Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Some time ago I wrote a post explaining how replacing Windows with Linux can breathe new life into and older computer.
Since that post was written I’ve had a lot of people ask me which Linux distro I recommend they install, and I’ve usually responded with Ubuntu, for two reasons: [Read more…]
Question from Jackie D.: Rick, I read your post about replacing Windows with Linux and I’d really like to give Linux Mint a try. The thing is I don’t want to get rid of Windows.
I read that you have a choice of either installing Linux Mint to dual-boot with Windows or placing it on a separate hard drive. I’d like to know which way you think I should go. [Read more…]
Question from Oliver: After reading your post about replacing Windows with Linux I decided to give to try it on an old Windows Vista laptop that I haven’t used in a while.
I took your advice from that post and installed Ubuntu. The installation went fine, and just as you predicted that old laptop now runs a LOT faster than it did with Windows!
Since I’m the only person that will use this machine I removed the password in the user settings and set it to boot into Ubuntu without having to enter a password.
Now the laptop boots up without asking for a password to log in, but every time I load Google Chrome I get a message telling me to enter the password, and I can’t do anything with Chrome until I enter the old password that I deleted from my user account. This is the message I get:
“Enter password to unlock your login keyring“
How can I stop Chrome from asking for a password?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Eddie V.: The county I live in had a massive auction of surplus items and I ended up buying 168 Dell OptiPlex 755/SDT desktop computers. They all appear to be identically configured with these specs:
I know that older computers aren’t worth a lot these days, but I thought these were worth a bid simply because there were so many of them. I ended up winning the auction and paying $216 for the lot.
My big concern is they might not be worth anything at all since Microsoft has officially killed off Windows XP. What do you think I could do with these computers to make a little bit of money from this deal?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Glenn W.: I have an old, but awesome 2008 era Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop that came with Windows Vista. It still works great except for the hard drive which just died on me with no warning.
I found out that I can buy a brand spanking new replacement hard drive for less than $50, but I don’t have a set of Windows Vista restore discs.
If I replace the hard drive can I also install Windows 8.1 in place of Vista? (I would actually prefer Windows 7 but they don’t sell it anymore.)
Or is this machine so old that only Windows Vista will work, which would mean I’m out of luck either way?
Sorry for the multiple questions, but this is all very confusing to me. I hate to throw away a perfectly good laptop just because the hard drive died.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]