I've been a long time Mac user (since 2010) and I thought I would never need another OS ever. But then, in the last few years or more, Apple started to become less an less the Apple I fell in love with in the late 2000s. Their OS's feel more and more like walled gardens, their hardware got more and more expensive, especially upgrades at the time or purchase (in 2020 I paid 200€ for and additional 8GB of RAM on my MacBook Air...) and they seem more interested in locking in their customer in a very expensive and sprawling ecosystem than in making cool, 'different' products. But I didn't know what else to do. Going back to Windows was an absolute no-go (my last Windows was Vista, so you know...). I knew about Linux, but to me it was something for geeks and tinkerers, where it would take you half a day just to make the wi-fi work or something. In the end, I decided to give it a go. I still had my old laptop from 2007, a Fujitsu-Siemens with a 1.5GHz dual core CPU. It had gotten an SSD in recent years thanks to my father who kept it as a second machine. After some research, I decided that MX Linux was the way to go, as it's supposed to run well on older hardware. I figured out how to create a Live USB and booted the computer from it. Wonder of wonders! Everything worked! Everything felt smooth! I expected to run into a myriad of problems, but nothing. It all just worked. Faster than light, I wiped Windows and welcome Linux!
I wanted to use this machine to get used to the new OS and play around. The issue is that this was a heavy laptop with basically zero battery life and still pretty low specs. But, in an unexpected twist, I found an old laptop at work inside a closet that nobody had used for 3/4 years. I asked my boss and they said I could have it. An HP 355 G2 with a low-power AMD quad-core at 2.0GHz. Basically a spaceship compared to my Fujitsu. I proceeded to grace it with an SSD, 8Gb of RAM instead of the 4 it came with, and I also replaced the screen panel, since it had a hole in it (I assume that's why it was abandoned). Now, I'm writing from this machine. It's not perfect, the screen is still pretty horrible (I couldn't find anything better that would fit here) and the keyboard has seen better days (it was the main computer in the back-office of a coffee shop, where all the employees had access to it, greasy fingers, dust, spills, and so on. You can imagine). But it works and it's powerful enough.
I will try to stay active in the forum, ask the millions of questions I still have, and see that one day maybe a Linux computer will become my main machine!
Also, since I will have to do it when I ask for help (right?) here's my QSI:
Code: Select all
System:
Kernel: 6.1.0-33-amd64 [6.1.133-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-33-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.38 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.20.0 vt: 7
dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.6_x64 Libretto Jan 12 2025 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12
(bookworm)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP 355 G2 Notebook PC v: 0992100000400010000634101
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 22C1 v: KBC Version 86.09 serial: <superuser required>
UEFI: Insyde v: F.11 date: 06/02/2015
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 20.6 Wh (72.0%) condition: 28.6/28.6 Wh (100.0%) volts: 14.7 min: 14.8
model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: discharging
CPU:
Info: model: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Puma level: v2
built: 2014-15 process: GF 28nm family: 0x16 (22) model-id: 0x30 (48) stepping: 1
microcode: 0x7030104
Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 4 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 256 KiB desc: d-4x32 KiB; i-4x32 KiB
L2: 2 MiB desc: 1x2 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1171 high: 1453 min/max: 1000/2000 boost: enabled scaling:
driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: ondemand cores: 1: 1035 2: 1000 3: 1453 4: 1198 bogomips: 15970
Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Vulnerabilities:
Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
Type: l1tf status: Not affected
Type: mds status: Not affected
Type: meltdown status: Not affected
Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: retbleed mitigation: untrained return thunk; SMT disabled
Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; STIBP: disabled; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS: Not
affected; BHI: Not affected
Type: srbds status: Not affected
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Mullins [Radeon R4/R5 Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: radeon v: kernel
alternate: amdgpu arch: GCN-2 code: Sea Islands process: GF/TSMC 16-28nm built: 2013-17 ports:
active: eDP-1 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1 bus-ID: 00:01.0 chip-ID: 1002:9851 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Realtek HP Truevision HD laptop camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1.4:4
chip-ID: 0bda:5775 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.20.0 driver: X: loaded: radeon
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: radeon display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 362x204mm (14.25x8.03") s-diag: 416mm (16.36")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 mapped: eDP model: ChiMei InnoLux 0x15ab built: 2013 res: 1366x768 hz: 60
dpi: 101 gamma: 1.2 size: 344x193mm (13.54x7.6") diag: 394mm (15.5") ratio: 16:9 modes:
max: 1366x768 min: 640x480
API: OpenGL v: 4.5 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: KABINI ( LLVM 15.0.6 DRM 2.50 6.1.0-33-amd64)
direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: AMD Kabini HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:01.1 chip-ID: 1002:9840 class-ID: 0403
Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1022:780d class-ID: 0403
API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-33-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard
driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: Unknown lanes: 63 link-max: gen: 6 speed: 64 GT/s port: 3000
bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard
driver: rtl8723be v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000
bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:b723 class-ID: 0280
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 2-1.1:3
chip-ID: 0bda:b001 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.0
sub-v: 9f73 hci-v: 4.0 rev: e2f
Info: acl-mtu: 820:8 sco-mtu: 255:16 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park
link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio,
telephony
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 94.37 GiB (20.3%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Crucial model: CT500BX500SSD1 size: 465.76 GiB block-size:
physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 072 scheme: GPT
Partition:
ID-1: / raw-size: 186.2 GiB size: 182.22 GiB (97.86%) used: 35.61 GiB (19.5%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
ID-3: /home raw-size: 279.31 GiB size: 273.86 GiB (98.05%) used: 58.76 GiB (21.5%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3
Swap:
Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 48.6 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 51.0 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
Packages: 2372 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2363 libs: 1262 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 9
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
1: deb http://mirror.easyname.ch/mxlinux-packages/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
Processes: 235 Uptime: 29m wakeups: 2 Memory: 6.73 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (33.7%) Init: SysVinit
v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI
). 
