System Reload Project

It's been a while. Again. My brain's been out of action for a fair proportion of this year really, but after shutting down almost completely in the summer, a couple of months off sick has eventually got the ol' thinker going again. As I began to recover from the haze of an autistic shutdown/meltdown episode, I started feeling I needed something to get me motivated again.

Revamping Old Computers with Linux Mint

With Microsoft recently ending support for Windows 10, this will leave millions of people with computers that are no longer going to receive security or bug updates, and, thus increasingly vulnerable to attack by malware. The lead up to this was part of my motivation for this little project.

So, as background, over years of hoarding, I had accumulated a pile of old computers from various sources, and while I was off, I decided I needed to get the space they were taking up back. I managed, in fits and starts, through brain fog and dissociation, to get them fixed up and gifted out on Freegle. Some of them were just shells, missing combinations of hard disks, memory, power supplies etc. but some just needed a reliable operating system. I installed Debian on a few of the ones that were working enough to use, and put them up on Freegle with enough forewarning and disclaimer for people to make an informed decision. They were snapped up like hot cakes! There were laptops, a netbook, and some desktops. I made sure to tell people they could come back to me if they got stuck or needed help, and I've had a few minor requests, but nothing major.

When the news started to build around the "End Of Windows 10 Support", I realised there was a ready solution here. Some conversations I'd read and even taken part in on Mastodon had led me to the conclusion that a Linux Mint, a Linux flavour I'd first tried about 10 years ago, and not looked at since, had matured into a really decent, beginner-friendly distro. I decided to try it out on one of the family clunkers - a very beaten-up and abused old Acer Aspire that had languished in "The Pile" because it had a power supply fault, a dodgy keyboard and bits of case missing. I had to re-solder the power connector wires back onto the jack plug to get it going, and only 1 out of 3 USB ports worked, so I had to use a hub to connect an external keyboard, mouse, and installation memory stick. It was a pain, but so worth it.

I was impressed by the look, and as I started nosing around, I realised it wasn't just skin deep. I've been messing with Linux since, like, the beginning of the web, so I knid of know the pain points. Some things I observed in the first hour of using it:

It could play DVDs as soon as I first logged in.
The GUI is nice and consistent, pretty and logical.
The Welcome Screen program provides a really decent run through of what to do when you first get logged in.
Scheduled filesystem snapshots using Rsync to save you from bad updates.
Automatic updates configurable right in the Update Manager.
A nice, easy to use, beginner-friendly Software Manager.
Printer support is awesome.
Scanner support is also awesome.

The printer thing really impressed me, and I'm not impressed by much these days. I was busy pootling around, and a little notification popped up telling me my Epson inkjet was available to print. Interesting I thought, and carried on with my pootling. I ended up looking at LibreOffice Writer, and remembered the printer, so thought I'd send it a print. Now, this printer is a cantankerous bastard, it often refuses to print under Windows and printing from my usual Debian rig usually requires dancing a dance I can never quite remember the moves for, so I was prepared for a bit of tinkering, but I was totally unprepared for the amount of tinkering required. After I gritted my teeth and clicked print, I waited for the usual dance to begin, and, nothing. A printer icon appeared on the status bar with the other indicators. Then the thing that I was totally unprepared for happened: the printer did it's little start up grind, and then a page came out! And not only that, it wasn't gibberish, misaligned or a muddy brown instead of black! It had never been this compliant before, even when printing from Windoze.

I was DAZED. Printers are often a major sticking point on Linux.

Then I thought I'd try scanning, another major sticking point - not always because of communications problems, but often because scanning software on Linux is usually something like xSane, which is not what the name suggests. It's clunky and bery 90's-esque. On my Debian rig, I still have the HPLIP utility installed because I used to have an HP LaserJet MFP. I was not expecting the simplicity that is the Mint "Scanner" utility. Firstly, when opened, it spent all of 10 seconds to find the Epson inkjet's scanner. I did a scan and had it on the screen less than a minute later. This is not the way it often goes. The interface is, frankly, pretty sparse, but it actually works. It does the job, and, is really easy to understand. It can do multi-page scans direct to PDF too. Nice.

The next thing I noticed was an alert saying there were updates available, even though I hadn't even started the Update Manager yet. I decided I ought to go through the Welcome Screen at this point, and discovered about the snapshots, got the updates installed, and realised I could set up automatic updates if I first set up snapshots. I fiddled with the theming and colour-schemes. Then I browsed round the Software Manager, which is a refreshing, newbie-friendly change to Synaptic. I liked the concise summary of what programs do, and the familiar "app store" design language used.

A few days later, I was talking to a friend, one of the organisers at the local Climate Emergency Hub, and they mentioned they had an old laptop they didn't know what to do with. This sparked a conversation that resulted in me explaining we could install Linux on it. They mentioned how terrible it was about Windows 10 support being discontinued, and all the old computers that were now destined for land-fill. That was when I suggested we could do a session about installing Linux on them. I'm scheduled to do that in February.

Since then, I've convinced the local Repair Cafe, which I've volunteered as a repairer at for years, that we maybe should run a service for anyone who wants their computer converted to Linux. So it's snowballing, and I'm beginning to feel my enthusiasm for things coming back.

So, in the meantime, I've started offering the service on my local Freegle, as a way to get some experience, and hone the process. That resulted in the donation of an HP laptop that went out a few weeks ago, the friend from the Climate Hub's computer has been donated, and I have another in the pipeline, to go out probably this weekend.

One thing I realised early on, is that Linux of any flavour, is quite alien to ex-Windows users. So I've been writing a little "Helpful Hints" doc I can include for people, to ease them through the process. If anyone wants it, it's available here: Helpful Hints.odt

Here are my (partial) notes, an ongoing project on the issue of #EndOf10 and how the Repair Cafe might be able to offer a service to revamp old computers with Linux: Saving Old Windows Laptops From Landfill.odt

Both of these files are free to use, or modify, but please credit this blog.