Finding the best Linux solutions for new users

Right to repair: policy & activism Windows 10 End of Life
21

Monday morning and my inbox is full of this discussion - which is great! But I’ve a lot of reading to do.

I mainly chimed in after reading what Monique said about:

“an elderly woman who came in a few months ago and asked for Linux to be installed on her Windows laptop. Again, unfortunately, I found out afterwards that the fixer had declined due to lack of familiarity with Linux.”

So - I was mainly wanting to focus on what’s easy to install - and use.

I use FreeBSD at home and love it for its stability and low memory footprint. Hence recommended GhostBSD - which is dead easy to install.

Basically - helping with some easy “how to” to skill up Repair Cafe volunteers - dumbed-down to provide an easy walk through for the inexperienced. Could recommend Mint first, and then one of the Ubuntus if Mint doesn’t support all hardware & so on. Or - just Ubuntu first if they’d find trying distro after distro onerous. Need to also provide a hardware check list - ensure WiFi, Ethernet, sound etc. all working.

Stephen - all that you say is spot on. The problem I see is that in most repair situations - the peripherals (printers, scanners) won’t be present.

Boyd - no doubt - would have stories of refugees who were simply over the moon to have a computer that worked at all. Spare a thought for use cases - jobseekers that mainly need to prepare resumes and apply for work online. Refugees may have more involved requirements in dealing with government departments and legal support for asylum applications & housing - so what file types do they need to work with?

22

Yes, totally agree and actually, this is exactly what I’ve been working on lately!

I’m building a Repair Toolkit USB aimed at Repair Cafés and social support projects, something that makes Linux installs easier, bundles in essential repair tools, and includes simple, clear documentation for volunteers (even with minimal tech background).

The idea is to have everything ready-to-go on one USB stick:

  • Preconfigured Linux ISOs (Mint, Ubuntu, GhostBSD, etc.)
  • Maintenance tools (GParted, Rescuezilla, TestDisk, etc.)
  • Cross-platform install scripts (Windows & Linux)
  • A basic multilingual system already in place (using JSON files)
  • A hardware checklist and a client form to collect machine info

The repository is already set up on my Gitea instance (https://git.onedayweb.be), but it’s still in early development. There’s a lot of work ahead to get everything clean and user-friendly but the foundation is there and the vision is clear.

@james & @Monique : I also chatted with Florine from Repair Together (Belgium) recently about the whole Windows-to-Linux question, and she was really supportive. This kind of project could make a real difference.

If anyone’s interested in contributing, testing, or just following the project, feel free to reach out to me directly or request access through Gitea! I’ll happily set you up with an account.

Also, if you already have documents, guides, or files that could be useful (even in another language), feel free to share them and my team can help with translation and adaptation to make them fit the toolkit.

23

Hi everyone! Just a quick note to say that I’ve split out this technical discussion about building a ‘Linux starter kit’ from the main ‘Windows 10 is reaching “end of life” - let’s mobilise!’ topic.

It’s admittedly not the neatest split, as the conversation is wide-ranging. But this is to try to keep the more technical discussion about distros, alternative software etc. in one place, while we can use that other topic for more general (and less technical) conversations about the wider project; the Linux conversation is an important part of this work, but can be pretty overwhelming for those less familiar with Linux.

I hope that makes sense!

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Boyd - with Ventoy - did you disable secure boot - that might be the problem. What error was it giving?

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I wonder if instead of listing specs, we could use some sort of benchmarking tool to get a score and then provide a recommendation based on that? It could be run off a USB.

26

Hi,

If you’re looking to benchmark a system without diving into detailed specs, there are a few great options you can boot from USB:

These tools can give you a clear performance score and help guide hardware upgrade or replacement decisions. All without needing to install anything on the machine.

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That sounds like a way forward. If we can get enough scores together, along with an idea of how different scores perform with our chosen OS’s we can use it to drive an easy decision matrix without people needing to know about the many many combinations of hardware.

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That’s exactly what I’m working on!
I’ve set up a dedicated Gitea server at :link:Github like called Gitea for Restarters, where I’ve already uploaded all the ISOs and utilities. I’m currently adding the benchmark scores along with a list of recommended operating systems based on those results. You need to ask a registration.

The goal is to make hardware decisions much easier and just plug in the USB, run the tests, and check the suggestions.

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Which benchmark have you chosen?

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I’m actually using both PassMark and Geekbench to get a more complete overview of performance.
In general, I don’t benchmark anything from Windows 10 and up, as those systems usually meet the baseline requirements.

