My first hurdle is understanding that i need to add a boot sequence and navigate to the EFI file in my mounted pen drive.

second hurdle is understanding i need to disable secure boot so that the dell bios doesnt think something is wrong and always run the bios repair program.

third is understanding that i need to disable Intel rapid storage for the full install (luckily linux mint tells us this)

and honestly the hardest thing was installing fastfetch cuz theres a lot of outdated information out there on how to install it on Mint.

the process took about 4 hours, i consider it very lucky that i was able to do it so fast.

resources that helped me:

https://devicetests.com/boot-usb-uefi-mode-dell-inspiron-workaround

https://youtu.be/FY-OSdd1ByQ

  • cRazi_man@europe.pub
    8·
    14 days ago

    Welcome to Linux. Glad to see you’re not letting the hurdles get in your way and are working through solutions. There’s more to come.

    You say “5 year old laptop” as if that’s ancient… 10th gen Intel 😄. I don’t even look at laptops newer than 5 years. Don’t need much more for internet tasks and office work.

    • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
      1·
      13 days ago

      One of my main workstations is a 2014 iMac running arch (btw). According to Apple it’s unusable ewaste.

  • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    14 days ago

    My god your install process sounded really difficult.

    This coming from someone running a Surface Go 1 and MacBook Pro 2012 which weren’t really linux friendly for the install process.

    In the future, I’ll probably only get used devices as I’m kind of anti consumerism, but I’ll be careful to always get something reslly Linux friendly.

    My last experience with anything from Dell was my first Linux install in the 00’s and it was really easy. I guess Dell has regressed in this regard.

    Anyway welcome to Linux!

    • blobchoice@feddit.uk
      1·
      14 days ago

      I’m glad you said this, I was thinking “I just plug in the USB stick and install Linux”

      In fact, the hardest but for me is remembering the special key to press upon boot up so it goes into boot selection mode and I can just select my USB stick…

  • obnomus@lemmy.mlEnglish
    21·
    13 days ago

    If you like to tinker learn bash scripting. Also if you need apps just hit me up

  • db2@lemmy.world
    1·
    14 days ago

    8GB is the practical minimum these days, most will go to your browser of choice unless it’s like Links or something.

    • procapra@lemmy.ml
      0·
      14 days ago

      My system uses under 4gb watching a 4k video on youtube. I can’t imagine many people are doing anything much more intensive than that.

        • procapra@lemmy.ml
          0·
          14 days ago
          1. Vencord is running in the background.
          2. Most people aren’t watching YouTube in 4k on their computer
          3. I have a good bit of stuff cached in memory (as shown by the different colors in htop)
          • LeFantome@programming.dev
            1·
            13 days ago

            4GB is usable. I am not trying to fight.

            I use quite a bit of old and underpowered kit. But I actually use it. The oldest laptop I use regularly is a 2009 MacBook Pro running Chimera Linux. It is only a Core 2 Duo but it has 8 GB of RAM. It runs all modern browsers and office suites. I can code on it. I can use Docker. I can do dev ops in the cloud. I can call into LLMs. Slow but capable. But I could not do much of this realistically with 4 GB (even slow).

            One thing I am not doing is watching videos in 4K. The resolution is 1440x900 so it does not quite display even 1080p natively (so 1080p or even 720p for me—which is totally fine). I suspect most people who really only have 4 GB of RAM are in a similar situation.