Installing Linux on Slow Windows 11 Laptop?

Hello,
Yes I m talking about that. Isn't this thread about that topic?
I mean that Windows has a virtualized subsystem allowing to install a Linux. and also Android apps.
In my case the install of Linux Ubuntu fails in a black cmd type screen

I think I found the problem and the solution :

BUT... I had another message error. I had to do an update...
once done I launched Ubuntu and : it fails again with complicated messages. I give up :)

Anyway i don t see a real utility of using a Linux under windows. May be some people will tel me what they do with that.
Oh I know : it can be useful for developers.

This thread is about repurposing older laptops....

misterpas said:

Hello,
Yes I m talking about that. Isn't this thread about that topic?
I mean that Windows has a virtualized subsystem allowing to install a Linux. and also Android apps.
In my case the install of Linux Ubuntu fails in a black cmd type screen

I think I found the problem and the solution :

Installation Failed with Error 0x8007019e · Issue #2982 · microsoft/WSL

Your Windows build number: Microsoft Windows [版本 10.0.17107.1000] What you're doing and what's happening: D:\>ubuntu Installing, this may take a few minutes... Installation Failed! Error: 0x8007019...

github.com

BUT... I had another message error. I had to do an update...
once done I launched Ubuntu and : it fails again with complicated messages. I give up :)

Anyway i don t see a real utility of using a Linux under windows. May be some people will tel me what they do with that.
Oh I know : it can be useful for developers.

Click to expand...

newmann said:

I bought this cheap slow windows 11 laptop because I wanted to test some things and didn't want to spend a lot on it.


But does linux mint cinnamon... will it be very fast web browsing and watching video and streaming? Similar to chromebook with same specs or not?

Click to expand...

Hello newmann,

I have been a long-time user of Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop option (my preferred) on some old pc's for a long time now.
My suggestion is to just build a Linux Mint/Cinnamon usb install flash drive. That's fairly easy. Boot from it. You will see on the screen two logos... Live logo and Install logo. Click on the Live logo and you will be using Linux Mint from the flash drive. It will not be installed to your hdd. This way you can test it out whenever you like and see how it behaves on your pc. This is how I have become acquainted with the various Linux distributions without installing on my computers hdd. Simple.

Good luck.

What @mackie said.

I've done this a very long time too. Linux Mint With Cinnamon Desktop will definitely run better than Windows 10/11. Best part is that it will almost behave the same as Windows, so you will be welcomed with a familiar "face" right out of the box.

Grab Linux Mint ISO-image, then Grab RUFUS, and use RUFUS to write that ISO image to a USB thumbdrive. Then boot up computer from that thumbdrive and run Linux for a while from there. Just like mackie said. After that you can decide to install it, wiping any Windows partitions and have a decent laptop that works quite well.

Okay guys, a mistake of mine, I believed that this forum was only about Widows Eleven. I m new here. For an old PC I would personally pick up Linux Mint. Nice and light.

SlicEnDicE said:

What @mackie said.

I've done this a very long time too. Linux Mint With Cinnamon Desktop will definitely run better than Windows 10/11. Best part is that it will almost behave the same as Windows, so you will be welcomed with a familiar "face" right out of the box.

Grab Linux Mint ISO-image, then Grab RUFUS, and use RUFUS to write that ISO image to a USB thumbdrive. Then boot up computer from that thumbdrive and run Linux for a while from there. Just like mackie said. After that you can decide to install it, wiping any Windows partitions and have a decent laptop that works quite well.

Click to expand...

Mount iso as drive, copy files to fat32 usb. Who needs overrated Rufus?

May I suggest installing Android-x86 and turn your old laptop into a large tablet with keyboard and mouse? See that: Android-x86 - Porting Android to x86

However, I can suggest some tricks to speed up a slow computer.

