Anyone have user experience with Toshiba Satellite laptops?

brent

BuzzPCSOS I think this is a fault with the installer rather than Solus as the same thing happens when installing some other OSs for the same reason. Anyone experienced enough to manually install their OS will never see this fault.

I never thought calmares was the be all to end all. I seen these consistencies before in that installer. I've seen it inconsistent in manual bare metals. It's light years from what Solus used to have but nothing is infallible.
I'm happy you cracked it. you putting Solus back on?

BuzzPCSOS

brent you putting Solus back on?

It is already rocking 4.6 and loving it. The manual install should work on your Toshibas too without any BIOS modification.

brent me too. do you leave it unallocated or give it the GPT format?

Not for your Toshibas though. MBR MS-DOS partitions only 😄

brent

Axios I was always one to clear the disk before installing new

me too. do you leave it unallocated or give it the GPT format?

Axios

brent Well with the old hard drives I would delete all partitions and make a new ntfs and format
it then delete that partition and install new most time that would work.
If that didnt yield results would do a disk wipe that would 99% time take care of it.
If that didnt yield results would test the disk and usually found issues.

But I do the first step with SSD (Of coarse you dont want to wipe a SSD)
To answer I leave it Unallocated That way nothing is on it.
(I Dunno Seems kinda unneeded but always got me out of sticky spots.)

Oh to comment on your calmares comment on their website they recommend you erase disk first.

BuzzPCSOS

Axios To answer I leave it Unallocated That way nothing is on it.

I tried that for my Toshiba but the installer always installs to GPT format. It was an oddball sure enough.

BuzzPCSOS

@brent @Axios Hopefully this might get sorted for the next iso. Spotted this which I didn't understand initially but now think makes a much better explanation of what the problem was and how to fix it. It looks like much of our research followed a parallel path

Axios

BuzzPCSOS That link makes sense maybe it will get corrected.
Brent I think has the original toshiba and you have the newer they sold out I think round 2012 or something
then came back.
So you know what that is always like with products.
Oh well put another check mark for ya..lol

Oh I agree this might be causing some others posting here the same problem

brent

BuzzPCSOS I read that while back. OP;s conclusion was MBR the wrong way to go. But he had a lot in common with your situation conceptually. Maybe Devs will revise Help Center with this knowledge. Probably better to have prescribed workaround than tamper with the guts of Calmares.

Axios Brent I think has the original toshiba and you have the newer they sold out I think round 2012 or something
then came back.
So you know what that is always like with products.
Oh well put another check mark for ya..lol

I will put them both in a box and mail them to you. They could double as sandbags for the high water.
They are upgradable to 8 but I don't have time time or money to get them there right now...that said Solus runs nice on one if I don't tax it...like open 2 tabs and an office doc...

BuzzPCSOS

brent I don't know what version Toshiba yours was other than using BIOS. Mine is a Satellite C660 with a i3 gen 3 CPU, 2Gb ram and originally shipped with win7.
4Gb of ram makes things much more responsive and an SSD improves general speed and performance greatly. Great for browsing and light use. Probably best not to try video editing or bitcoin mining on it though 😀

brent

BuzzPCSOS We aren't using either of them since I rebuilt my desktop; they are both in a box under the bed. 2GB just is not enough for a game of Solitaire..

..I think these would be great with 8-12GB in them so now I have to weigh RAM cost, install time [case has to be removed there is no memory access], money, availability...plus the hours of research I normally do before a task like that...

...or sell them $25 a piece for them on Craigslist.

I realize there are harder decisions in life than this 😀

BuzzPCSOS

brent Selling them is certainly an option, especially if you have problems getting at the hardware. I have since acquired another Toshiba with an older low performance AMD CPU. It seems to work well enough on 2GB for me, even running on a rusty disc.
Probably worth a look at the CPU spec as a decent processor could well justify a reclaimed SSD and a RAM upgrade especially if they are in excellent condition. For laptops I prefer i3 or i5 Intel CPUs. There were plenty of economy spec versions that were just a waste of space. Intel Celeron in all it's guises should be avoided as should Atoms, Pentiums and Core2duos.

brent

BuzzPCSOS Probably worth a look at the CPU spec as a decent processor could well justify a reclaimed SSD and a RAM upgrade

I did not consider this, thank you.

BuzzPCSOS have since acquired another Toshiba with an older low performance AMD CPU. It seems to work well enough on 2GB for me, even running on a rusty disc.

that's strange. my C-55 when I went into BIOS was about 2.3ghz which I also attribute to its lackadaisical performance.

BuzzPCSOS Intel Celeron in all it's guises should be avoided as should Atoms, Pentiums and Core2duos.

yes, these date back to the Compaq era! I'm glad you told me and SSD might improve things. I really value your technical input.

