Just wait till you talk to Support. Had a problem with my Surface, I could not boot from a Linux stick, currently, Windows was installed on that laptop. They kept switching me between Surface and Hardware-Support, all with the same result: “Sorry, we can’t help you. Microsoft recommends the preinstalled OS as it’s a safe and stylish choice for users and does not provide support to alternative OS and booting from a stick.” If I had told them I have a Windows portable stick, the result would have been different. Luckily the Ubuntu community was more helpful there.
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Be thankful you got through…. Or perhaps not
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Some people may not be too happy about the commercial engagement, but firms that need to support their clients should help ensure that the whole Linux store is stable and, one may hope, resistant to the various kinds of hacking.
On subject of a broad base for mainstream Linux, it has been noted that a relatively inexpensive 11” Chrombook should fill a gap left by - dead slow - little notebook offerings like the old Asus seashell series. Various Linux distros run well on Chrombooks.
Of course, Chrombook is Google, which we may want to escape from. However, on the Google site they describe how to configure a Debian environment. This could sound like letting the Big Bad Wolf into your house, but does anyone here have advice on the relative merits of this and an independent standalone Google-free installation?
Configurer Linux sur votre Chromebook - Aide Google Chromebook
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Just discovered on the web and by trying at home that those little Seashell Atoms no longer work with MxLinux for most purposes, because web navigators can’t display anything coherent and more or less hang. UEFI settings seem to be burned in permanently.
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Well why not?
There is supposed to be backward compatability… if it ever worked it should work now and forever.
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There’s a limit, particularly with browsers, which tend to evolve greatly. Added to that, mine has only 1Gb soldered-in RAM; it’s OK when reserved for playing music via a USB-audio interface.
There are one or two hacks on the link below, but most people said they don’t have the time to waste.
Also, it’s well known that old electronic devices that haven’t been switched on for a while often work… just for the time it takes to check them out and find a user. Such failures are usually attributed to electrolytic capacitors which deteriorate when not polarised; standard practice when playing with stuff from the days of thermionic valves is do start by disconnecting and carefully re-forming the relatively small number of electrolytics, and then hoping the enamelled wire of the mains transformer hasn’t gone brittle.
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I chose linux mint xfce for mine and its fine, not fast but a great spare just in case
I’m wondering if there’s going to be a “rebel” that creates a Linux kernel without Rust (Stainless or Antioxidant [linux-antiox for short], perhaps?). I won’t go into all the reasons someone might want that so as not to derail this thread more than it already is, but the relative few people who can read Rust means it’s likely not getting the number of eyes on it code written in other languages is. One day that likely won’t be a problem at all, but in the meantime, having a kernel that doesn’t use it could be appealing (to put it mildly).
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You can revert to an old kernel, but there will be problems…
For a modern rust-free kernel try BSD.
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Those do seem like the only two options for now.
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