I do benchmark older systems, though and I’ve compiled a list that I plan to publish sometime next week. I still have a few machines running tests, and my son is helping me with it outside of school hours, so thanks for your patience! :blush:

31

Sounds like this is hardware benchmarking? Or benchmarking to compare distros?

I want to do something to compare distros. I’ll try Phoronix with a few & do some simple tests. Phoronix also have some test results online. This one compares an assortment of Linuxes with Windows 11.

That said - most benchmark software doesn’t show useful info like laptop power management & memory utilisation. Apparently PowerTOP does power management - but might be a royal pain to install properly - but I see it’s in Synaptic & Arch. Powerstat might be an easier option.

Joslet - any thoughts on this?

I want to look at Mint’s Debian offering (LMDE) & compare with regular Mint. I’m not a distro hopper by any means and mainly have experience with Manjaro, the Ubuntus & Mint.

May take some time though. Trying to rejig the network here. Today I’ll be up a ladder ripping out old network cables & getting covered in dust - fun.

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Regarding power management
Honestly, when it comes to repairing or running an old laptop or desktop PC, power management isn’t really a priority for me. Sure, it’s something to consider, but we’ll never be able to create or fix existing energy consumption. At best, we can try to reduce it, aye… But that usually comes at the cost of performance. And let’s be honest, most of these older machines already use very little energy compared to modern systems. Except in rare extreme cases.

BENCHMARK (PassMark & Geekbench)
I’ve done Passmark tests on machines I have in stock, as well as during repairs or Linux/Windows replacements for clients, both inside and outside the Repair Café context. That list is far from complete or fully accurate though, since it only reflects an upper average. Some older PCs, even with the exact same system setup, are clearly at the end of their life with benchmark scores sometimes up to 80% lower.

Problem
Building a truly reliable system benchmark would require installing each distro cleanly on every system, formatting, testing, and repeating that process for every variation. That’s clearly not realistic. So the best we can do is rely on benchmarks from the developers themselves and community recommendations. After then, compare those to the actual hardware we have in front of us. At a Repair Café, we rarely have more than 20 minutes to check, test, and diagnose a computer.

Diag
For me, there are key points that need to be checked in order, with some optional. But still important steps. Are we aiming to repair, boost, or completely revive the targeted PC?

  1. Test the battery and power supply (using a power tester or plug-in voltmeter to analyze electrical fluctuations → 5 minutes is enough).
  2. Check the BIOS: update if needed (critical for older PC and hard to find the right files), inspect the hardware, and note down component details.
  3. See if any spare RAM sticks are available, and check if the PC can be upgraded.
  4. Check if the HDD is 5400 or 7200 RPM and ask the user if they’d consider replacing it with an SSD or if they’d consider doing so later if the system remains slow and barely usable.
  5. Boot into Hiren’s BootCD or UBCD, and run MemTest + HDD diagnostics (check if results show GOOD, OK, or TOP and anything below GOOD should trigger a proposal to replace or stop there).
  6. Compare the hardware with other machines running similar systems and check specific benchmarks. The average is rarely useful in this kind of context.
  7. Choose and install a suitable distro (try first, because it doesn’t always go as planned).
  8. Test and time performance: boot time, browser launch, opening a webpage, YouTube playback (480p / 720p / 1080p / higher), LibreOffice or Google Docs link loading, etc.
  9. Document the process step-by-step in a file (Excel line-per-task or timeline format with headers for each stage).
  10. Share your experience with others if possible.

Conclusion
That’s what I believe is concrete and actionable. Either we complete an existing file to centralize all this, or we make it available in a readable format for others to access easily.

In any case, it’s clear that we’re all full of good will and ideas. I feel it’s time we centralize everything and stop just talking about it. Its time to act clearly and directly. Starting now.
We’ll move forward more easily and avoid asking ourselves the same 1,500 questions every time.
Anything missing can be added gradually as feedback comes in.

I’ve already shared some tools and links to access online resources and utilities, but I haven’t received any feedback so far.

Am I wrong to be moving too fast? Or do you feel unsure or hesitant about what’s being proposed?

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them.

I’m really looking forward to your feedback.

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33

Maybe moving a bit too fast for me to comprehend the volume of your suggestions and goals. Plus I have some hesitations. I do appreciate your enthusiasm though!

Take my own repair group, we might be the busiest in London, attempting 60-70 repairs at each 3-hour long event. Mostly small domestic appliances, maybe a couple of laptops per session, sometimes none at all. We have about 25-30 volunteer fixers at each event, plus a dozen handling aspects of organisation and crowd control. Of these, we might have 2-3 with a goodly amount of Linux expertise and perhaps 5-6 with passing familiarity.