PLAN: Since partner does not want hers I am going to crack it open and take her Ram and add it to my laptop. and see of that changes anything. At least under the hood I can see which SSD type it will accommodate. I will report back. @Axios and when I put the new Ram in I will follow your contact-cleaning advice (eraser!).

brent

BuzzPCSOS
OK...........I cracked open both of these little bast**** and Bazinga! They only have one RAM slot. I was warned in my reading some might.

I did not notice anywhere for an SSD except for where the tiny HDD goes. It fit the width I think.

I think 16GB is the max on these C-55's I have to doublecheck, some say 8GB.

I have a couple fairly useless 2GB sticks in my hand. My choices, Buzz, are clear 2X8 or 2X16GB depending--one for each.
One RAM bay changes my thinking entirely. Might have to research if these are even SSD upgrade-able.
These could likely be the two most useless things in my house right now. Or above average in the end.

BuzzPCSOS

brent my C-55 when I went into BIOS was about 2.3ghz which I also attribute to its lackadaisical performance.

I was referring to RAM size, not CPU speed. A slow i3 is still better than a fast Celeron. Lots or RAM will usually help but Atom or Celeron processors still seem to need time to 'catch up' every so often. Don't know why.

brent I did not notice anywhere for an SSD except for where the tiny HDD goes. It fit the width I think.

The hard drive in this model is a standard 2.5" HDD which is a standard laptop item but much smaller than the 3.5" drives found in a desktop. Either way a 2.5" SSD will fit perfectly.
The extra RAM will give a performance boost but please make a check on what CPU you are running before getting too invested here. There are plenty of this type of laptop that ship on the budget end of the spectrum sporting the Intel inside label while carefully avoiding the Celeron label by giving the processor some complicated name instead. If the processor is worth spending time with it should clearly be identified as i3, i5 or i7.

brent

brent EDIT: now my reading says some C55s hide their 2nd Ram Slot under the keyboard. Good grief.

MORE EDIT: I'm watching a tech swap out a HDD for an SSS in this model so it can be done.

brent

BuzzPCSOS If the processor is worth spending time with it should clearly be identified as i3, i5 or i7.

thanks! will have a look later

brent

BuzzPCSOS There are plenty of this type of laptop that ship on the budget end of the spectrum sporting the Intel inside label while carefully avoiding the Celeron label by giving the processor some complicated name instead.

Intel Celeron 2.16 GHz is what I have X2.

The project to make either one of these laptops a dependable and reliable auxiliary computer is closed.
It pretty much is impossible. Glad they were free.
I don't think 8GB ram and and an SSD would greatly improve this do you? Or do you?
Last ditch here, and I value your opinion 🙂

BuzzPCSOS

brent It looks like from the specs of this model there are only a few CPUs fitted

Intel Core i3-4005U
Intel Pentium 2020M Less cores than i3. No hyper-threading. Slower
AMD A8-6410 Much slower than i3
AMD A6-4400M Much, much slower than an i3
I think that is basically how it spans out anyhow. Speed of the CPU fastest at the top, slowest at the bottom.

BuzzPCSOS

brent A Celeron is always going to be an economy processor no matter what you do to it.
If you were only wanting the one laptop I would seriously consider selling the two and then using the money to get one with a decent processor.
I use eBay to source computers that generally have Linux support. My personal favourite is Dell as they provide a Ubuntu option in addition to Windows which means that other distros will most likely work out of the box. They are often used in the offices of big companies so there is plenty of choice and the price is usually very fair.
I hope that helps.
Edit: If you are more familiar with desktop PCs it should be noted that like for like the mobile CPUs will always have a lower performance due to less efficient cooling, miniaturised components and battery conservation. If you want a laptop to perform well you will need to use the best CPU available depending on what you want to use it for. An Atom CPU is a low performer but is easy on batteries and cheap. An intel i7 will be fast and powerful but only the very recent iterations have returned reasonable battery consumption, it is also much more expensive. Strangely in the second hand computer marketplace the cost difference between high-end and economy seems to be much narrower.

WetGeek

brent Glad they were free.

There's always GoodWill.

brent

BuzzPCSOS Strangely in the second hand computer marketplace the cost difference between high-end and economy seems to be much narrower.

I've noticed that. As an Ebay hound, I've noticed used parts are often more than open box (never used).
Anyways. thanks for that great info.
The laptops were free and the models almost non-upgradable---what bad luck!! Hey, we tried.
It was a simple plan: take free laptop, give it new life as a daily performer. FAIL 🙁. Can't win
em all.
Will just stay with my desktop til another free laptop falls from the sky 🙂

BuzzPCSOS

brent In all fairness a Celeron will run Solus fairly well if you pop out the keyboard and put a donor RAM stick in there. The addition of an SSD would make most things happen about six times faster. It just wouldn't be as nice as with an i3 under the hood. Really depends on what you want to use it for.

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