Laptop install

Hi folks

My daughter and son in law have a laptop the sucks and has the usual Wind Blows issues.

I have a hard copy of Zorin 7 ultimate and am wondering if the install on a good laptop will be any different than an install on a desktop ???

I want to do a clean install, will there likely be driver issues ??

I had zero issues with my Assus P5Q PRO TURBO in my desktop.
Everything was boom plop done.

I don't have a laptop yet, but wanted to scope this out first before getting one to work with.

Any recommendations are welcome

Snowy

I made a Zorin 8 Ultimate installation to my HP 530 laptop ca 2 months ago. I do not know is there any difference compared to Zorin 7 Ultimate from the installation point of view. I did not have any bigger problems to install it, however there was something that all did not work out of the box. First issue was that language selection crashed the installation process. Had to make the installation using English to avoid the installation to stop. The other thing was that internal WiFi did not start to work before I made some driver change by typing few terminal lines. Later on I got an advise that I should have had a network connected during installation. This was all to installation related.

There appeared to be after installation some instability issues related to AWN panel and to brightness control. The brightness setting crashes some times the os. so that I have to restart. The AWN problem is not related to installation to a laptop, it is a known weakness in that software.

My laptop is HP 530 where I have now both Ubuntu 13.10 and Zorin 8 Ultimate installed, There is now after upgrading a 320 Gb HDD , 2 Gb RAM and a 32 bit Intel Celeron M processor. The performance index from Windows was 3,1. when I had there still Windows Vista. The integrated graphic driver is not as good as the one in my desktop, so all effects from Combiz Config Manager does not work best possible way. There are ie. some distortion in the cube pictures when turning it around. I should say that there is still something that could work little better, but I am now 9/10 satisfaction level with Zorin 8 Ultimate on my laptop.

Warning! Zorin 7 reached its end-of-life at end of January this year! I would advise either dropping down to Zorin 6.0 for now then wait for the next LTS release which, all being well, should be Zorin 9, and will be based on Ubuntu 14.04 - usually 2-3 months after the main Ubuntu release!

Is there an issue with os7 ultimate

I have it on hard copy, running it on my desktop and have had zero issues with it.

Far and way better than anything I ever got from Wind Blows.

I found a nice HP Pavilion zd7000 CTO Notebook PC and am thinking about it.

I am not a laptop lover, but my daughter NEEDS to be acquainted with ZORIN

OK, it is just that you will not be able to get any security updates. Are you talking about a new Notebook with Windows 8.1 on it? If it is you may need to take a look here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6500

NO
Not new, couple years old or so.

Found a clean HP Pavilion zd7000 CTO Notebook PC for $99
With all the goodies.

I plan to do a clean install on the HDD and clean MS off the machine completely.

OK, I would go with the option of putting Zorin 6 Long Term Support on - then wait until Zorin 9 comes out a couple of months after Ubuntu 14.04 which will be a snappy replacement for 6! (I hope!)

Still something related to laptop installation compared to desktop. If using a desktop with a display that have a brightness
control of its own, so there aren't any problem. In the laptops however the brightness control often can be done only by going
to Systems setting and there to the Brightness setting. By default after installation it works so that the brightness are set
after every start to maximum value. The brightness setting does not keep its setting value over shut down. This means
that you have to make a setting after every start if you do not use the full brightness. That is not a big issue, but in my
case sliding the brightness down, now and then the operating system also crashes and you have to make a new start and go to
Brightness setting again. There is a possibility to make a software change to have a new scaling to brightness control, but
it does not solve the whole issue. Brightness control is more important in laptops to work properly than in desktops
to save the battery life. Hopefully this will be corrected to next release for convenience of laptop users so, that it will keep
the setting and does not crash the os..

Henriolavi wrote:Still something related to laptop installation compared to desktop. If using a desktop with a display that have a brightness
control of its own, so there aren't any problem. In the laptops however the brightness control often can be done only by going
to Systems setting and there to the Brightness setting. By default after installation it works so that the brightness are set
after every start to maximum value. The brightness setting does not keep its setting value over shut down. This means
that you have to make a setting after every start if you do not use the full brightness. That is not a big issue, but in my
case sliding the brightness down, now and then the operating system also crashes and you have to make a new start and go to
Brightness setting again. There is a possibility to make a software change to have a new scaling to brightness control, but
it does not solve the whole issue. Brightness control is more important in laptops to work properly than in desktops
to save the battery life. Hopefully this will be corrected to next release for convenience of laptop users so, that it will keep
the setting and does not crash the os..

I believe this has been a long standing issue with the GNU/Linux kernel - that is why I prefer Trisquel and LXLE - the Notebook does not get as hot as it did with Zorin/Zorin Lite!

So

Is this brightness issue really an issue ???
Every laptop I have ever owned did not get the brightness messed with ????

I left it where it was by default.

Snowy

As mentioned it is not a big issue if the brightness setting does not crash the system. It might be a inconvenience to make the setting after every start up, if the maximum value is not suitable to be used continuously. It is more or less question of the display in the computer, whether it is too bright to keep it continuously in the max. position. Also it takes the maximum power in that case and the battery does not keep it going long times. More problems will be if the brightness setting crashes the operating system.

I made a study if the function keys in my HB 530 will work to make the brightness setting instead of going to settings menu. Yes! it worked, so that issue might be solved by using the function keys if it works with that laptop you will buy. I believe that works being HP laptop too. At least that did not crash the system when I made the setting change using function keys. Only thing here is that it does not keep the setting either. It will be set to max. value after start. But it is easier to set using function keys than going to system settings menu.

You can look from the function keys whether there is a indication of brightness control in the f7 and f8 keys like I have. I believe it will also then work when pushing < fn + f7> and < fn + f8> (or some other fx) keys witch are used for that purpose .

There are also many other settigs in those <fn + fx> keys like voice level control and turning off/on of the display or voice and so on not even knowing what else ?? Some of those may work also in LInux.

OK

Yesterday I landed a near new Gateway NV76R with a bad HDD (SOUNDED LIKE A TRAIN WRECK)

The machine came with Win8 YUCK ! !! ! ! ! ! !!! ! ! !

Now the plan is to get Zorin stuffed into it.
I am getting a new HDD asap and will proceed

I am excited.

Anyone having Z on a machine like this, please chime in.

Snowy

OK
I picked up a new HDD for the Gateway, installed the drive, made a few adjustments and off to the Rodeo.

As soon as the machine leaves the first Zorin screen to install, the monitor goes black.

I have to tap the brighten button to get screen brightness.

Install was flawless, and everything works perfectly as far as the installed hardware goes.
The sound, wifi etc, all work fine.

So far, the only issue is that at boot I have to brighten the screen up everytime.

This does not seem to be an issue, but is there a way to get around this.

Is this a laptop specific issue.

I saw mention of the brightness thing causing crashes, buttttt ??????

Snowy

When you boot the machine with the Zorin DVD in it, what happens if you press the 'TAB' key and edit the boot command with:

Code:

forcevesa acpi=off nomodeset

do you still get the black screen?

Yes, It is a laptop specific issue as described in previous posts. I got a guide to make some adjustment
to the scaling of the brightness. As follows: "The default backlight behavior is to set the brightness to 100%
upon starting up. You are, however, able to save the brightness setting using the following guide":

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... untu-1310/

However in your case the brightness is more or less set to 0% when starting. That was something new.
Can you open the settings menu and look in which position the slider is after starting. Mine lays at most
right position (Max. value).

Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit