12 replies to this topic

[Trav1s]

http://www.neverware.com/#introtext-3

 

If you have never heard of it, it a distro that installs Chrome OS on any machine.  It is lightweight and simple to use.  The downside is that it is dancing with the devil called Google.  I read an article that schools are using this to revive old laptops that are past their prime instead of purchasing new Chromebooks for students.  

 

This got me curious to try it out so I downloaded the image, installed it on a USB drive, then installed it on the old cranky Dell Dimension XPS M1330 (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB ram and leftover HD from another machine) shipped with Vista, then I had XPPro, and finally had 7 on it).  I have installed Ubuntu, Mint, some others, and most recently Lubuntu on this machine to use for light web stuff including Pandora, Spotify, and Amazon Prime Music.  

I wiped the drive and installed Cloudready tonight and I gotta say I am really impressed.  This machine is snappier than it was when new and does I ask of it without a hitch.  

 

 

Update - This install was completed using a USB adapter that connected to my wireless network at 5ghz.  The same adapter worked out of the box with LUbuntu but at a slow connection rate.   

Edited by Trav1s, February 20, 2016 - 09:21 AM.

[Trav1s]

A few pics

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[Trav1s]

Decided to install this on my cranky frankenstein's monster machine in the garage (Zotac mobo/nViia video, Athlon 64 x2 4850e processor, 2 gb of ram, and a leftover laptop HD) this morning.  Install was fast and the nVidia graphics play better with this OS than any of the Ubuntu variants I have messed with.  I have repeated read that nVidia graphics from the early and mid 2000's can be cranky with some Linux distros.  I am posting from frankenstein at this time.  This machine is wired into the network so I did not worry about wireless adapter problems with this one.  Sound works great and youtube videos are not a problem.  

Edited by Trav1s, February 20, 2016 - 09:34 AM.

[Trav1s]

Frankenstein has been online for 2 hours and streaming without problem.  

[HDWildBill]

I may have to take a look at it.  I haven't messed with a chrome OS yet.  Mainly because I thought you had to buy a computer to check it out.  I do like the way they have the installation instructions right there when you go to dl the image.

[Trav1s]

I am really impressed with it - everything worked right out of the gate with a laptop that was purchased new in the spring of 2008 and the unusual mismatch of parts that makes up the machine in the garage. 

[Trav1s]

Installed this on a machine to use at church made up of the following components:
Zotac Atom N330 M-ITX motherboard with onboard video and passive cooling

2 gb of RAM
80 GB HD 

 

Installed without a hitch and is quite snappy.  

[Trav1s]

Some reading that offers an objective review of the product.

 

http://www.computerw...chromebook.html

[Trav1s]

Decided to install this on my cranky frankenstein's monster machine in the garage (Zotac mobo/nViia video, Athlon 64 x2 4850e processor, 2 gb of ram, and a leftover laptop HD) this morning.  Install was fast and the nVidia graphics play better with this OS than any of the Ubuntu variants I have messed with.  I have repeated read that nVidia graphics from the early and mid 2000's can be cranky with some Linux distros.  I am posting from frankenstein at this time.  This machine is wired into the network so I did not worry about wireless adapter problems with this one.  Sound works great and youtube videos are not a problem.  

 

 

Just a quick update on this machine - It crashed this morning while streaming NPR (yes, I am one of those), FB, and GTTalk.  After a restart is as been fine.  

[Trav1s]

Another update on this OS

The Dell laptop is working great for my wife in her art studio.  It is stable and streams Pandora for hours on end without a problem.  The remote that came with the laptop even works for volume and skipping songs = BONUS!

As for the Frankenstein's monster machine I put together for the garage, it is a bit of a different experience.  Now and then I get random problems with the video - the screen scrambles and it takes a restart to get things back to normal.  I tweaked bios settings this morning and added another 512 megs of RAM and it seems find so far today.  I am posting from it right now along with a tab open for Amazon Prime music and Facebook.  I will report in later with it.  

As for the Zotac ion-based machine at the church, it is going fine after a week of no shut downs.  

[Trav1s]

It seems my video quirks have resolved themselves with the bios changes and the additional RAM.  Frankenstein has been at it since 10:30 AM without a hitch.  

[HDWildBill]

Is the video card using shared memory?  If so then adding the additional memory may have done the trick.

[Trav1s]

Is the video card using shared memory?  If so then adding the additional memory may have done the trick.

 

It does use shared memory and was thinking the same thing.  I have since installed a system monitor widget that reports RAM used.  Most of the time there is about 1 GB free but that goes down as more tabs are open.  I really wanted another 2 GB but all I had in the tech stash was 512meg of DDR2.  

 

Also, there was a software upgrade that installed today that may have helped with stability but I have no way to confirm it.