My previous laptop was an ASUS UX331UN, and I wrote a post when I got it 6 years ago reviewing it [LINK]. It served me well, so I figured for a while that when it came time to replace it, I would most likely get another ASUS laptop. Over most of this year, I noticed progressively more often when using that laptop that it would make an odd whirring sound, and that would be especially noticeable when it would be shutting down. This motivated me to start considering to get a new laptop. More recently, the recent US presidential election result forced the issue for me, as I was concerned that the president-elect, once inaugurated, would impose heavy tariffs on many different countries that would significantly impede global supply chains that are essential for the manufacturing of electronic goods, including laptops. Thus, I thought carefully about and made the decision to buy a new laptop. Follow the jump to see more.
Showing posts with label laptop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laptop. Show all posts
2024-12-04
2020-09-30
Ongoing problems connecting a Canon CanoScan 4400F scanner to Linux Mint
This post is about the experiences I've had connecting a Canon CanoScan 4400F scanner to various computers, primarily focusing on my current laptop which, as of the time of first writing this post, ran Linux Mint 19 "Tara" MATE along with Microsoft Windows 10. For context, I am hoping to scan some of my personal & work notebooks for personal archival. I figured that this scanner, which I've had for a long time, does a good job at rendering images, even though it is quite old & slow, so I should continue using it for as long as it continues to work.
I used to use this scanner regularly with my previous laptop, which is an ASUS U30Jc and, when I last ran it regularly, ran Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" along with Microsoft Windows 7; initially when I connected the scanner to the old laptop (a few years ago), it didn't work with Linux Mint out-of-the-box, so I decided to do all scans in Microsoft Windows and then transfer files between partitions later. I stopped using that laptop approximately 2 years ago, and since then until the beginning of this month, it just sat in a box gathering dust. At the beginning of this month, desirous of using this scanner again for the aforementioned purposes, I brought out the old laptop & scanner, but found out that in the intervening 2 years, the damage to the laptop's screen & hinge had worsened, the battery had completely died due to no charging in that time, and the laptop (on either OS) would randomly overheat & shut off. At this point, I now believe that old laptop should be junked.
My current laptop is an ASUS ZenBook UX331UN. I didn't think the scanner would work with it, because it uses USB 1.1, and I remember having trouble getting this laptop to read an older USB device. Just for the heck of it, I decided to connect the scanner to see what happens. Just as with my old laptop, in Linux Mint, the Simple Scan application didn't find any connected scanners. However, I had the idea to run the command "sudo simple-scan" from the terminal. That showed that the scanner was in fact being recognized, so this was probably a permission problem; I also realized that the earlier problem with another old USB device was specific to that device and not a general issue with this laptop reading any older USB device. That said, when I tried to scan a document, I got a window showing the error "Failed to scan: Unable to connect to scanner". Follow the jump to see more.
2018-12-03
Second Laptop: ASUS ZenBook UX331UN
I was hoping that a post from when I got my first laptop, an ASUS U30JC, would provide a template for how to review my new, second laptop. Sadly, that post was from over 8 years ago, when this blog was just a year old, I had not yet started college, and my writing was much worse. With that in mind, I now provide a review of my new laptop; this review will be by no means a thorough review of hardware, but will be more of a summary of my experiences installing Linux on it and using it for around a month.
A few months ago, I noticed that part of the plastic frame around the screen of my old laptop, along with the hinge below it, had partially detached. A little over a month ago, that detachment had become much more noticeable, to the point of becoming a liability for me: the laptop would no longer close properly (without me risking breaking it altogether), so I would not be able to take it anywhere outside. Up until that point, I had experienced no major hardware issues with that laptop, and only minor issues such as the optical drive occasionally being unresponsive; I could tell that it was struggling a little more with newer software, but on the whole, it was performing quite well, so while I had from time to time over the last couple of years been looking casually into replacing it, this sudden development forced the issue. Given my disability, I wanted something a bit more lightweight, because my old laptop was 4.5 pounds, which was a bit heavy for me; that said, I still wanted something that would offer a reasonable amount of computational power, and while I didn't anticipate requiring a high-performance graphics card for gaming as I am not a serious gamer, I figured there may be some casual games as well as the possibility of getting into GPU programming for my work for which I may want a reasonable dedicated graphics card. Luckily, I found the ASUS ZenBook UX331UN, which seemed on paper to fit the bill on all counts, and I found only a few left in stock online for a reasonable price (just over $1000), so I went ahead and bought one. Follow the jump to read more.
