Wanting more speed from your old laptop or desktop?

This is something I hear often from people that have and laptop or desktop that is 2+ years or older, "My system is so slow. I need a new one."  Whoa!! That may not be entirely true.  With some minor upgrades and changes to the system it may run faster then when you bought it and I have a case that is right on point for this.

A family member has a Dell laptop that is coming up on 3 years old and it was quick as when they bought it and was running Windows 7 Home Premium.  They called me regarding said laptop a couple months back with issues booting it up, turns out after several attempts to get Windows to boot up the hard drive was shot.  They were contemplating buying a new laptop or replacing the hard drive and reloading Windows 7.  They said they wanted to keep cost low, as everyone these days are, and I said, "I have a way to make your system faster then when you bought it and keep your cost below or just above $100."  They said how and my answer was solid state and for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.  "Ubuntu Linux, what is that?", was the response I got and after explaining,"That is is a great Operating System that is free and comes with 1000's of free applications for doing everything", they agreed to go for it.  So off I went to Fry's at lunch with a co-worker to get a solid state drive while Ubuntu was downloading.  I picked up a 120gb SanDisk for $99 on sale.  Check out Fry's 120gb SSD(solid state drive)'s here.

The actual laptop opened up.

Dell made the system a big pain to replace the drive and there were a few cables that had to be reconnected after the drive was replaced, oops forgot to connect the speakers.  I took the opportunity of having to remove everything from the laptop to replace the drive to clean the system with compressed air to remove dust and lint that got in during the years of use, wasn't much but always good to do.  After dissecting the laptop and installing the new SSD it was time to install Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distributions available and one of the most user friend ones that I have used.  The download of Ubuntu is in an ISO format and ready to be burned to disc using your favorite disc burning software or if you have Windows 7 the best way, and simplest one, is to use the built in disc burning tool by right clicking on the downloaded ISO and clicking on burn to disc.  I inserted the disc and started the system entering the boot options menu for the laptop and choose optical disc.  Ubuntu boots to a menu asking if you want to install or try it out.  You can test Ubuntu out on a system running Windows and it will not have any effect on the system as it runs entirety off the disc in a Live version.  I choose the install option and choose the defaults all the way through and set a secure password when prompted for the root user account.  The root user is the administrative account on a Linux system and has full control over the system and will be used when you want to make system changes or install software, so make it a very secure one.  To download the latest version of Ubuntu go here.  As of this writing it is 12.10.

The install completed very quickly and booted right into the desktop.  Now the key to using an SSD in Linux is to trim the drive.  Here is a great article covering trim and SSD's with Linux.  System rebooted and and was lightening fast, so much faster then the original drive and operating system.  I then went to the Ubuntu Software Centre and installed some great games like Super Tux and Super Tux 2, both are Super Mario Bros. clones and super fun to play.  The install included a default Office suite called Libre Office and it is 100% Microsoft Office compatible, one of the best out there.  I also installed Flash Player and went to Facebook and The Pixel Castle as they visit these two sites daily, and both opened with no problems.

So with the upgrades done I returned the laptop.  They we're in awe of the speed of the system with the new drive and os.  It didn't take them anytime at all to learn the system and configure it for their liking and password of choice.  The biggest thing that got them was the speed of the laptop.  It had never been so fast and when timed from power on to being on Facebook took 25 seconds, that included entering the password to get into the system.  They are very happy with the laptop again and it is still preforming like a dream.

I don't mean this article to be detailed on how to install an SSD or Linux on your system but an informative example of how to bring new life to a laptop or desktop.  Also not bashing Windows performance on an SSD.  The choice for going with Linux was to give them a fairly maintenance free system that is not plagued buy malware and viruses.  There are viruses for Linux but nothing compared to Windows.  I am also looking to write a complete article on installing Ubuntu from start to finish in detail.