Options When Windows 10 Kills a PC: Linux Mint Extends the Life-cycle!

The Linux OS on the Dell Inspiron on the left made a bootable USB with a Linux Mint ISO ver. 19.2 64-bit Cinnamon for the Lenovo laptop on the right and is now booting up a fresh Linux OS!

I am thinking that my Lenovo PC read my post a few weeks ago:

My next update will hopefully be when I prepare to transition one of my laptops (either a Lenovo Model G510 vintage 2011 or H/P Model 15-p030nr vintage 2014) to have the Linux Mint OS that has proven so very successful on my oldest laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1545 vintage 2010.

Yes, my wife’s other old laptop would not even boot up after the latest Windows 10 update, and it was not even a major feature update which is did accomplish a few months ago (1903 feature update). Just the Lenovo splash screen and the dots that form a circle appeared with the CPU fan blazing every now and then indicated that this PC was not happy, and not useful anymore.

Enter Linux Mint’s installation guide once more to the rescue.

This was the first time I had another Linux PC to assist with the process of creating a bootable USB. Start to finish, including downloading the 1.9GB ISO file it took about 1 hour to install Linux Mint and configure it for future operations. I see this 2011 Lenovo PC as becoming my primary laptop and my older Dell will become my backup.

I utilized a wired Ethernet connection in case Linux did not have my wireless configured right away, but it did and it was not needed (but it was faster).

The installation guide is very straight forward, a big improvement since my first laptop rescue effort over 5 years ago with a PC that was facing no ongoing support for Windows 95. 🙂

Using Linux to facilitate another PC’s transition from Windows to Linux is no chore really, in fact, it was a little fun to see the “re-birth” of an old laptop towards being a valuable tool going forward. It is too bad that smartphones can’t be rescued like this, due to their battery finally giving up and making the life-cycle very short (2-4 years depending).

I love a market that has options like this, competition is good!

-SF1