A few months ago, I noticed that part of the plastic frame around the screen of my old laptop, along with the hinge below it, had partially detached. A little over a month ago, that detachment had become much more noticeable, to the point of becoming a liability for me: the laptop would no longer close properly (without me risking breaking it altogether), so I would not be able to take it anywhere outside. Up until that point, I had experienced no major hardware issues with that laptop, and only minor issues such as the optical drive occasionally being unresponsive; I could tell that it was struggling a little more with newer software, but on the whole, it was performing quite well, so while I had from time to time over the last couple of years been looking casually into replacing it, this sudden development forced the issue. Given my disability, I wanted something a bit more lightweight, because my old laptop was 4.5 pounds, which was a bit heavy for me; that said, I still wanted something that would offer a reasonable amount of computational power, and while I didn't anticipate requiring a high-performance graphics card for gaming as I am not a serious gamer, I figured there may be some casual games as well as the possibility of getting into GPU programming for my work for which I may want a reasonable dedicated graphics card. Luckily, I found the ASUS ZenBook UX331UN, which seemed on paper to fit the bill on all counts, and I found only a few left in stock online for a reasonable price (just over $1000), so I went ahead and bought one. Follow the jump to read more.
2015-05-25
Review: Kubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet"
This month has been quite busy for me with classes. Now that the semester is finally over, I have a little more time, and that means I have enough time to do a review. It has been a few years since I've reviewed Kubuntu, the officially-supported variant of Ubuntu that uses KDE. Moreover, Kubuntu now features KDE 5 (I know the KDE naming and numbering system has become a lot more complicated, so this is, as a physicist might say, an intentional abuse of notation) as stable for the first time, so I figured I should try this version. I tried it as a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like. (It should become progressively clearer through this review why there are no pictures.)
2012-08-03
My Installation of Linux Mint 13 "Maya" Xfce
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| Old: [Customized] Mozilla Firefox + Desktop Cube |
2011-06-20
2011 June 20: Linux and My Computers' Hardware
A couple things (which will be mentioned later in this post) prompted me to write this, so here it is. This is an overview of the two computers on which I have installed and used Linux regularly and things related to regular Linux usage on those computers.
Follow the jump to see the rest.
First Computer (Past)
Sony VAIO desktop with Intel Pentium 4/HT processor at 2.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, integrated ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card with available 1920 by 1200 resolution (used 1280 by 1024), integrated sound card, used in conjunction with a 21 inch Nokia CRT 4:3 monitor, Sony speakers, keyboard, and mouse, and Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX webcamSecond Computer (Current)
ASUS U30Jc laptop with Intel Core i3-370M processor at 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, integrated Intel GMA 4500HD graphics card with available discrete NVidia GeFore 310M (512 MB graphics memory) graphics card with 1366 by 768 resolution, integrated sound card and speakers, integrated keyboard, integrated webcam and mic, used in conjunction with Microsoft USB mouseFollow the jump to see the rest.
2011-05-01
Linux Mint: Two Years, Going Steady
Two years ago to the day was the first time I installed Linux on my computer. Sure, I had seen other people use it and had used it on other people's computers (though not so frequently), but I had never before put an OS other than Microsoft Windows on my own computer until that day. I had talked to a friend of mine about it before because I was planning to do it for a while; I thought of installing Ubuntu, but he suggested Linux Mint, as it would be easier for me to get used to and work with. I took that advice, and on 2009 May 1, as I took a break from studying for AP exams and felt quite fed up with Microsoft Windows XP, I downloaded the Linux Mint 6 "Felicia" GNOME ISO file, got InfraRecorder for Microsoft Windows XP, burned the live CD, and went on my way.