In the context of a bustling event, when you’re sat with a chatty visitor, along with interruptions and potential problems, the time taken to carry out a thorough assessment through to a successful Linux installation is no doubt going to take more than an hour. I really can’t see my group recommending that fixers undertake this at the expense of leaving people with lamps and vacuum cleaners being turned away due to lack of time. We rely on having most of our repair attempts take less than an hour. Pre-booking does not work for us.

I have put it to the organisers that we follow the example of the Amsterdam repair cafes and trial a dedicated Windows 10 EOL event. This is under consideration. The organisation of such an event would entail us rounding up the fixers who already have IT experience - not just Linux, but Windows, Mac, ChromeOS etc. - and any that are interested in extending their skills. Plus finding outsiders who’d like to join. These people will have a range of knowledge and preferences and absolute consensus among us is highly unlikely. I feel that it would be down to us to put together our own guidelines and processes, and that tools built by a committee outside our group are not necessarily going to be employed. That’s just people for you, they have Opinions! Having said that, it will no doubt be useful to have a good starting point.

So, my feeling is that trying to produce a sophisticated and “centralised” type of digital download toolkit for repair events is very ambitious. It may work well for your group and any results you feedback could be very useful.

At this point, my personal focus would be on producing good, concise, distro-neutral, guidelines with links to a curated list of already available tools, and then refining it with some field trials. Feedback from this may eventually lead to the production of digital tools, or instructions on how to build them yourself.

I’m holding off on involving myself too much until I find out what my group’s organisers want to do. If they choose to do nothing then I will find some other way to employ my efforts.

Many of us have submitted our workflow/guidelines proposal, so perhaps we need an editor to comb through them and produce a draft for the Wiki.

Existing Wiki pages:
Windows 10 End of Life
Linux migration

My input is on the original thread.

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I have a technical sheet in my archives that outlines a step-by-step process, allowing users to follow along and carry out the tests themselves with guidance. From an organizational point of view, it’s very straightforward: you simply set up a few tables where visitors sit down with their laptop, they receive help with BIOS configuration, a LAN cable connected to a central switch for internet access (just like a LAN party), and access to a PXE server. If the PXE server doesn’t work or isn’t sufficient, a bootable USB drive can be used instead.

From there, people go through the checklist, run benchmarks, and follow the recommendations and all with the support of an experienced repairer in the background. On average, one repairer can assist 5 to 6 participants simultaneously. It typically takes about an hour and a half to complete the process, which means each repairer can support up to 12 people per session.

During large events or when there’s overwhelming demand, this system works very well. That said, what strikes me is that the reality on the ground here in Belgium is clearly not the same as in the UK. When I look at how your Repair Cafés operate, compared to Germany, the Netherlands, and others… → The approach is just completely different.

That’s why I’m pushing for more structure: not to restrict or impose anything, but to try and harmonize our practices and centralize our knowledge. It’s not about forcing any group to follow strict guidelines. It’s about creating a shared foundation that everyone can benefit from.

If someone is needed to help coordinate or draft content for the wiki, I’d be happy to take that on and HELP. I went through the Wiki page on Windows end-of-life support, and I think much of the information lacks clarity or sufficient detail. For the Linux migration page, some distributions are missing, and there’s a lack of detailed information about their specific use cases. Each distro can serve a different purpose or be useful in its own way. It’s also important to include only distributions that are still supported and up to date, which isn’t the case for all those currently listed.

I can help improve the list and rework some parts to make them clearer and more detailed, both in terms of the steps to follow and the overall feasibility and ease of use.

I created a repository with all the necessary ISOs, available via direct and secure download links (around 200 GB for now). There’s also a Git repository to share custom programs and lists, or even a wiki if you’d prefer that format. I’m happy to give you admin access. You’ll just need to take over the management and maintenance.

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@Joslet_Nicolas - love the enthusiasm and offer of help!

Given your extensive Linux expertise, I’m wondering whether a good approach might be for you to put together a kind of ‘how to run a Linux install & support party’ protocol in a separate doc (e.g. on a NextCloud instance?). That way you can write up the info you’ve shared as a single, cohesive reference resource that could then be incorporated into (or linked to from) a toolkit for community groups who want to offer specialist support for visitors grappling with Windows 10 EoL.

What do you think? :slight_smile:

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That’s actually exactly what I’ve been doing from the start, haha. I manage several servers and I plan to give access to the files and ISOs through your structure, because I’d rather not end up with 5,500 downloads per day on the kit!

