I don’t know how worn out her laptop is, but would it be worth just replacing the OS with something lighter/safer?
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It’s an option to consider, but it needs to be absolutely hassle-free in terms of user experience. If it causes her the slightest bit of aggravation she’ll say “fuck it” immediately.
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linux mint is really great, if you plan on trying out a linux distro and you don’t live in the same house you could try installing some kind of remote desktop tool or enable ssh so you can fix things if they get broken
8 years ago or so I had my mother try out puppy linux and it worked fine for the most part but sometimes she’d stumble into something she wasn’t supposed to but it’s usually not to hard to fix, especially if you install a program for backups, viruses are also less common for linux and you can install any number of tools to make the user experience better like ad blocking or note taking
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DO NOT MAKE YOUR MOM RUN LINUX
NO
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its not as bad as it used 2 be, it’s still one of the best ways to continue using old hardware that would otherwise be thrown away or left to rot in a drawer
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yes, but even considering the number of linux devices I can see in the room I’m in right now, and bearing in mind that I don’t even like my mother, I’m not sure what kind of sick pervert I’d have to be to want to try to combine them
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I’ll second how great linux mint is. If not for moms, then for everyone else.
Choosy moms choose mint
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I can say my mom has naturally latched on to her ChromeOS laptop as a main everyday device and it’s also been a very low support burden for me in general over the last ~5 years. I think the original plan was a good one.
I think the $250 price range is low for a “main everyday laptop” and it would be easier to make a confident recommendation at $400, but it sounds like you’ve already had that debate. Even at $250, it’ll hopefully be good enough to replace an ancient Windows laptop.
There are lot of “best Chromebook at X price range” review site guides that are kept up to date every 6 months. Here’s one: The best Chromebooks under $300: Strong contenders for three benjamins. Maybe ask her whether she prefers a nice big 15 inch screen, a conveniently compact laptop, or something in between, and pick from the recommendations on that page based on that.
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I wound up bookmarking two models from that list which seem like they could be contenders.
I really think my mom is set on New Device so although I appreciate lightweight OS recommendations ITT I think this is the way we’re going to go
Thanks everyone!
I’m evaluating two machines and these are their respective processors and honestly I have no idea if the differences are meaningful in practice for, again, someone checking email and shopping/paying bills online.
one is arm one is not
I don’t think there’s actually much reason to get an x86 chromebook?
it’s not a particularly great arm chipset but I would probably favour that one
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honestly I reckon the extra cores on the ARM one likely outweigh whatever mysticism one may have about x86; more threads ought to keep it running happily further into the future
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was able to get a 750 sfx power supply, using distil like the videocard. next I’ll try to get that form t1 case. then they’re gonna sit in a corner for as long as I can hold out on buying the actual computer
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ok I have some random hardware/software questions, I’ve never had a use case for “gaming PC build” but with my newfound love of IL-2 I do.
- My current is an MSI laptop from 2015 (i5-4710HQ, GTX 850M, 8gb RAM).
- I want to max out IL-2 at 1080p with >80fps stable, and to get 250+ fps in CSGO (overkill but never hurts). I want to budget like $1500 plus monitor. I know I need a super good CPU because CSGO and IL-2 are very CPU-heavy games. This isn’t an immediate need or anything.
I thought maybe a 9600k or 10600k with an RTX 3070 (or 3080 Ti?). Does that make sense? I don’t know anything about this I’ve been reading about hardware for like a day.
And a browser question
I miss my Crunchbang days. Xfce rules.
I could never fuck with Gnome.
If it’s in stock a Ryzen 5600x is just plain faster, Intel doesn’t have the edge anymore.
Any RTX 3XXX card is great if you find it in stock near MSRP. Used card prices haven’t adjusted due to low stock.
Incredibly, I recommend the new Edge for a browser. We have to go to Microsoft to escape Google’s monopolist practices
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honestly I would secure the GPU first (3060 ti or 3070) and then budget for the rest of the system after that; motherboards and CPUs that aren’t Ryzen 5000s are in good supply and you can actually find deals on and everything else save cases and PSUs are at historic low prices
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What kind of monitor are you planning on? That will determine what GPU is reasonable.
Monitors are in a spot where there’s always a compromise: IPS has light bleed, VA has poor response times, TN has awful picture.
new edge also hardware decodes hevc / other codecs that Google doesn’t like to license even though it’s the exact same code paths
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I dunno honestly, just something 144hz is what I know. Probably IPS i guess. I haven’t researched monitors too much.
Edge is OK™ as far as I can tell. I don’t mind but don’t think I can love it, there’s too much upselling-gunk like putting Bing everywhere. I’ll try a head to head comparison with Memory use.
e: okay it’s not a scientific comparison, but 14 tabs in Edge is more memory than 17 tabs in Vivaldi (same content, both around 1300 MB RAM)