So, as some of you may know, I’m very new to Linux and am really interested in taking the dive. However, I’ve noticed there are some pretty cool options for hardware out there. I was thinking one of these three options to put Linux Mint on:
Raspberry Pi 500+
Lenovo ThinkPad T480
Dual-Booting my current setup: Dell Inspiron 7440 2-in-1 w/ Windows 11. 16GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive. (Not sure how much I want to allocate though).
Notes:
I say the Raspberry Pi 500+ because I develop in Java, which uses quite a bit of memory and it has 16GB RAM right out the box, though it’s not readily available. Yet, I’m in no rush to buy it until I know for a fact I’m ready from all the research.
I hear the Lenovo is highly upgradable (I wonder if it depends on the version/hardware I have though).
Dual-Booting might save me the money and just having one laptop instead of two separate setups.
The more I learn about Linux, the more excited I’m becoming. Though I’ve been a lifetime Windows User due to the ease of flow with Windows (from my experience anyway), I was advised that developing in Linux is a significantly better experience than doing it on Windows.
So, I figured let’s have a little fun and ask the pros to guide this noobie here. Also, Idk much about Raspberry Pi yet. However, I hear that they are great for doing IoT projects. And, there’s a specific project I’m working on in which I wonder if the RP500+ will be able to do it all, or should I just get a separate unit for the IoT project to use as a controller. I’m doing a smart-home project if you’re wondering.
Thank you in advanced for the guidance in this journey.
Is it too easy an answer to say “yes” to all three options haha? I’m def not a pro, but I figured I’d thrown in a bit about my own journey.
My first experience with Linux was learning how to dual-boot with Windows XP and boy did I almost lose my Windows XP install as I had no idea what grub or a boot order was. I eventually dug myself out of the problem with a lot of googling and it taught me to be resourceful.
I have one of every generation Raspberry Pi, and I have fried one of them (should’ve paid more attention to the power adapter)! I picked up most of my experience on each of those Raspberry Pis as they were a cheap way for me to experiment and learn without fear of breaking anything too ridiculous or expensive. The ease of flashing a new image or buying a cheap SD card if things got out of hand was a great safety net. On my first Raspberry Pis, I relied heavily on the GUI, now my two Raspberry Pi 5s and Raspberry Pi 4 are entirely headless (as are 95% of my Linux devices). I don’t think I’d have the confidence or experience without them.
While my main PC is a desktop, I use a Lenovo Thinkpad T450s to supplement the work I do at my job (which forces a Windows PC) and it has run several flavors of Linux (Element OS, Solus, Ubuntu, and now Zorin) without a problem. I’ve only increased the RAM, so I can’t speak to how much more I could upgrade.
Anyways, sorry for the long ramble! TL;DR, my advice would be, use what you are comfortable with and have access to. As you learn more, expand. Find some older hardware/cheaper devices and experiment. Also, if your IoT project will require use of the GPIO pins, then I’d look to another Raspberry Pi option in addition to the RP500+. Good luck!
Hi @GC67 I agree with what @benowe1717 said: all three paths can work, and the best one really depends on what you want out of the experience.
Raspberry Pi 500+ is a great low-stakes way to experiment. If you end up breaking something, it’s easy to reflash and keep learning. But for heavier dev work, especially Java, the CPU might feel limiting despite the RAM. It would shine as a dedicated box for your smart-home project though.
ThinkPad T480 is one of the best bang-for-buck options for Linux. Excellent compatibility, easy to upgrade, and solid performance. If you end up loving Linux, this could become your daily driver without much hassle.
Dual-booting your Dell is the easiest starting point. With 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB drive, you can comfortably allocate 200–300 GB to Linux and keep Windows around. It’s a great way to learn without committing to new hardware!
Thank you two! I got everything running and it’s pretty fun manually setting up everything yourself. It’s so fast and my fans aren’t running so heavily now, which I like because my Windows was beginning to crash. I did purchase a laptop fan, but I’m out of town until the 18th. So, it’ll have to wait. But yeah this is pretty darn cool!
Hi, I figured I could chime in too. Pretty much supporting what the others have said.
I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 ( with 8GB RAM and according to htop, a 4 core processor? Maybe 4 threads) a couple of years ago and love it. I’ve loaded several distros, set it up as a samba drive, played around with a few other projects and it’s been great. I feel like i can break things and rebuild quickly so that gets me trying things. Although the samba drive with an external hard drive ran for something like 8 months without rebooting, so I fade in and out with trying things.
In the last month I’ve gone the ‘old laptop’ route. An Acer Aspire E1-532 with 8GB RAM and a dual core processor. reformatted everything and went full linux on it. Love this even more than the pi if I’m honest.
The #1 thing I’ve noticed is that with both setups, loading programs like firefox or other large apps can get quite laggy, and playing video is hit and miss. Lots of stutter depending on the video player / streaming service. The CPU gets maxxed out across all channels.
This is a super long way to say that, in my experience, processor speed / cores makes a big difference for video playback general ‘snappiness’ on the desktop.
But I’m also certain that there is lots of room for me to fine tune my setup as I learn more.
We can create a similar user experience by installing Ubuntu and then adding the Cinnamon desktop environment and other Mint tools manually. Alternatives like Raspberry Pi OS and also be used as the base OS, then install the Cinnamon DE and Mint tools.
I’m glad it’s working out.
I’m late to the party but I am also a multi boot geek.
My very first home computer was a Micron 100 Mhz system in 1995. How far we’ve come! On that system I dual booted right off the bat, ao that’s my bias. I bought books, read online, studied and didn’t do anything until I was ready.
Then I partitioned the system and had Windows For Workgroups 3.11 on the pre installed configuration.
So I made sure that it was in a continuous area, and I installed Slackware.
I also updated Windows to “Start Me Up” Windows 95 shortly after getting it going.
It all worked but I had to find a more up to date Slackware video driver. I did so, retrofitting it to the installed system and almost doubled the screen resolution and tripled the number of colors available.
