewhere about making bootable flash drives and the author seemed to think the brand quality made a difference. It is the same situation with optical media and SD card flash memory. If I find a usb thumb drive which does NOT work well at making a bootable Linux drive I will be sure to mention it here.
Thanks-

The flash drive that I'm having trouble with is a 16 GB 3.0 Micro Center brand drive.
I just recently purchased three Kingston USB 3.0 flash drives and have made bootable images on two of them without issue (with Rufus 3.8 in W10). Both booted and ran without a hitch when tested on my Toshiba L650 laptop.
Kingston 16GB 100 G3 USB 3.0 DataTraveler (DT100G3/16GB)
 

Staff online


Top