I’ve been using a Samsun N150 netbook for menial jobs for more or less 4 years now, each I need to travel light weight. Cannot complain, I know its limitations, it’s not for complicated word, and I got it dirt cheap on fleabay. Fitted it with a SSD and it does the work, rather well, considering it’s over 15 yo.
I tried several distros on it, and ended with Lubuntu, with which I had no previous experience, but it was a nice discovery, it works perfectly and boots in a bat of an eyelid.
My current version is Jelly fish, but I’ve been wondering : would it be possible to upgrade to the next version ? If possible, should I ?
What’s your opinion. Please, avoid suggesting getting a more powerful machine, it’s beside the point.
This TRY mode allows you to see how it operates on your existing hardware. Whilst performance will not be identical (it’ll be slower as the uninstalled image is squashed and thus needs to be expanded before it can be run; something that is done at install time) it lets us detect what issues can occur somewhat easily.
That release is EOL in regards Lubuntu, and thus we do NOT provide support for it, and any questions relating to that release will get closed. You can refer to the Start Here page for a list of supported systems for this Support and Help section of Ubuntu Discourse (just expand the Before asking a question)
To get details on release-upgrade process, look up our manual
That link shows the 24.04 manual page (for now; will remain so a few more months) and contains details.
I will also state that I’ll consider what kernel stack you’re using now; ie. if using the HWE stack currently which it appears you are, your upgraded system will also use the newer kernel; which currently is 6.17 for 24.04(.4), but will soon change to 7.0. For some older hardware I’ve had a better experience with the older stack option, which is 6.8 for 24.04; ie. what you’re using now in fact. What will determine this is not CPU, but the whole machine especially graphics.
The release-upgrade process works on packages; if your system includes the GA kernel stack - you’ll have that upgraded for the new release; thus HWE kernel now will upgrade to the ~two year newer kernel for release you’re upgrading to. I thus often ensure I have both GA & HWE kernel stacks installed before I release-upgrade, so I have them both available on newer release.
Lubuntu had released ISOs using the 6.8, 6.11, and 6.17 currently; for live testing I’d try and find a 24.04 ISO with the 6.8 kernel which is the kernel you’re using now (ie. same hardware interaction you’ve got now, just newer software or everything else), as the one easily downloaded from Index of /lubuntu will contain the 6.17 kernel as it’s the latest ISO we’re released for 24.04 (or noble)
What @guiverc said, plus try out zswap while you’re at it. The “Try” mode does support mounting your swap partition, of which I am sure you must have one. You should be able to just sudo swapon /path/to/swap, if the live session hasn’t done so already; IIRC it should recognize your swap and just do that automatically swapon -s should tell you, if that’s the case.
And then you can:
echo Y | sudo tee /sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled
echo zsmalloc | sudo tee /sys/module/zswap/parameters/zpool
(the second line should be redundant, but can’t hurt to be sure)
You might even try:
echo zstd | sudo tee /sys/module/zswap/parameters/compressor
which can get you more than 3:1 compression ratios, but that is a little more demanding on the CPU than the default lzo, which in turn is more like 2:1. However, once the swapping starts, which it no doubt will sooner rather than later, you might as well spend some CPU cycles instead of sleeping while I/O waiting for swap writeout.
That should stretch the life of your plucky device some more yet.
As far as I can tell, this chip is capable of 64-bit instructions, so you’re good to go past Jammy Jellyfish. Guiverc’s suggestion of trying out a newer release via liveUSB is exactly where one should start.
I beg your pardon, but aren’t all Ubuntu LTS derivatives from Noble forward supported? To be clear, I’m not trying to argue at all here, simply trying to understand more as I don’t daily drive Lubuntu and perhaps I am missing something.
Lubuntu does NOT provide support for jammy or 22.04 LTS was my point.
The list in the page I linked includes
We do support Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, but my comment related to the bit I quoted, ie.
as that is NOT a supported release in this area of Support and Help for Lubuntu; it’s still supported if using Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server and a non-flavor though.
Anyway I’m about to tweak that list of supported releases, you’ve alerted me to it having a problem which I’ll fix in a few minutes; so thanks for that [indirect] notification.
However, there’s this tiny “loop hole” with Ubuntu Pro. Yes, there is no official support for this EOL flavor, but, if all you want is to eek out every last minute of that release, you should be able to do so until 2032!
BTW, what makes an Ubuntu installation? If all you need is the ubuntu-desktop task installed, that can be arranged, I guess; even on an installation that was made by the Lubuntu installer.
It’s highly unlikely that anything pertaining to the lubuntu-desktop task will see actual coverage by Ubuntu Pro, it must be said, unless it happens to also be relevant on vanilla Ubuntu. But then again, how much security does a desktop need? It’s not like you can ping it to death.
I’ve already considered trying a live version, I was just hoping that someone might own the same netbook as I and already given it a go, more some experience return than technical advice. Anyway, you’ve been great and helpful.
Btw, the chip is able to manage 64bit, tried it without a glitch with different distros, you just have to know which version, hence my initial post.
I’ll let you know of my succes, or failure, with a newer Lubuntu version. Meanwhile, any new info is more than welcome.
You don’t really have to know which version, once you know that your hardware is actually of the AMD64 architecture, you can just install any modern Linux; with a keen eye on memory footprint, of course. It’s the other way around you need to worry about; i.e. even Lubuntu doesn’t offer i386 anymore, as I’m sure you’re aware.
That will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
