Finally back in Linux after so many years! My first recent attempt was waylaid by a locked down bios beyond my ability to bypass, but I’m done! Thank you, to everyone who helped out in my previous post!
What hardware was too locked down, and what did you do about that? (And if you bought new hardware what did you get?)
It was a Lenovo minipc with an Amazon customized bios that wouldn’t offer boot options. I found some guides to get around it, but they were well beyond my capacity, so it’s been returned. Ended up getting an older used hp elitebook off of eBay. Cracked plastic on the corners knocked it down to less than $100 with some careful sniping, but it’s plenty for me to fiddle with. No complaints so far.
Lenovo… I have a Lenovo laptop that requires you to insert a paper clip into a tiny hole to access the boot menu or the BIOS settings. That, combined with a keyboard faux pas, puts Lenovo off the list.
Their mini pcs seem like something I’d like to revisit. Pretty rebuildable and, seemingly, a common enterprise choice. Parts will always be around for something like that
Congratulations! 🥳
Which desktop environment did you decide to go with?
I went with mint’s look to start, then I’ll transition to something more conducive to my actual workflow as I relearn commands. Frankly, I’m just happy that I can find all of my relevant settings in one place again. As god intended.
mint’s cinnamon is a great starter DE, but once you get comfortable def try KDE Plasma for customization or XFCE if you want something lightweight that won’t eat your ram lol
Didn’t see this, I went with mate to start for precisely for that reason. It’s a low spec machine, so I first tried out xfce and mate. I just didn’t love the icons, menu, and general theme on xfce, and the performance hit was utterly negligible, so I went with mate. Still no regrets, though I’m having trouble figuring out some connectivity issues.
🍪
