For just over the past year, I have been running Linux Mint 12 (“Lisa”) 64bit on my HP Pavilion dv7-6103ea laptop. The only problems I’ve had are the graphics drivers (installing and upgrading the drivers for the AMD Radeon 6545G2 card gives me a black screen and I have to somehow boot Linx, remove the Catalyst drivers, reboot, try and install them and hope), the AVerMedia USB TV card not working at first (it’s working now and I don’t think I changed anything: although the remote doesn’t seem to work) and the fingerprint scanner not working.
Anyway – it’s time for me to upgrade my Operating System, but what to? The choices for the OS I have are:
* Stay on Linux Mint 12 and slowly get out of date and be disappointed that Steam (for Linux) and World of Warcraft (under Wine) won’t work. It’ll become obsolete in April 2013.
* Upgrade to the latest version of Linux Mint : 14 “Nadia” which only be supported until April 2014, but was only released in November 2012. Will require entire reinstall, but a new upgrade will be available in around April.
* Upgrade to the latest “long term support” version of Linux Mint: 13 “Maya” which will be supported until April 2017, but was released in July 2012. Will require entire reinstall, but a new upgrade will be available sometime before 2017.
* Switch to Linux Mint Debian edition which has “rolling updates” (so no need to reinstall on updates), however might not be so stable as the “Ubuntu based Mint”. Meant to be more responsive/faster, but less desktop ready. Will require entire reinstall, but just once.
But then I’ve also got the choice:
* Reinstall over the existing Linux Mint install – giving me “no way back”
* Make a new partition on either my “Linux hard drive” or “Windows hard drive” and put the new OS there
* Replace an existing hard drive with an SSD card (I’m currently using 83G of space on my Linux drive). A 128Gb card will cost £70+vat, 256Gb, £125+vat and 512Gb £253+vat.
* Get a new internal hard drive. For a straight-replacement of the 750Gb HD, it’ll be £65+vat
Any suggestions?
Full machine specification for the record
Basic details taken from HP’s Product Specification page.
Additional Linux/detailed information (in code tags) taken from Linux’s “lspci -v” (ids updated at 2012-12-10 03:15:01 via “sudo update-pciids”), “cat /proc/cpuinfo” and “lsusb -v” (ids updated from 2011-01-25 20:34:02 to 2012-11-23 20:34;02 via “sudo update-usbids”) and “lshw -short -C disk”)
Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard (HP)
Product Name: dv7-6103ea
Product number: LS692EA
CPU/Processor: AMD Quad-Core A6-3410MX (1.6GHz) with 4Mb L2 Cache (4 cores of AuthenticAMD AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon HD Graphics [CPU Family 18/Model 1] 800Mhz CPU, 1024Kb cache size, 4 siblings, FPU and FPU_Exception, CPUID level 6, 3194.17 bogomips, TLB size 15365 4K pages, 64 cache_alignemnt, flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid aperfmperf pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt arat cpb npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save pausefilter, power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate [9], address sizes: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual)
Memory: 6Gb DDR (Upgradable to 8Gb)
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 6545G2 Dual GPU (512Mb DDR5 dedicated) (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6520G] and Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Caicos [Radeon HD 6400M/7400M Series] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]))
Display: 17.3″ (43.9cm) HD+ High definition LED HP BrightView Display (1600×900)
Drives: 2x750Gb SATA (7200rpm) (2x 750Gb Hitachi HTS72757HP BD E DS6E2LH)
Network: Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)), Bluetooth wireless (Broadcom Corp BCM2070 Bluetook 2.1 + EDR) and 802.11b/g/n (Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01))
Sound: Beats sound system with integrated subwoofer (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500D and 6400G-6600G series] and Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller (rev 01))
Keyboard: Full size keyboard with integrated numeric keypad
Pointing device: Touchpad supporting Multi-touch gestures and on/off button
PC card slots: Multi-format digital media card reader for Secure Digital cards (SD cards) and multimedia cards (Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5209 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01))
Camera: HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone (low-light) (Suyin Corp USB ID 064e:e258)
External ports: 1x VGA, 2x headphone-out (one being a combined headphone out+mic in), 1x microphone in, 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 1x RJ45
Dimensions: 41.6 x 27.5 x 3.6cm
Weight: 3Kg
Power: 90w AC Power Adapter, 6 cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery
Others: Fingerprint scanner (Validity Sensors Inc USB ID 138a:0018), DVB TV USB Stick (AVerMedia Technologies Inc A867 DVB-T dongleUSB ID 07ca:0337)
Additional hardware I have attached:
* Samsung CLX-3180 Laser printer (USB ID 04e8:343d), Data Robotics Inc Drobo (USB ID 19b9:4d10)