How Xubuntu Saved a Laptop Abandoned for 2 Years

My original mini, no running on Xubuntu

This is my last Xubuntu post, I promise (for now, at least.)

I just want to share one more story - how Xubuntu saved a laptop (another mini - Acer Aspire One, very similar to this one) which I had abandoned at a computer repair shop as "burned out" for two years.

Lightning Strikes
In April 2011 (during the same days when I joined the Catholic Church - completely unrelated, but just happened to be at the same time) my brother was using my first Acer mini up in his bedroom at my parents' house.  Lightning struck somewhere nearby.  Power went out.  And so did my laptop.  It wasn't supposed to. It had a battery that generally lasted 2 - 3 hours.

I tried to boot it but after the initial boot screen it just sat there with a blank monitor.  The hard drive seemed to be making noises, but that's all.

Lightning or Windows XP?
To be honest, the computer had begun to slow down little by little, getting bogged down, freezing up ... it seemed like it was on its last legs, similar to what was happening with this laptop when I changed to Xubuntu.  But was it that it finally froze up completely or that a power surge had fried it? I now know that it was primarily a software problem, but at the time the lightning seemed more plausible.

The Computer Shop
The next day I took the laptop to a store - Staples Business Depot - for repairs.  They told me that the motherboard had a burn mark on it and the operating system was corrupted.  Exactly why Windows XP had slowly deteriorated I still don't know (I suspect it's the same reasons why Windows 7 slowly deteriorated on this laptop.)  But the burn mark also made sense considering the apparent power surge it experienced a day earlier.

The repair costs would start at $450 and could go up from there.  On the other hand, they had a new, slightly better Acer Aspire One on special (it was a model on clearance) for only $200.  When I came back to talk to the technician the salesman was already there ready to sell me the mini.

The choice was a no-brainer, at least at the time.  (That mini is the one I still use.)

The box my computer was stored in, with a note not to discard it

Two Years Later ...
About a month ago, my wife got a call from that same store.  They had my old laptop on the shelf.  After buying the new laptop, I walked out of the store without taking the old one or instructing them what to do with it.  They have a time limit when they are no longer responsible for abandoned items, but since there was a change in technician, the new employee did not want to recycle the laptop until he had at least attempted to make contact with me.  By pure luck, the mini stayed stored in a box, low priority on his to-do list for nearly two years.

Calling back about the laptop was also low priority for me - after all, I would just be authorizing them to junk it.

Then Came Xubuntu
But last week after making this laptop work perfectly with Xubuntu, something occurred to me.  The problems on that old laptop with Windows XP were identical to the ones I had with this one with Windows 7. What if it had been a software problem all along?

So, I called the store. They still had it.  Last Saturday morning I went by to pick it up.  (I also swung by Future Shop to see if they had the much better laptop which my wife had abandoned there in favour of her very nice new HP laptop.  No luck. She had actually instructed them to recycle it.)

Reading the box again, I was reminded that their diognostic actually found a burn on the mother board.  My hopes were low, and I imaged returning the same to day to leave the computer definitively for recycling.

I made the Xubuntu boot USB again - much faster this time, now that I knew how.  I ran it as a live boot, without installation.  It booted and ran smoothly.  So I installed Xubuntu.

• Internet worked
• Wordprocessor worked
• Saving and retrieving files worked
• Shut down & start up - about 3 and 10 seconds respectively

The only complication was that I didn't choose to install 3rd party apps/plugins, so I didn't have flash at first.  But that was quickly fixed.

Perfectly Working Laptop
So far, it has worked perfectly.

Could a laptop work perfectly with Xubuntu with a burned motherboard?  My guess would be no, but I really don't know.  In any case, the main problem was Windows XP and the fact that it is too bulky for a computer of this capacity.

The only thing not working perfectly is the battery.  It lasts for about 40 minutes, which I think is pretty good considering it was left idle for 2 years.

So, I now have 2 perfectly working Acer Aspire One netbooks running Xubuntu.  What to do with the second?

(Some time down the road I'm going to try reviving an old abandoned computer my parents have.  It might need to go even lighter than Xubuntu, but I'll give it whirl.)