Can Linux help

This Vaio was no deal at any price!

It's called a Sony Vaio VGN-P530H

What it offered made it very attractive.

But not only does it make finding and engaging it's features complicated; it is slower than direct and forever wantw to update. It could spound like a joke but it reaLLY IS a full time job just keeping up with it's need to update while few features work or, like the onboard camera: it is frozen on a jpeg that was taken months ago.

It has windows 7 "starter". Somehow i think that this starter version complicates things since I have a Tosiba netbook which has 7 starter and suffers from similar freakiness.

Can Linux sAVE THE daY by funtioning as a "normal" might

Quite possibly. I suppose the best thing to do is try whatever distro you have in mind from a live cd or from a usb. I use BodhiLinux personally which I've found to be very fast indeed. Although some seem to say it's not totally suited to a new user to Linux (I don't know if you are or not). So favorites like Mint or Ubuntu may be better.

Hi,
BodhiLinux is based on the very popular Ubuntu linux operating system. Here's a guide to trying Ubuntu as a 'live CD' without installing. The same principles apply to all Ubuntu-based (indeed Linux-based) 'live CDs.
Remember that as it's running from a disc it'll be slower than an installed version but will enable you to test hardware compatibility etc.

Hope this helps? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Richard

Quite possibly. I suppose the best thing to do is try whatever distro you have in mind from a live cd or from a usb. I use BodhiLinux personally which I've found to be very fast indeed. Although some seem to say it's not totally suited to a new user to Linux (I don't know if you are or not). So favorites like Mint or Ubuntu may be better.

I just about abandoned this computer. As soon as I turned it on after several months I see why I posted here. Thanks for your suggestion.

Hi,
BodhiLinux is based on the very popular Ubuntu linux operating system. Here's a guide to trying Ubuntu as a 'live CD' without installing. The same principles apply to all Ubuntu-based (indeed Linux-based) 'live CDs.
Remember that as it's running from a disc it'll be slower than an installed version but will enable you to test hardware compatibility etc.

Hope this helps? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Richard

I wonder if anything can be slower than this Vaio?

Thanks for the link and suggestions. I'll give it a try. I have a class 10 usb device and an external hard drive which you did not mention but might work. Let me read the link you posted. Thanks again.

I'm not sure that replying to my own original post is the way to go with this but I can see any of the powers that be seeing this follow up as part of the same problems. SO since I started it I don't think it can officially be "hijacked"?

[ Can the size of the Icons on the task bar be made larger ]

So here is the issues about this thing that I find difficult to call " a laptop " If no one has ever seen one or better yet, held one, you can not imagine it's size, weight, shape. I could and perhaps did like ( imagined ) that all things advertised about this computer. ( I have less trouble calling it " a computer " even though it is like comparing fighters; one with a hand tied behind his back and a 20 lb leg weight, and a top ten fighter of the MMA. This "computer" is dead once it steps into the ring.

Besides being slow as cold molasses; the icons, in particular the task bar is so small that I must use 2.75 "readers" just to struggle with making out some of the things that we take for granted everyday. So everything across the bottom of the screen: Start Button to the Clock is so small it is near impossible to see at all without some power of glasses. In a chat session with Sony, they suggested changing one of the settings which enlargened the icons on the desktop. That helped since they were equally as small before the change. But I have not found a way to make the task bar larger.

Is there a way of changing the size of the icons ( in reality the whole ) taskbar? I probably should post a picture or at least a link with the picture of this product.
http://www.tradett.com/products/u62120p516739/indonesia/sony-vaio-vgn-p530h-g-netbook.html

So just in case you're wondering; it offered a built in GPS. Based on it's size and lightness it seemed like a great way to have both. I just wasn't aware of the so called "smart phone" world and what they could do. My Droid does everything and more that the Vaio does and interestingly enough I can read the screen better than the computer which has a screen 2.5 time the area of the phone. How is it that the icons of the taskbar are so small and since I can't make things larger as we can on our new devices with touch screen; it renders the computer into a paper weight. Now that would be ironic!

RE: Vaio VGN-P530H --

Biggest bottleneck is CPU itself -- only 1.33 GHz (but Linix runs on slower);
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM is decent;
60 GB SATA Hard Drive (hdd) is acceptable;
no Optical Drive means using a USB device to clean hdd with a utility such as
System Rescue CD
( http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/sysresccd-x86/2.5.0/ )
and install an OS for low-resource PCs, like antiX-M11-base-686.
( http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/ )

Read about antiX here
( http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page )
and post-install instructions are here
( http://sblinux.org/antix/index.html#after_initial ).

Best wishes!

RE: Vaio VGN-P530H --

Biggest bottleneck is CPU itself -- only 1.33 GHz (but Linix runs on slower);
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM is decent;
60 GB SATA Hard Drive (hdd) is acceptable;
no Optical Drive means using a USB device to clean hdd with a utility such as
System Rescue CD
( http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/sysresccd-x86/2.5.0/ )
and install an OS for low-resource PCs, like antiX-M11-base-686.
( http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/ )

Read about antiX here
( http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page )
and post-install instructions are here
( http://sblinux.org/antix/index.html#after_initial ).

Best wishes!

Thanks PF i haven't read all of the links yet because it seems that i am "the man" for friends and family who have computer, tv, electronic problems of any kind. So i've been overwhelmed with helping others even if it's not here with other bleepeers. Maybe someday i will know enough to help people here.

Imagine if our government accepted help like this from the governed.

Still a dreamer:

Kryp

You're welcome - hope it works out.