Mighty little Chromebook & Lubuntu to potentially replace Windows 7 on HP G62

It has been a while since I purchased a new laptop system, so for now I am back to my trusty G62 HP machine with Windows 7 (gasp). I still do update it and this time around, Microsoft put out a reminder that by January 14, 2020 they will no longer support Windows 7.

What this basically means is that there will no longer be security patches nor updates, the operating system will more or less be in the wild (if it isn't already) and potential exploits which have not already been discovered will soon be and the users are on their own to fend for themselves.

I have long expressed that in general, I think that the computing world and cloud computing, doing most of your activities online and also the advent and prominence of phablets, tablets and mobile smart phones really has changed and shaped how humans interact with the digital world; so much so that it almost doesn't matter which operating system you use, they perform the same functionality and just works. Definitely take that with a grain of salt as there are definitely quirks with each and every operating system and performance angst against each and every one of them.

I still remember trying to move to Windows 10 on my HP G64, when Windows 10 came out and it was a disaster for me and my machine, 4 years ago. Here is the video link of blinking / cycling corrupted video driver, was the result of the installation. Granted it was just 1 month (August 2015) into the launch and I am sure HP and many other manufacturers did not fully test nor know how Windows 10 would behave on their older systems. It was a blessing in disguise as I got the chance to wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall the original Windows 7 fresh and it actually helped to boost the performance of my laptop.

So comes the main point of all this, aside from the PSA above, I did a USB boot with Lubuntu the light front end version based on Ubuntu / Debian based Linux and I am happy to report that it works perfectly and actually doesn't hog resources as the original Windows 7 that came with it. I know many & more experienced geeks may roll their eyes while reading it with a "Duh!" / preaching to the choir moment, but mainly I feel that it's just good to know for others that there's hope for your old / older machine. I was planning to film the system with the Lubuntu USB boot up, but changed my mind and went ahead with an SSD Hard Drive install and to give it a good solid test drive.

If you're curious enough, here's a sneak peek of my boot up video of the HP G62 from the SSD hard drive with Lubuntu:


What I will say is that due to the system reading a whole OS from a USB drive (from earlier try), it does feel a little sluggish, however the web browser and other GUI components are snappy and responsive, compared to the same browsers in the Windows 7 environment and reading from the native (non-SSD) hard drive. One final thought too is that I may still hold on to Windows 7 for now because Canon Pixma MX712 is not Google Cloud Printer Compliant and it is worse than going through wisdom tooth extraction without anesthesia when it comes to printing from both the Chromebook and Lubuntu since they do not have drivers and are not LAN ready for these 2 specific operating system. It could also mean it is time for me to get a newer printer although I VERY rarely need to print things anymore, part of me trying to save the environment and going paper free.

Now on to another welcome surprise. With the initial thought and dread of going back to my sluggish Windows 7 based system, the Acer Chromebook 14 (CB3-431) had notified me of an update... the capability of having a Beta Linux shell and to my delight I was able to install ruby and also git on it and perform needed programming lessons and pushing code via git command line to my repository. Take a peek at the hyperlink above and some screenshots below:



 

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