First of all make sure you have installed all your drivers, including the graphics drivers. Don't rely on Windows Update. Some times Windows Update cannot detect your old Intel graphics adapter and installs Microsoft Basic Display Adapter instead. This is the equivalent of the good old "Standard VGA adapter" in Windows XP, Vista and 7. That is you have zero hardware acceleration, every graphic effect is done by the CPU and makes the laptop look much slower than it actually is.

Assuming you have installed all the latest drivers directly from manufacturer, including the proper graphics drivers, then you must disable all useless visual effects that consume resources and slow down the computer. Start by going to Settings, Accessibility, Visual Effects and disable both transparency and fades. You will notice immediately some performance improvement. Now go to Settings, System, Info and then click on Advanced System Settings. Go to the Performance tab and uncheck all the visual effects such as fades, animations, windows contents while dragging etc. I leave only the shadows at the menus, desktop icons and mouse pointer so it won't be completely ugly. This should improve performance a little more.

Next is to make sure the page file is handled automatically by Windows so it never goes out of memory.

Next is to stop all startup applications. Right-click on the start button and select Task Manager. Click to show more and then go to the Startup tab. Uncheck all boxes and restart. You don't need Chrome or Edge, Adobe Reader, Google Updater and many others to load at startup. You can run them manually only when you need them. Restart the computer, you should see a little improvement. Also uninstall any unwanted applications so you free up resources.

Also if you use a free third party antivirus or malware tool, uninstall it. Windows Defender does a good job with minimum resources. If you have paid for the Antivirus, too bad, at least configure carefully the shields to spend as little resources as possible. Needless to say you should NOT have more than one antivirus installed because one checks the other and double delay the system. That is valid also for McAfee and other "security" tools that are installed alongside other applications. Remove all this rubbish.

I hope that helps. Please TRY these first because you argue Windows 11 is very slow compared to Linux. You know why? Because Linux doesn't load all these apps in the background and certainly doesn't have all these visual effects. So try my suggestions and then compare to make the comparison fair.

cereberus said:

Mount iso as drive, copy files to fat32 usb. Who needs overrated Rufus?

Click to expand...

That would work on an UEFI system yes...

Hello spapakons,

I wasn't aware about Android-x86. Interesting,,, another option for the day when Windows 10 support ends in 2 years, and whenever Windows 11 becomes completely unavailable to unsupported computers (whenever that may happen).

I looked at this video, where Rufus is used with Android-x86 to make a bootable usb flash drive. I see that we can run Android without installing it if we want to just check it out, so that is good. I like Linux Mint, but I will have to try it sometime, just out of curiosity. Thanks for pointing that out.

SlicEnDicE said:

That would work on an UEFI system yes...

Click to expand...

It works on an old legacy bios pc provided you mark partition active using diskpart as well. I never use legacy bios anymore - my main laptop does not even recognise legacy bios installations.

mackie said:

Hello spapakons,

I wasn't aware about Android-x86. Interesting,,, another option for the day when Windows 10 support ends in 2 years, and whenever Windows 11 becomes completely unavailable to unsupported computers (whenever that may happen).

I looked at this video, where Rufus is used with Android-x86 to make a bootable usb flash drive. I see that we can run Android without installing it if we want to just check it out, so that is good. I like Linux Mint, but I will have to try it sometime, just out of curiosity. Thanks for pointing that out.

Click to expand...

For very old hardware download an older Android version such as 6.0 or even 4.4

spapakons said:

For very old hardware download an older Android version such as 6.0 or even 4.4

Click to expand...

My laptop failed miserably trying to install Android-x86 - just crashing at installation stage.

Interestingly, it installs fine it installs fine as a gen 1 legacy bios installation in Hyper-V.

If 64-bit version fails, try the 32-bit version. Also if Android 9.0 fails try an earlier version.

spapakons said:

If 64-bit version fails, try the 32-bit version. Also if Android 9.0 fails try an earlier version.

Click to expand...

I cannot run 32 bit version on my pc as UEFI only.

I was only trying out of curiosity - it is better for me to run it in a Hyper-V VM anyway.