Zorin OS - trying to bring an old laptop back into use.

This is a Compaq Presario CQ57-301SA laptop, a now elderly machine, dating from the back end of 2011. I recall getting it as part of a mobile phone contract bundle that seemed to make sense at the time and, to be fair to the Compaq, for the three years it saw use, it was good enough.

A sneaky shot of the dining room ceiling as well... you lucky people.

Equipped with an AMD E-300 1.3GHz CPU and Radeon graphics, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, this is not exactly a powerhouse. Indeed, with the bundled Windows 7 Home Edition, the machine's performance would be best described as stately. It was never a primary machine but did act as a good back up device even if it wasn't exactly a lightweight, weighing in at a smidge over 2.5Kg not including the 200g needed for the power adapter. The screen is a 15.6 inch 1366x768 number, which is average at best. You do, however, get a decent sized keyboard which is alright to use - not earth-shatteringly good but better than some laptops I have experienced. The touchpad is something else though, dimpled plastic that feels uncomfortable to use and is really not nice. As for the mouse buttons, they are loose and unresponsive unless you click them just right. Needless to say, as soon as this was brought home, a mouse was attached. The build quality is, again with that word, average. Plastic, but sturdy enough though there is some give around the centre of the hinge area that adds doubt as to this machine's ability to bounce. It's certainly lasted over the years with just a few scratches and marks but nothing that affected the operation of the machine. One nice thing to see is that the keyboard is solidly placed in the case. There is nothing more concerning when typing than when the whole thing flexes even under the lightest of pressure. I have found some modern day laptops, especially some of the cheaper HP and Lenovo types, are plagued by this. Battery life was about three and a half hours when new but I am not expecting anything like that now, though it is replaceable.

Not a powerful machine, even when new.

Connectivity is standard for the era: three USB 2.0 ports, the usual RJ45 connector for 10/100 Ethernet, full size SD/MMC card slot, audio in and out, as well as a 15 pin VGA port. A tray loading DVD-ROM drive and Kensington lock complete the exterior. Under the base, you can access the hard drive and memory for any upgrades you want to perform, though you are limited to 8GB of RAM. A note on the installed RAM - you lose nearly a quarter to video RAM for the integrated graphics, and Win 7 Home was always a bit iffy with less than 2GB to itself.

So why mention this machine now? Well, it's pretty much sat in the corner of a room for the last five years with just the occasional switch on to see if it still works, which it does. However, the OS has not been updated in years and performance is such that it is painfully slow to use. Having said that, it could still be of use as a simple text entry/web browsing machine, even if the battery is such that you can't stray far from a mains socket. It could also double as a portable retro games machine, especially with the keyboard - a flaw with the Lenovo Yogabook I posted about earlier in the year. But it couldn't be any of those things with the existing Windows install - the limited RAM and under-powered CPU would see to that, never mind the lack of updates. As a self confessed hoarder, I didn't really want to chuck it and besides, it still works.

This is where Zorin OS comes in.

And no, not this Zorin!

Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that promises a switchable user experience to provide interfaces similar to Windows and MacOS in order to comfort the new user. There are four versions available: Ultimate (which will set you back 39 Euros), Education, Core and Lite (all of which are free). The first three require a 1GHz dual-core 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, between 10 and 20GB of storage and an 800x600 screen. The Lite version takes that entry spec even lower to a 700MHz single core 32-bit CPU, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of storage and a 640x480 screen. Given the limited specs of the Presario, I opted to test out the Lite version. A handy comparison of the different versions can be found here.

You can easily try out Zorin OS by downloading it from the their website and setting up a bootable USB drive. Instructions are easy to follow and it's simple to do. Once you have your USB drive ready, you then need to pop into your computer's BIOS to change the boot order so that the stick is picked up before the existing boot device (usually the hard drive or SSD that contains Windows). To do this, you'll need to press a specific key once you have switched on your computer - usually F1, Esc or, in this case, F10.

BIOS screen - bringing back DOS memories...

If you're not familiar to this style of screen, then I don't blame you. The sealed box style of computing popularised by Windows and MacOS means that you'll probably never have seen this before and I warn you now, if you do get curious, be careful. BIOS changes can cause more than a few problems, so with most of the options in here, if you don't need to change anything, don't!

For me, I just needed to change this menu so that when I plugged in the USB stick and powered the laptop on, it would boot off the Zorin OS image there. This was quickly done and I restarted the machine with the stick plugged in.

After a couple of minutes, I ended up with this - the Zorin OS desktop.

IT LIVES!!!

It looks nice, very relaxing in tone, familiar looking icons in familiar places and, to be honest, feels a bit more sprightly in use even though it's running off an old USB stick. This is a nice touch, by the way - you can try out the OS without nuking your existing OS install. After having a bit of a play about, I decided to go in for the full install - and yes, that meant no more Windows on the Presario.

Forty-five minutes later (it may be quicker for you given the age of the processor and the slow USB drive), the OS was installed and working fully. Wifi connectivity was just a password away and from there, it took another thirty five minutes to get all of the required updates installed. This was pretty much expected and didn't feel overly long.

There is a decent selection of software already installed (including Libre Office) but you have access to a respectable software store as well, which led me to FocusWriter, which I may come back to in a later post. There are hundreds of programs on here alone that could be useful to you and, of course, more if you search online via the included Firefox browser.

The Software Store.

In general use, while there are some pauses and stutters, these are nothing like the glacially slow experience of Win 7 on this machine. Boot up to a desktop (minus the time to input a password) is now less than 90 seconds. Some may scoff at that (and if this were anywhere near a modern spec, you perhaps should), but with Win 7, it was upwards for four minutes by the time the disk stopped thrashing. Not entirely sure what was going on there but the start up was as clean as I could make it. Even so, in use, it was terrible before, whereas now, it's perfectly usable as a basic productivity, web browsing and retro gaming machine (once I get RetroArch installed). In use, over the past week, the battery still seems to give about three and a half hours which, considering its age, is amazing. Also, if you're a person concerned with privacy and personal data collection, the team behind Zorin are quite proud to state clearly that they do not collect any private data about their users.

As for upgrades, I could double the RAM for less than £25 and the hard drive can easily be replaced by an SSD, something that would improve the responsiveness no end. OK, the processor is always going to be a drag on performance but hey, you can make little improvements here and there. All in all, not too bad for a nine year old basic spec machine. It'll certainly do.

And that, I think, is the point I am making here. I have seen quite a few people get rid of older Win 7 based computers because they believe that, as it's old and feels slow, it's clapped out, when all they need to do is try an alternative OS. The user experience is not that different, certainly not as jarring as moving from Windows to MacOS in my opinion, and unless you need specific software requirements (thinking Apple Music/iTunes), then you're pretty much covered for anything you need. The militant RISC OS user in me wants to scream out that you should be buying one of these from RISC OS Open for a tenner to see what proper alternative computing is all about, but practicalities in general use mean it's a bit more of a stretch for the average user - whatever constitutes an average user.

Give Zorin OS a try - you never know, you might like it. Of course, there are many more Linux distributions out there, but I picked this one because it caters for older hardware and tries to comfort new users to Linux. You don't have to be tied to Windows or MacOS if you take a little time and put a little thought into switching. I'm rather pleased with Zorin OS and having seen how well it performs on the Presario, I think it might be time to replace the old Ubuntu 11.10 install on my Asus Eee-PC...