Chromebook

[Cactus Chef]

Quite a big ask to tell a 93 year old to learn Linux just to get Calibre working on a Chromebook. I don't like proselytizing Linux in general, but this feels egregious, IMO.

Again, if calibre is literally the only reason why he needs Linux, I'd personally just sticking with a bog-standard Chromebook (rather than the developer-specific options that some other people are suggesting) and get some purpose-built hardware on the side just for handling calibre. Look at a mini PC, a Mac Mini, an old chunky laptop, etc. Hell, a Raspberry Pi with a sufficiently large SD card or an external USB HDD could probably do it.

I went through a Windows Purge in my household some years ago, except for my living room HTPC, whose sole job is to boot Windows and run Kodi. I've been meaning to even wipe that one too (because every time I boot the gosh-darn thing it spends the first hour pegged at 90% CPU while Windows updates and anti-malware scans run against my will in the background), as soon as I can figure out how to migrate the Kodi database to a Linux install. But the point being, it's fine remaining a Windows device for the moment, because it's only got to run the one thing, and my overall frustration/interaction with Windows is minimal.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

To be honest, Linux scares me. I went to the Mint site and and thought about drivers for my printer, monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. I have an old Windows 10 desktop so I suppose I could try it on that

I see there is no Calibre app for Android

Just to add a little bit more info for you, I have a 10 year old lenovo laptop, a dell desktop and a 7-10 year old Toshiba laptop/ netbook thingy, I've installed Mint on all of them and all of them connected to the wifi with no problems and all connected to my HP all in one laser printer (by USB) without the need to manually install any drivers (it installed and connected automatically) if you did run into any problems the Mint forum is full of very knowledgeable, friendly and super helpful people, in fact if you joined and gave them the specs of your equipment (computer and printer) they would probably be able to tell you if there could be any compatibility issues before you even contemplate installing Mint.

Calibre works wonderfully with Mint in my experience (that's what I use my desktop for exclusively)

[The Old Man]

With all due respect a few of the posts here demonstrate exactly why I will forget Linux. No offense intended and I appreciate your interest. My old Win 10 desktop runs Calibre and removes DRM so I had better keep that. Here's the Chromebook I like:

Acer Chromebook Plus 514 Laptop w/ Google AI (14" FHD Touchscreen, Intel 8-Core i3-N305, 8GB RAM, 640GB Storage, 2TB Cloud Storage) Business, Student, 11-Hr Long Battery Life, 1080p Webcam, Chrome OS.
From Amazon, $314.48, only 11 left in stock Tried to enter a link and it was like 11 pages long.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Quite a big ask to tell a 93 year old to learn Linux just to get Calibre working on a Chromebook. I don't like proselytizing Linux in general, but this feels egregious, IMO.

That's a difficult one- I totally understand what you are saying but all I can say is I am the most computer illiterate person you are probably going to find, in fact I pretty much hate computers, I don't use them day to day (no need in my job) and I dont understand them at all. In my experience Linux Mint has been by a long long way the easiest computer OS I have ever used and the only one where I haven't had problem after problem, the odd glitch I have had has been quickly solved by the Mint community. But I am only a very basic computer user so that may have something to do with it.

Just to clarify you say in your post (see above) "learn Linux just to get Calibre working on a Chromebook" I know what you mean there but for clarity I just want to point out you can't get Mint installed on a Chromebook (at least not without a lot of jiggery pokery)

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

With all due respect a few of the posts here demonstrate exactly why I will forget Linux. No offense intended and I appreciate your interest. My old Win 10 desktop runs Calibre and removes DRM so I had better keep that. Here's the Chromebook I like:

Acer Chromebook Plus 514 Laptop w/ Google AI (14" FHD Touchscreen, Intel 8-Core i3-N305, 8GB RAM, 640GB Storage, 2TB Cloud Storage) Business, Student, 11-Hr Long Battery Life, 1080p Webcam, Chrome OS.
From Amazon, $314.48, only 11 left in stock Tried to enter a link and it was like 11 pages long.

No offense taken It's not for everyone, I always mention it just to give people options but it isn't suitable for everyone, no point installing something you aren't going to enjoy using!

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

With all due respect a few of the posts here demonstrate exactly why I will forget Linux. No offense intended and I appreciate your interest. My old Win 10 desktop runs Calibre and removes DRM so I had better keep that. Here's the Chromebook I like:

Acer Chromebook Plus 514 Laptop w/ Google AI (14" FHD Touchscreen, Intel 8-Core i3-N305, 8GB RAM, 640GB Storage, 2TB Cloud Storage) Business, Student, 11-Hr Long Battery Life, 1080p Webcam, Chrome OS.
From Amazon, $314.48, only 11 left in stock Tried to enter a link and it was like 11 pages long.

