A friend of mine contacted me because he said he had “messed up” his computer. His laptop is a Dell 7440 with a BIOS date of April 28, 2016. It’s a dual-core Intel Core i5-4300U with 8 GB of RAM and a modest 256 GB mSATA drive. He said he had been running updates, and … Read more
Learning to use Linux is now much easier than it used to be. However, for someone new to the system, it can still be challenging to figure out where to start. Here are some tips and tricks that can help new users find a smoother entry point into Linux. The first step should be to … Read more
Earlier this week, I received a phone call from a gentleman whom I helped transition to Linux Mint last fall. He had a Dell laptop with an i5 processor, eight gigabytes of RAM, and a 900-gigabyte hard drive. Initially, it came with Windows 10, but he was no longer receiving updates because it had reached … Read more
I just finished volunteering at the local library, where five Dell Optiplex All-in-One computers were replaced by several newer All-in-One PCs running Windows 11. The library’s tech support does not support Linux, so the older PCs, which have i5 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM, were deemed obsolete. These Dell computers were manufactured in January … Read more
I was volunteering at the local public library, where I find myself frequently these days. The library has some older Dell OptiPlex All-in-One desktops that have been in service for over 10 years. They came to the library as Windows 8 machines. The computers were delivered to the library in January 2015, and they have … Read more
I got a telephone call this morning from a person I had never met before. He’d been referrred to me by a mutual friend who I had helped with a technology problem a couple of weeks ago. This fellow said, “my computer is no longer getting security updates and a technician with my internet service … Read more
Last week, Windows 10 users faced a dilemma: transition to Windows 11 and potentially purchase a new computer, or embrace the growing Linux community. Personally, I’ve been using Linux as my primary operating system for over two decades and have been an advocate for it ever since. Just last week I was helping a client … Read more
A trip to Denver and the System76 factory in 2018 afforded me a chance to meet their technology team and look at the products they were building. One of those was the mini computer they call the Meerkat. I said to the engineer that I spoke to, “That looks like an Intel NUC.” He said, … Read more
A few weeks ago, someone at the faith community I attend asked for my help logging into their computer. I suspected it might have been hacked, so I created a Windows 11 boot disk to rescue the computer. The device was a four-year-old Dell Latitude 5320, which was running Windows 11 but not very efficiently. … Read more
I’m always shopping for laptops to outfit with Linux and one of my favorite stops is DellRefurbished.com. On the weekend while surfing that site I came upon a good deal on a Dell Latitude 5410 laptop. The (new to me machine) came with an i7 processor. Using the ‘inxi’ command it easy to see that … Read more