Since then, I've used two newer versions of Linux Mint, and I've gotten a newer computer as well. I'm still quite pleased with and fond of Linux Mint; it's fast, stable, secure, and it does what I want it to do (most of the time). Sure, there have been some minor hiccups along the way. For example, until recently, I wasn't able to view Hulu on my laptop as I have installed the 64-bit edition; thankfully, that has been fixed. Occasionally, the desktop will start without window decorations, at which point I would have to start the Compiz Fusion icon to reload the Compiz WM that I'm using under GNOME. I have had to lock one package because upgrading it broke it when I tried to get the latest version of a different package through a common repository. But otherwise, my experiences with Linux Mint have been very, very positive, and I could never see myself using Microsoft Windows on a regular basis again.
Right now, Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora", which is what I'm using now, is supported for the next two years. If the Linux Mint developers do release an Ubuntu-based version 13 LTS "M[...]a", then I will switch to that when it comes out. If not, then I will stick to this for the remaining two years, and then I will in all likelihood switch to the latest snapshot of Debian-based Linux Mint. I do have other backup plans, though; I really like #!, and it's based on Debian Stable, so that seems like a pretty good option as well. MIT offers RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) to students, and it should be offering RHEL 6 by the end of this semester (in a few weeks), so because RHEL is supported for 10 years, that looks like a pretty good option as well. That's the beauty of the Linux ecosystem; if for whatever reason I don't like something, I can always start using something else.
In short, thank you to the Linux Mint developers for creating an OS that I could fall in love with and stay in love with for 2 years. Even if for whatever reason I switch from Linux Mint to something else, I will always credit Linux Mint as the OS that got me started with Linux. This is what my desktop looks like now:
Since then, I've used two newer versions of Linux Mint, and I've gotten a newer computer as well. I'm still quite pleased with and fond of Linux Mint; it's fast, stable, secure, and it does what I want it to do (most of the time). Sure, there have been some minor hiccups along the way. For example, until recently, I wasn't able to view Hulu on my laptop as I have installed the 64-bit edition; thankfully, that has been fixed. Occasionally, the desktop will start without window decorations, at which point I would have to start the Compiz Fusion icon to reload the Compiz WM that I'm using under GNOME. I have had to lock one package because upgrading it broke it when I tried to get the latest version of a different package through a common repository. But otherwise, my experiences with Linux Mint have been very, very positive, and I could never see myself using Microsoft Windows on a regular basis again.
Right now, Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora", which is what I'm using now, is supported for the next two years. If the Linux Mint developers do release an Ubuntu-based version 13 LTS "M[...]a", then I will switch to that when it comes out. If not, then I will stick to this for the remaining two years, and then I will in all likelihood switch to the latest snapshot of Debian-based Linux Mint. I do have other backup plans, though; I really like #!, and it's based on Debian Stable, so that seems like a pretty good option as well. MIT offers RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) to students, and it should be offering RHEL 6 by the end of this semester (in a few weeks), so because RHEL is supported for 10 years, that looks like a pretty good option as well. That's the beauty of the Linux ecosystem; if for whatever reason I don't like something, I can always start using something else.
In short, thank you to the Linux Mint developers for creating an OS that I could fall in love with and stay in love with for 2 years. Even if for whatever reason I switch from Linux Mint to something else, I will always credit Linux Mint as the OS that got me started with Linux. This is what my desktop looks like now:
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| Current Desktop: 2011 May 1 |
2011-02-09
HP + Linux = Ending the Microsoft Addiction?