This one?

640GB was certainly a strange hard-drive size until I saw that it's a 512GB SSD with a 128GB SD card. I would probably glance around at the other options to see how much you're saving on that deal--it does Ship from Amazon but it's Sold by a third-party seller called "Issaquah Highlands Tech". You might want to check what kind of warranty comes with the device, and whether it would be better to get one directly from Amazon/directly from the manufacturer.

Otherwise, it looks fine to me from a Chromebook perspective. I'm not wild on the Google AI (especially if you were fleeing Windows for similar reasons), and I'd caution against you getting too attached to that 2TB cloud storage, because it looks like it's only for one year. But otherwise 512GB SSD should be sufficient for everything you need to do with it. Even my calibre library can fit on that...

[The Old Man]

Thanks. Without the deal it’s about $400.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

To be honest, Linux scares me. I went to the Mint site and and thought about drivers for my printer, monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. I have an old Windows 10 desktop so I suppose I could try it on that

I see there is no Calibre app for Android

Download Linix Mint LIVE CD (or the Flash drive version if you have a blank 8G+ drive) and give it a test spin. Yo don't need to install.

IMHO it does pretty well unless you have some odd devices. It handle my Brother networked Printers and Dell mother board graphics.
If it does not work... Erase the flash drive

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

To be honest, Linux scares me. I went to the Mint site and and thought about drivers for my printer, monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. I have an old Windows 10 desktop so I suppose I could try it on that

I see there is no Calibre app for Android

It's relatively easy to test Linux Mint with a Live USB thumb drive. That would be a way to test for compatibility with your printers, etc. You may be surprised at how well it works with most peripherals now. My father is 92 and uses Linux Mint every day. Even if (when?) you get the Chromebook, you might want to explore dual-booting Linux Mint and Windows on the older computer.

The Chromebook you're looking at sounds like it might do all you need, but you're stuck in "Googleland" unless you enable Linux on it (which is not that hard). So you're not completely stuck with just Chrome OS. And you may be perfectly happy with what Chrome OS offers "out of the box."

Good luck.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Quite a big ask to tell a 93 year old to learn Linux just to get Calibre working on a Chromebook. I don't like proselytizing Linux in general, but this feels egregious, IMO.

My father is 92 and uses Linux Mint every day.

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Again, if calibre is literally the only reason why he needs Linux, I'd personally just sticking with a bog-standard Chromebook (rather than the developer-specific options that some other people are suggesting) and get some purpose-built hardware on the side just for handling calibre. Look at a mini PC, a Mac Mini, an old chunky laptop, etc. Hell, a Raspberry Pi with a sufficiently large SD card or an external USB HDD could probably do it.

It's really not that hard to enable Linux on a ChromeBook and you don't need a lot of space or to be in developer mode. So, while I agree it's probably easier to keep the old computer for Calibre in the interim, there may come a time when it would be nicer to install Calibre in Linux and use the Chromebook as the single solution. That option would definitely be open with the Chromebook mentioned here.

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I went through a Windows Purge in my household some years ago, except for my living room HTPC, whose sole job is to boot Windows and run Kodi. I've been meaning to even wipe that one too (because every time I boot the gosh-darn thing it spends the first hour pegged at 90% CPU while Windows updates and anti-malware scans run against my will in the background), as soon as I can figure out how to migrate the Kodi database to a Linux install. But the point being, it's fine remaining a Windows device for the moment, because it's only got to run the one thing, and my overall frustration/interaction with Windows is minimal.

It seems like Windows has become more and more intrusive. I haven't used it as my main OS in 19 years, but even the little things I do with it on my Windows partitions (mostly just updating, because I use it so rarely) is a pain. And I still support it on my wife's computers. I definitely do not like what they are doing with Windows 11. Recall, in itself, is enough reason to jettison Windows (in my opinion).

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by theducks

Download Linix Mint LIVE CD (or the Flash drive version if you have a blank 8G+ drive) and give it a test spin. Yo don't need to install.

