Hello. I bought a new computer recently, and the computer I’m replacing is still good, but it only works as a tablet now. I’m considering putting Linux on it, but would it be worth it or should I get rid of my old computer? Thanks!
You haven’t given any useful info. What are the specs? What do you plan to use it for? Media? Gaming? Data storage? Please be more specific.
It’s a Lenovo 2 in 1, 256gb hard drive, windows 11. I’d be using for browsing, media. I’d be using my newer computer more but the old computer would be a backup. I’d mostly use it to try out Linux distro.
Unfortunately this type of computer (2 in 1, x86 tablets, etc.) has generally very limited IO and a strange BIOS configuration (32-bits UEFI) that makes installing Linux more difficult than on a normal laptop (not impossible though).
You will need to provide us with the exact model you have in order to know exactly what’s ahead of you.
Linux will run it no problem, but as soon as you open a web browser it might die
I’ve done this with almost every computer I’ve built/owned from MacBooks to desktops, and it depends on your use. Want to use it to spin up say a small private nextcloud/plex/lemmy/Remote Desktop/NAS/whatever server? usually works pretty well! if you have no use for the computer then it could be worth it to just get your feet wet in linux/FreeBSD/HaikuOS or something like that. Otherwise it’s probably better to just recycle or sell it if it’s just going to collect dust either way.
In general, the hardware on consumer devices is not as well supported as on business devices. And actually, older stuff is better supported than new devices. Anything between 1 and 10 years old should be ok. You can always try out Linux on USB before installing to confirm if stuff like touch, the camera, fingerprint reader or automatic display orientation work.
Mint MATE is good for old computers, but I wonder you’d need to configure the tablet-like “touch” input manually and that could be some work.
I’ve found touch input to work OOTB in most cases, what I’ve had issues with though is screen orientation detection 😟
It’s pretty difficult to poke around with when the tablet is slow, I peronally gave up trying to create a new rotation config for an older Atom tablet
LXDE Debian 12 or Lubuntu LTS. Anything else and either it will have bad compatibility, difficulty in usage or crashes or update borking.
GNOME has great touch support if you want to use Ubuntu LTS GNOME, but it is a bit generally heavy (still lighter than Xfce or KDE).
In my experience, gnome is not heavier than KDE at all
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Xubuntu or Fedora will do you fine
You should be able to boot from an SD card, a USB drive, or a CD to try out Linux without actually installing it on your computer’s hard drive.