HP has been best known for its peripheral computer devices, especially printers and scanners, though it is also well-known for its desktop computers, and, to a lesser extent, laptops and netbooks. Its printers and other peripherals are held in high regard for fully working with Linux distributions out-of-the-box, but it has never officially supported Linux among its product portfolio. Sure, it has sold business-/enterprise- and server-grade computers with SUSE (SLED, not openSUSE), but those are tucked away in dark corners of its website; even Dell, with its on-again, off-again, relationship with Ubuntu, does sort of advertise its Ubuntu-based machines. Well, that's all about to change at HP.
Today, HP first announced a couple WebOS-based phones and a new WebOS based tablet to compete with Apple's iPad. WebOS is HP's mobile operating system based on Linux; as far as I know, other than using the Linux kernel and base GNU tools, WebOS is not related to Android, and the two will probably compete in the mobile marketplace. But the most exciting part came later: HP announced that not only would WebOS come in phones and tablets, but it would also make its way into its printers and PCs. That's right: HP is introducing its own Linux-based competitor to Microsoft Windows. Sweet! This could, after all, be the oft-proclaimed year of the Linux desktop.
Of course, with this new announcement comes new responsibilities; now HP has absolutely no excuse for their peripherals not fully supporting Linux, considering many of them will run Linux under the hood. Then again, as I said earlier, HP has been pretty good to Linux so far in terms of peripheral support.
But there's another aspect to HP's WebOS announcement. If you noticed, WebOS is supposed to be a mobile platform; yet, it's being ported to conventional desktops as well. This is similar to how Ubuntu's Unity interface, originally designed for netbooks and similarly small screens, will become the default interface for desktops as well, and how future versions of Google Chrome OS will likely be very much like Android scaled up for netbooks. In addition, it looks like GNOME 3 was also designed with small form factors in mind, what with the Activities feature and the panel only being able to show the active task, and this has been scaled up for traditional desktops. I think there's a new trend here of creating new interfaces designed for mobile devices and then scaling them up for desktop use, and I think for that reason it's true that the future of end-user computing is in mobile devices. A while back I wrote a post about how Microsoft's push for Windows 7 on netbooks was misguided and that it should scale up the Windows Phone 7 interface instead to make better use of hardware resources, similar to how Apple scaled up the iPhone's iOS for use in the iPad instead of trying to cram in Mac OS X. Well, now that we're seeing mobile OSs being scaled up to full desktops and not just netbooks, I don't think Microsoft is just misguided anymore — I think they're dead wrong, and I think it's already costing them.
The only concern I have though is that WebOS on desktops and laptops may be relegated as a lightweight "instant-on"-style OS secondary to Microsoft Windows, similar to what Asus did for a while on its laptops and netbooks. Then again, HP seems to be pretty darn serious about WebOS for desktops, and not just because consumers want something fast; they recognize that consumers also want the same polish found in modern mobile OSs, so I don't think WebOS will be playing second fiddle to Microsoft Windows on future HP desktops/laptops.
Today, HP first announced a couple WebOS-based phones and a new WebOS based tablet to compete with Apple's iPad. WebOS is HP's mobile operating system based on Linux; as far as I know, other than using the Linux kernel and base GNU tools, WebOS is not related to Android, and the two will probably compete in the mobile marketplace. But the most exciting part came later: HP announced that not only would WebOS come in phones and tablets, but it would also make its way into its printers and PCs. That's right: HP is introducing its own Linux-based competitor to Microsoft Windows. Sweet! This could, after all, be the oft-proclaimed year of the Linux desktop.
Of course, with this new announcement comes new responsibilities; now HP has absolutely no excuse for their peripherals not fully supporting Linux, considering many of them will run Linux under the hood. Then again, as I said earlier, HP has been pretty good to Linux so far in terms of peripheral support.
