Can I make these go faster?

[kennysarmy]

Some of our departments have these for student ad-hoc use:

 

Samsung N145-JP04UK Netbooks

 

They have an Intel Atom N455 processor and we've had them since Feb 02, and I've got Windows 7 on them with 1 Gb RAM.

 

Not the quickest when we bought them but obviously even slower now!

 

They need internet access and Office on them.

 

At what point do I just have to tell them I can't keep supporting them?

[Steve21]

A few years ago?

 

But in all seriousness we basically gave up with them, between lack of speed and support, the only option we were looking at was either putting something "light" of them just for off-network access for exams etc, or using them as a TS client if you have VDI/RD already setup as it'll run that quick as it's on the server

 

Edit - Depending on their HDD size as I know ours wasn't too bad, it might be worth trying Windows 10 S when it's out too as I'm sure thats 1GB minimum requirements, but still going to struggle with Office etc unless they use webbased?

 

Steve

Edited January 26, 2018 by Steve21

[djm968]

Tie them to the back of a Yamaha YZF-R1!..... I agree TS/VDI client or a light OS. I see Windows 10 S at Bett yesterday, looked pretty good.

[fiza]

Is it worth turning them into Chrome devices? They can then be used to access the internet and Google Docs.

 

Neverware support a lot of old kit to do this. https://www.neverware.com/#introtext-3

[FN-GM]

Neverware support a lot of old kit to do this. https://www.neverware.com/#introtext-3

 

Even they say a minimum of 2GB RAM

 

 

@kennysarmy The only way you will get these fast is by gravity when throwing them out of your office window.

Edited January 26, 2018 by FN-GM

[fiza]

Even they save a minimum of 2GB RAM

 

 

@kennysarmy The only way you will get these fast is by gravity when throwing them out of your office window.

 

Having just had a look Samsung doesn't even appear on the supported devices list.

[mjk]

Lightweight GUI alternative (Xubuntu and Lubuntu)

If you have an old or low-spec computer or want to get the most out of your hardware, using a medium-lightweight desktop system such as Xubuntu or a lightweight such as Lubuntu is recommended, as they make more efficient use of your system's resources. Of course, even if you have the newest equipment out, you could still use these two.

If your system has less than 192 MiB of system memory, use the Alternate Installation CD.

Note: If you have a low-specification computer, certain features may be automatically turned off to conserve system resources. For example, if you have a graphics card with only a small amount of video memory (VRAM), the boot-up screen may not be shown.

Follow this link for detailed instructions: Installation/LowMemorySystems.

Minimum system requirements for Xubuntu would fall roughly between Ubuntu Server and Desktop:

 

[*=left]512 MiB of system memory (RAM)
[*=left]5 GB of disk space
[*=left]Graphics card and monitor capable of 800x600 resolution

With Lubuntu, you can use computers with even less memory.

Regarding processors, a recent thread on the Ubuntu Forums describes a 500 MHz Xubuntu machine as being "too slow" and discusses alternatives: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1267443

 

You can manage these with tools like Chef, Puppet or Ansible

[jmak]

I'm putting Porteus kiosk (Linux) on ours. Boots straight to Chrome. Set one of the Homepages to office 365 login if you have to have MS Office or Google drive if not.

 

There are probably better light Linux distros around, but that's about as easy as it gets....

[3s-gtech]

we've had them since Feb 02?

 

Do you mean Feb '12? Or are these some fancy long-life Netburst P4 netbooks?

[achedgy]

I've got a bank of these, with 2gb of ram and a 120gb ssd, they are good enough for what you're asking.

[kennysarmy]

Do you mean Feb '12? Or are these some fancy long-life Netburst P4 netbooks?

 

well spotted - yea 2012!

[LeMarchand]

I'm putting Porteus kiosk (Linux) on ours. Boots straight to Chrome. Set one of the Homepages to office 365 login if you have to have MS Office or Google drive if not.

 

There are probably better light Linux distros around, but that's about as easy as it gets....

 

I'm a fan of Porteus. Nice and locked down. May need a bit more RAM and an SSD if TPTB can be convinced, but probably useable "as is".

 

However, the best (well, most entertaining) way to make 'em go faster would be:

 

[Katy]

well spotted - yea 2012!

 

I was gonna say... if they were 16 year old laptops then definitely "the window treatment" is the only way to speed them up... I'd probably go with either turning them into RDP clients (as we already have RDS servers set up) or some sort of lightweight linux launching straight to a browser.

[Michael]

A 32Bit version of uBuntu Linux would fly on these!

[HTCPCP]

The question you should be asking is, will it blend?

[AXE]

I've had some success with thinstation - a Kiosk mode RDP shell direct to a terminal services server... Alas it's from... (sourceforge) and mostly in German.. but there's some VERY helpful documentation out there. Could give a new lease of life to some OLD laptops...

[CBea]

Try make a slim version of Win7 for them. I did it and it allowed them to become usable again.

[mullet_man]

I’ve got a massive amount of similar Toshiba netbooks that have the same processor and have been upped to 2GB.

 

I tried an SSD in them once and there was not even a difference in speed.

 

We’ve still got W7 on them and they are painfully slow.

 

How do we make a slim version of W7?

[CBea]

I’ve got a massive amount of similar Toshiba netbooks that have the same processor and have been upped to 2GB.

 

I tried an SSD in them once and there was not even a difference in speed.

 

We’ve still got W7 on them and they are painfully slow.

 

How do we make a slim version of W7?

Used NTLite, Se7en lite and tried Winreducer to create a Win7 lite ISO which was installed on the two types on netbooks. Then put the apps on that were needed along with drivers and lastly used Clonezilla to deploy across all the others. The netbooks were still being used two years after it was done.

[JRA]

Just adding to the show of hands for Lubuntu. Are they 64 bit capable? In the (far distant, Windows XP-era) past we also had some luck with nlite, so both approaches do 'work' out there in the real world.

 

With Lubuntu though I made our old netbooks into effectively Chromebooks, but we had GOFRIS for locking them down (as deep freeze of sorts is for Windows) but GOFRIS has dropped off the edge of a cliff these days it seems.

 

Best of luck though!

[mullet_man]

Used NTLite, Se7en lite and tried Winreducer to create a Win7 lite ISO which was installed on the two types on netbooks. Then put the apps on that were needed along with drivers and lastly used Clonezilla to deploy across all the others. The netbooks were still being used two years after it was done.

 

Thanks - I’ll have a look when I’ve got a spare few mins!

[AlanD]

1 GB... no SSD. .... is not going to run windows well....in fact its going to run badly...Yes you could upgrade 1GB to 2GB (well...guessing you could)...and you could put SSD in place of the hard drive...so for a £100 each ...you get then them running Windows 7 .. which is fast approaching end of life.... and Windows 10 would struggle with only 2GB - or certainly would if you were using 64bit version..and you probably wouldn't want to run AV on them because that can be a surprising impact on old PCs....and not running AV wouldn't be advisable either.

 

And I'm guessing wireless is single stream "n" ...so thats going to be slow too.

 

But you have to ask yourself whether its money well invested...to get something running...that still isn't going to run well....especially when £200 might get you something much better - albeit something refurbished....