I’ll take care of it when I’m back. I’m traveling tomorrow, but I’ll have some time to map things out and think it through.

To be honest, it’s not so much about:

“Given your extensive Linux expertise”

It’s more that I install and maintain dedicated servers myself. I own several and configure them personally. I could also offer to help set up homelabs or dedicated servers for Repair Cafés (using mini-PCs or older machines locally).

But hey, it’s totally up to you. It’s completely free, and it could really make a difference for a lot of people.

Would you like me to send you the Git repo and the ISO repository in private?

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Joslet - you obviously have expert knowledge that spans a wide area. Are you a corporate IT professional? Your advice and suggestions ARE appreciated - very much so. If anything - you can give a lot of information very quickly - and that takes some time to digest.

Taking your advice I’m now trying Ventoy and like what it can do. It can be a great Swiss army knife of diagnostics & distros. But I also see its limitations with secure boot. I don’t normally test memory - but I should - and will. Same with hard drives - I normally only test those for our own use. I didn’t see GSmartControl or Smartmontools in your toolkit - but now I see it’s in the GParted ISO.

I’m OK with a big toolkit for repair events. If someone is familiar with the tools - or happy to skill-up - good. But I don’t think anyone should be forced to.

To save downloads from your servers - could you just list the components and people can make up their own?

To explain my situation: the organisation where I work was founded as a charity shop with a heavy environmental focus. The repair cafe came later - and last year most repair efforts (plus office admin) shifted to another site - so I’m basically the IT for a big charity shop. We get computers donated. With good laptops I put Mint on them and pass them on to our House to Home program. Desktops we sell in the shop - where there can be legal issues reselling with Windows or MacOS installed - hence Linux.

After repeatedly pointing out the embodied carbon in digital devices relative to other items for repair & reuse the management have taken on board the importance of this side of what we do.

As far as VMs (or PXE) go - we have one very tired old HP server running ESXi and some CRM software. There isn’t even a monitor attached & I mainly interact via ssh. However - there are a couple of Core 2 Duos here used as server test-beds & for switchover. I’ll look at setting up one with 2GB memory, an old hard drive - and try that.

With power management I thought it should be important as most devices brought to repair cafes are portable - battery powered. I’ve seen devs describe FOSS power management drivers as “a mess” (despite help from Intel). This on YouTube gives a quick run down of one aspect - Intel’s Speed Shift and how even Windows was slow to implement support for it. So - it’s still something I’d like to at least take a look at.

I keep thinking back to what Monique said about the repair cafe volunteer that declined a Linux install because they didn’t know how. I want to work with their level & how to empower them - even if it means just recommending the one Linux that’s most likely to work with all hardware.

Sorry for any lag with my responses - but your daytime is my night-time - and visa versa.

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Hi @Len,

I’ve worked in IT for various associations, companies, and small businesses, and I was also an independent reseller for some time. I still manage quite a few things on the side. I’m 43 now, and I’ve been working in this field since I was 16. When something grabs my attention, I go all in and I guess you could say I’m a bit hyperactive (so much hyper) :smile:

Currently, I’m involved with two non-profit organizations (ASBLs), one of which is focused on Repair Cafés and social initiatives. My wife has taken over my former company and handles IT, hosting, servers, and so on in the evenings.

Regarding Secure Boot, it’s generally only found on more modern machines or in rare cases, on slightly older ones. It’s always recommended to disable it before reinstalling any operating system, including Windows. It’s considered good practice to back up your BitLocker key or encryption data via the BIOS, then disable Secure Boot before proceeding with installation. Too often, people reinstall systems in “UEFI-only” mode but the combi “Legacy/UEFY” is the best, like MBR and GPT, go MBR, which can make it very difficult or even impossible to recover or repair the system in case of failure.

Just to be clear, this is not about forcing anyone to follow a particular method, it’s simply about offering helpful advice. Everyone is free to follow or ignore these recommendations. We’ll never demand that anyone stick to a specific “cheat sheet”. The goal is to share best practices while recognizing that other methods may also work or not.

As for your comment about potential legal issues with reselling computers with Windows or macOS preinstalled. I was a bit surprised. Generally speaking, if you purchase a machine with a preinstalled OS, and the original user sells the device, everything tied to that machine is included in the sale. That’s basic commercial law, and there’s legal precedent to support it. In my experience with various organizations, if we had to worry about those kinds of legalities every time, we’d go crazy, especially with machines from the US, China, France, Germany, each with their own systems and rules.