But there's another aspect to HP's WebOS announcement. If you noticed, WebOS is supposed to be a mobile platform; yet, it's being ported to conventional desktops as well. This is similar to how Ubuntu's Unity interface, originally designed for netbooks and similarly small screens, will become the default interface for desktops as well, and how future versions of Google Chrome OS will likely be very much like Android scaled up for netbooks. In addition, it looks like GNOME 3 was also designed with small form factors in mind, what with the Activities feature and the panel only being able to show the active task, and this has been scaled up for traditional desktops. I think there's a new trend here of creating new interfaces designed for mobile devices and then scaling them up for desktop use, and I think for that reason it's true that the future of end-user computing is in mobile devices. A while back I wrote a post about how Microsoft's push for Windows 7 on netbooks was misguided and that it should scale up the Windows Phone 7 interface instead to make better use of hardware resources, similar to how Apple scaled up the iPhone's iOS for use in the iPad instead of trying to cram in Mac OS X. Well, now that we're seeing mobile OSs being scaled up to full desktops and not just netbooks, I don't think Microsoft is just misguided anymore — I think they're dead wrong, and I think it's already costing them.
The only concern I have though is that WebOS on desktops and laptops may be relegated as a lightweight "instant-on"-style OS secondary to Microsoft Windows, similar to what Asus did for a while on its laptops and netbooks. Then again, HP seems to be pretty darn serious about WebOS for desktops, and not just because consumers want something fast; they recognize that consumers also want the same polish found in modern mobile OSs, so I don't think WebOS will be playing second fiddle to Microsoft Windows on future HP desktops/laptops.
2010-12-23
Bad Experiences are Forever
This is a sort of follow-up and is opposite to the previous post. There are a couple things that I had bad experiences with that I should probably try out again; these things have probably left worse impressions on me emotionally than rationally.
First is Toyota. Toyota has had a rough couple years, starting with issues of premature rusting in its trucks' frames and leading up to the "unintended acceleration" fiasco. Through it all, it's managed to become #1 in sales, but this too has come at the cost of its quality; now, the parts it uses especially in the interiors of its cars are flimsier and aren't assembled with the same attention to detail as before. My family owned a 1988 Toyota Corolla, and it ran beautifully until 2004; it was solidly built, and the attention to detail was striking. Now, no more. That said, the unintended acceleration fiasco (which pushed my skepticism of Toyota over the edge) is finished and its new cars are pretty solidly built and competitive, so I really shouldn't instinctively turn me away from all Toyota products (though I'd still rather wait a few years before recommending their products to anyone again).
Next, Fedora. I tried the Fedora 11 "Leonidas" GNOME live CD about a year ago, and I loved it. I really liked the fact that it, unlike Linux Mint 7 "Gloria", detected all of my hardware out-of-the-box (including my graphics card and monitor at its native 2048 by 1536 resolution). So I decided to install it. That was a terrible idea: not only did it fail to install properly, it also managed to mess up my existing Linux Mint 7 partition at the same time. I tried again, and it still didn't work. I then decided to hold off until the next release. Version 12 "Constantine" was worse; no live CD or live USB I created (the usual way) would boot. That's when I gave up on Fedora. That said, just about a week ago, I and a friend of mine (who is a Red Hat/Fedora guru) installed Fedora 14 "Laughlin" GNOME on a mutual friend's laptop (which was suffering from a slow and malware-ridden installation of Microsoft Windows 7). The installation itself worked flawlessly, and aside from multimedia codecs (which was easily fixed through the handy program Autoten), everything worked out-of-the-box — Skype (i.e. webcam and mic), printing (and scanning), desktop effects, etc. Given this, I really shouldn't hesitate, yet I still do. Maybe it'll happen when Fedora does actually support NVidia's Optimus technology.
Finally come laptop touchpads. Wait, no — those are ergonomically inferior to external mice. Whoops! (Heh heh.)
So what are your thoughts on this? Do you also dislike things more emotionally than rationally? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
First is Toyota. Toyota has had a rough couple years, starting with issues of premature rusting in its trucks' frames and leading up to the "unintended acceleration" fiasco. Through it all, it's managed to become #1 in sales, but this too has come at the cost of its quality; now, the parts it uses especially in the interiors of its cars are flimsier and aren't assembled with the same attention to detail as before. My family owned a 1988 Toyota Corolla, and it ran beautifully until 2004; it was solidly built, and the attention to detail was striking. Now, no more. That said, the unintended acceleration fiasco (which pushed my skepticism of Toyota over the edge) is finished and its new cars are pretty solidly built and competitive, so I really shouldn't instinctively turn me away from all Toyota products (though I'd still rather wait a few years before recommending their products to anyone again).