IMHO it does pretty well unless you have some odd devices. It handle my Brother networked Printers and Dell mother board graphics.
If it does not work... Erase the flash drive

Basically everything I have is an "old device." I'm typing this on a Dell Optiplex 9020m (micro — basically a laptop without a keyboard or screen, or battery. I like it because it's low power and quiet and, since I don't play games on, it has plenty of power for what I do). This computer was originally released ten years ago (early 2015). My printer/scanner is a Samsung SCX-4623FW which came out in 2010 and it's still working fine. The printer automatically installs, but I do have to make one configuration change for the scanner (the scanner component was made by Xerox).

At any rate, Linux Mint seems good for old devices as well. And it definitely runs faster and quieter than Windows on this machine.

[Hasdrubal_Lector]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

To be honest, Linux scares me. I went to the Mint site and and thought about drivers for my printer, monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. I have an old Windows 10 desktop so I suppose I could try it on that

I see there is no Calibre app for Android

Chrome OS is Linux, and so is Android OS. Nothing scary there, eh? Drivers are easier with Mint than with Windows in my experiences. The difficulty comes with trying to dual boot-- that is to have both Windows and Mint on the same hard drive. Microsoft has made this very difficult. Easiest thing is get a new solid state drive for your desktop and install Mint on it. Set the hard drive with Windows on it aside. You can always get an enclosure for it to use it as an external drive for extra storage and backups. If the Mint is not to your liking, just put the windows drive back in the desktop and use the new drive as extra storage backup and get the Chromebook. Choices are always good.

I gave up on Windows with the Vista release and started with Ubuntu then moved to Mint. The learning curve for Mint these days is very gentle. If you were comfortable with Windows 7, Mint will be very easy. There is no harm in making a USB flash with the Mint on it to give it a test spin before installing.

At any rate, this is a good program for Windows to create the bootable flash, https://rufus.ie/en/ and this is the Mint ISO to use, https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php get the cinnamon desktop.

[The Old Man]

Originally Posted by rcentros

It's really not that hard to enable Linux on a ChromeBook and you don't need a lot of space or to be in developer mode. So, while I agree it's probably easier to keep the old computer for Calibre in the interim, there may come a time when it would be nicer to install Calibre in Linux and use the Chromebook as the single solution. That option would definitely be open with the Chromebook mentioned here.

So, if I go with the Chromebook and find I don’t like it I could, perhaps, install Linux? I like that thought. And if things go south I’m only out $300.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Basically everything I have is an "old device." I'm typing this on a Dell Optiplex 9020m (micro — basically a laptop without a keyboard or screen, or battery. I like it because it's low power and quiet and, since I don't play games on, it has plenty of power for what I do). This computer was originally released ten years ago (early 2015). My printer/scanner is a Samsung SCX-4623FW which came out in 2010 and it's still working fine. The printer automatically installs, but I do have to make one configuration change for the scanner (the scanner component was made by Xerox).

At any rate, Linux Mint seems good for old devices as well. And it definitely runs faster and quieter than Windows on this machine.

I am typing this on a Optiplex 9020 (i7 not W11 ready) and it is my main Calibre Library.
My intake is on a Optiplex 780 (someting is off, as it is as DMA is not functioning), But it will boot Mint.
I also have a really ancient (c 2003) L675. The newest is a Brother Color MFC

Mint is more like W7 I frequently use (from live CD) GPARTED to move around drive partitions

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

So, if I go with the Chromebook and find I don’t like it I could, perhaps, install Linux? I like that thought. And if things go south I’m only out $300.

You might be able to "install" Linux over Chrome OS (depends on the Chromebook). But I'm talking about the ability to just enable Linux. Debian is built right into Chromebooks. You just go to Settings -> Advanced -> Developers and then you'll see the ability to enable the "Linux Environment." (It's a built-in virtual machine Debian Linux, but since Chrome OS is Linux anyhow, it runs a bit cleaner than some virtual machine OSes.) Decide how much memory you want to give it and Chrome OS takes care of the rest. (Note the "Developers" above is not the same as "Development Mode," which is what you have to get into if you wanted to install Linux (provided Acer allows it). Going into "Develop Mode" requires resetting the Chromebook — it's much move involved than just enabling Linux.

The version of Linux (Debian) uses the Chrome File application for installing applications and it doesn't (by default) come with a standard Linux desktop — I think it can be added, but I've never done that. I normally use the apt commands to install DOSBox-X and run DOS programs. On my old Chromebook I use it for WordStar 7 for DOS and Script Thing for DOS. I run Trelby under Linux on the old Dell 3189 Chromebook. This is my remaining Chromebook as I decided that an old Dell Latitude running Linux Mint was a better solution.

Sorry for rambling. Probably too much information. It's actually easier to do than explain.