About your plan to set up a system with 2 GB of RAM and an old hard drive that’s great. You could even use it to host tools over the local network, or create a simple intranet site with all the reference materials for others to access when you’re not around. Something like a local README.html, organized wiki-style.

As for power management, especially battery handling… Yes, it’s a topic worth exploring. But if you stick to lightweight distributions that are optimized to minimize system load, you won’t have any issues. For example, we install Debian Server on mini-PCs or Raspberry Pi units for our backup servers. Power usage is typically between 25W and 75W, and once configured, we rarely go above 14W even under full load, 4w in idle for my personnal Debian server and 9 to 15w when i use distant desktop with apps open. Even when we add KDE, GNOME, or XFCE for local or remote desktop access, there’s no real increase in power consumption.

However, for laptops, yes the battery usage is more directly managed by the OS. Windows handles this natively, and Linux does too, but some distros are more power-hungry than others. In that regard, Linux Mint, while very user-friendly, tends to be quite heavy. It usually consumes 15 to 30% more resources than lighter, more optimized alternatives built specifically for older hardware.

And no worries at all, @Len, the beauty of the internet is that it brings people together across time zones. I work both during the day and at night, so I’m sure we’ll find plenty of chances to connect in real time!

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It would be helpful if you gave additional information. I have been using Ventoy for several years now, installing it to USB drives using the command line from within Linux.
Maybe the error you got comes from the ISO itself, or maybe from the computer you are trying to start. This is why details matter.
Maybe here is not the right forum to talk about it and would need a thread of its own?

40

Hello,
While I am new on this forum, I must say I find all your information most interesting. I am myself a long time Linux user (several distros along the years) and I totally get what you bring in terms of know how, it is impressive.

For example, in another post you told about Geekbench, I didn’t know about that one, I will give it a try (out of curiosity).

You also talk about checking the power supplies, which is a good idea, when a repair cafe is going on. (I can’t come to any, I’m too far away, in the South of France).

But would you happen to know about some soft tools to check power supplies? Maybe it exists somewhere? (I know about “acpi -i” for the laptop batteries, but it isn’t always as reliable as we could hope for).

I noticed you consider Debian as difficult at Archlinux, for end-users, I would not say that. I know of at least 2 derivatives which make it easy. There is a stable Debian 12 which is branded with the LXDE desktop, very easy and light, and there is “Debian Facile” (Debian made easy), plus documentation.

Here is the doc: https://debian-beginners-handbook.arpinux.org/bookworm-en/the_beginners_handbook.html

It should be easy enough, I know the guy who writes them. The main pages are here: https://debian-beginners-handbook.arpinux.org/bookworm-en/index.html and https://salsa.debian.org/arpinux/debian-beginners-handbook
The “Debian Facile” distro, available is 64 and 32bits: https://debian-facile.org/projets:iso-debian-facile
(The page is in French, not sure about the ISOs).

All Debian 12 (stable) ISO images 64bits, with various common desktops can be found here: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/ (not that easy to find… in the big Debian website!)
I can’t find the same for i386 though (32bits), the closest I could find is the old stable:
https://get.debian.org/images/archive/11.11.0-live/i386/iso-hybrid/

Debian Facile is something interesting to be tested. Originally it has been created for a computer club where very shy users attend. It has been meant and developped with the people’s asks from that club.

Last, not least, I have started some time ago to work on a project meant to kind of replace traditional benchmarking and information collection on the computer’s hardware, in order to make it easy for all, under the shape of a lightweight dedicated Live Linux. (Not everybody knows how to use UBCD, SystemRescueCD, or Parted Magic, or Hiren’s boot CD, they are so advanced, they can be intimidating).

It is not fully ready yet, but I hope it will be within the next few months, along with a documentation on how to use it.

The reason why I find your insights very interesting, is because I have been to a few Linux install parties along the years, and a few years ago ended thinking : “we can’t go on like that”. Once, I was tasked to help a guy who had brought an old laptop, but I was unable to do anything with the machine which had a 512MB RAM and if I remember well had a Pentium III CPU. (I had tried to boot a the distro I had… But unexpectedly I didn’t have the right one : It was sooo slow… )

This is when I started to think we should really start with testing the machines, and gathering basic information on the brand/model and components within, before getting into any install project.
It would be even better if we can have the opportunity to open some of the cases to dust them out, maybe change the thermal paste when the machine is around 10 years old. Lately, I am changing CPU’s, RAM and switch current disks to SSD’s, additionnally to providing Xubuntu, Ubuntu, and Bento Openbox Remix versions, and sometimes MX-Linux, when better fitted.