chrisw

I have not only been using but programming computers for 56 years (started in the fall of 1969 at the University of Waterloo - the punch cards and computing time were free).

I have a laptop and netbook/notebook computer and they were great in their time, but, for portability, I've been using Android tablets for several years. A lot easier to carry around. And a lot cheaper. Batteries have a design life of 3 years. They usually last about 10. They are expensive to replace and buying a new tablet is a lot cheaper than a new laptop. But, tablets have their limitations. So far they've done all I've needed on the go, but, at home, I need more. The PC I am using as I type this was purchased used and I refurbished and upgraded it. And, yes, I have a nice big monitor.

While a tablet is best purchased new a useful PC running Linux can be built from used components. This PC was something like CAN$100 for everything. The new tablet about the same. That would translate into US$144. You say you buy a new laptop every four to five years. A used refurbished upgraded PC will last a lot longer than that especially if one can do some more upgrading along the way. A tablet may not be good for longer than your laptop, but, it's a fraction of the cost. How much do you pay for your laptops?

The more average person lives on their mobile phone. They don't have PCs, laptops or tablets.

For those of us that like our computing frugal PCs are very much in the mix.

Looking at System Monitor I see I'm using 3.5GiB Ram and 308.6MiB Swap with a bunch of Caja and MATE Terminal windows open and Firefox. CPU is 64-bit dual-core 2.3Gz. I can play a 1080p video on FMovies at 80%-90% CPU utilization. On the YouTube web page I can't play more that 720p without needing more CPU than I have - fortunately I can download a 1080p video with yt-dlp and it will play fine in VLC or ffplay. This is fine for me, but, it gives you an idea of what you really need to do the things that you might want to do in Linux.

I first installed Linux - it was RedHat 6.2 - back in 2000. I had retired from an environment that used Sun UNIX work-stations and figured I should have something familiar even though I didn't care for it that much (see UNIX HATERS HANDBOOK). Didn't use it that much at the time - spent more time learning and using Windows 98SE.

Years ago I tried to upgrade an XP notebook/netbook that I have. The memory is hard-wired at 1GiB and browsers and web pages had bloated up too much to fit. Also, browser support for XP was declining. The replacement netbook/netbook I tried came with something like Windows 10. It was a disaster. 2.2 GiB of RAM just to boot up and 20 internet connections doing God-Knows-What. I tried to knock that back but could only put a small dent in it, so, I returned it.

These days, for taking with me, I like an Android tablet. The onn (Walmart house brand) tablets work well enough for me. The PC I have is an older computer that I refurbished myself and I run Debian Linux with the MATE desktop (on a newer computer I would go with KDE which I believe has a new name now). On the XP notebook/netbook I've been trying out antiX with IceWM. It's OK if I don't run a browser - Pale Moon is tolerable if I limit it to one or two tabs.

The minimum requirements you provide for running Linux Mint are out of date. Unless you don't plan on ever using a browser. Otherwise, you need at least a dual core CPU and 2-3GiB RAM. Only the smallest versions of LInux like antiX DSL, Porteus and SLAX will run with a browser on what you suggest.

I'm surprised there are still articles being written about this.

Your statement, "There’s no marketing trick or scam here.", is incorrect. This is very much a scam. A common term that applies is "shrinkflation". Computers are not decimal, they are binary. And the binary style has been in use for a long time in the context of binary computers. Hard drives are for computers and must fit into that context. If I were to work in a shop that used the metric system and I decided to use the British system I would be the one in the wrong.

Now we have this dual notation which you failed to talk about. Probably because it just adds to the confusion. I use Linux and I believe I had to explicitly configure it to use the kibi, mibi, gibi, tibi crap so the numbers are what I expect and what is correct in the context of a binary computer.

And we get all this nonsense because disk manufacturers played a stupid game. Don't make any excuses for them. Call them out on it.

Actually, routers do switch channels in use. On occasion I've seen a neighbour's channel get switched every couple of minutes. The problem is that the channel is configured to be 40MHz wide and this is on 2.4GHz. Since there is more than one neighbour it's impossible to avoid interference. From it's name it looks like it was set up by Bell. Other networks I've seen that look like they've been set up by Bell also use 40Mhz wide channels on 2.4GHz. The ones that look like they've been set up by Shaw use 20MHz as does everyone else. Don't use 40MHz channels on 2.4GHz.

Don't use Wi-Fi if you don't have to. CAT-5e cable is good for at least 300 feet so you can take a very circuitous route if you need to. I've purchased longer cables second hand at Value Village for a few bucks each.