Next, Fedora. I tried the Fedora 11 "Leonidas" GNOME live CD about a year ago, and I loved it. I really liked the fact that it, unlike Linux Mint 7 "Gloria", detected all of my hardware out-of-the-box (including my graphics card and monitor at its native 2048 by 1536 resolution). So I decided to install it. That was a terrible idea: not only did it fail to install properly, it also managed to mess up my existing Linux Mint 7 partition at the same time. I tried again, and it still didn't work. I then decided to hold off until the next release. Version 12 "Constantine" was worse; no live CD or live USB I created (the usual way) would boot. That's when I gave up on Fedora. That said, just about a week ago, I and a friend of mine (who is a Red Hat/Fedora guru) installed Fedora 14 "Laughlin" GNOME on a mutual friend's laptop (which was suffering from a slow and malware-ridden installation of Microsoft Windows 7). The installation itself worked flawlessly, and aside from multimedia codecs (which was easily fixed through the handy program Autoten), everything worked out-of-the-box — Skype (i.e. webcam and mic), printing (and scanning), desktop effects, etc. Given this, I really shouldn't hesitate, yet I still do. Maybe it'll happen when Fedora does actually support NVidia's Optimus technology.
Finally come laptop touchpads. Wait, no — those are ergonomically inferior to external mice. Whoops! (Heh heh.)
So what are your thoughts on this? Do you also dislike things more emotionally than rationally? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
2010-11-21
Apologies about VirtualBox Testing
I remember seeing a couple comments spread out over reviews I've done in the past asking why I don't do my reviews now through actual live media. Well, the reason was that with my new laptop, for the longest time I thought that USB booting was a lost cause; furthermore, I didn't want to waste the few blank CDs and DVDs I had (and still have) on random distributions.
Well, I'm happy to report that I can in fact boot from USB on my laptop (and in fact, I'm writing this from a Linux Mint "Debian" 201009 GNOME live USB), and for this I need to apologize to those commenters who sincerely asked why I wasn't more sincere in my own distribution testing. I'm truly sorry that my laziness (in terms of actually taking time to look for an answer) mislead all of us. That said, testing with VirtualBox has been fun in its own way (and I may still do that with "light" distributions to see things like how little RAM they really need), but now that I know I can use live USBs in my laptop, I'll certainly be doing that, as I can now test things like USB support, 3D compositing support, and webcam support that I couldn't before.
Oh, and for the record, the issue was that I was manipulating the wrong BIOS submenu to give the USB device boot priority over the hard drive. Now I know...
Well, I'm happy to report that I can in fact boot from USB on my laptop (and in fact, I'm writing this from a Linux Mint "Debian" 201009 GNOME live USB), and for this I need to apologize to those commenters who sincerely asked why I wasn't more sincere in my own distribution testing. I'm truly sorry that my laziness (in terms of actually taking time to look for an answer) mislead all of us. That said, testing with VirtualBox has been fun in its own way (and I may still do that with "light" distributions to see things like how little RAM they really need), but now that I know I can use live USBs in my laptop, I'll certainly be doing that, as I can now test things like USB support, 3D compositing support, and webcam support that I couldn't before.
Oh, and for the record, the issue was that I was manipulating the wrong BIOS submenu to give the USB device boot priority over the hard drive. Now I know...
2010-08-18
New Laptop!
It's an Asus U30J-series laptop. I'm really excited to have it now (after not having a new computer for the last 6.5 years)!
Also, you may see a new post (which I've spent a few days on) coming soon; that post was done with regard to this new laptop.
Also, you may see a new post (which I've spent a few days on) coming soon; that post was done with regard to this new laptop.
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