Saturday, July 2, 2016

Running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on my HP Stream 13

My HP Stream 13 is a cheap laptop, 230 bucks even today. It's got a low powered CPU, 2GB of ram and a 32GB SSD. I was running Windows 10 on it but it's too much for a laptop of this spec. I decided to try Ubuntu Linux 16 on it instead. I've very pleased with the results. Installing it was pretty easy. Simply make a Ubuntu install USB key. Hit F9 when booting and pick the USB. I choose of full disk replace but didn't repartition. I used the 22gb partition as '/' and the 8GB partition as '/swap'.

A few minutes later and it boots right up in to Ubuntu. I set the Wifi and applied all the updates it asked for post install (July 2nd 2016). It's humming along nicely. As a consumption device, it works very well. I installed Chrome instead of the supplied firefox as Amazon video won't work on Firefox. Chrome is also smoother to use, scrolling through a page with the track pad is noticeably better with Chrome than Firefox.

The only problem so far is the Wifi sometimes does not work after waking up the laptop from sleep. The fix for this is to reset the network manager with a sudo command and it starts working again.

"sudo systemctl restart network-manager.service"

So, overall, it's an upgrade. I feel I can wring another couple of years at least out of this laptop running Ubuntu. Battery life seems about 6 hours so thats ok.

I'm writing this blog on the Stream BTW. Works very well.