Dr Jekell

Have you tried running the laptop down until it shuts off then charging it?

Install RockBox onto it and continue using it as a music player.

Edit: apparently this is a device that can’t use RockBox.

It’s not so much both computers being able to access it.

From what I have experienced Timeshift tends to lock a drive when it is doing a backup.

If computer 1 is doing a backup and computer 2 tries to start it’s backup it may fail without you noticing.

Giving each computer their own partition on the drive should alleviate the problem.

A partition for each one the drive should work alright, but it may turn to custard if they both try to access the drive at the same time.

To be honest I haven’t had the need or the time to delve that deeply into how Timeshift works sorry.

You should be able to highlight the ones that you want to remove then click on the delete button.

From what I understand is that each backup is just the difference between the original backup and the current system.

Have a look at XNview MP

I can definitely say that it is avery good photo management program.

I am only using about 20% of it’s features and it is my go to image software.

What I do is start up Firefox first to create all the first start files then close it and delete everything in the Firefox folder then copy across everything from the original pc.

Seems to work alright.

I have had several distros working on the X205TA (I even had a how to guide written up on reddit years ago).

But I was not able to get a usable system (i.e. being able to use the system without waiting on average 20-120 sec for the device to process an action).

Life has gotten to the point that the effort to do so is better directed into activities that I would enjoy.

To be brutally honest about this, your best bet is to recycle the unit.

The problems of trying to get a distro to install properly, have all the hardware working right and have a usable experience are not worth the minimal upsides.

I have an ASUS X205TA which is a similar unit and after trying for countless hours to get a usable device out of it was not going to be worth the headaches plus if I was getting paid for the time I spent on it I could have brought an off lease laptop with better specs.

I have an LTS kernel as a backup in case something doesn’t work with my main kernel.

Just recently I had an issue where my main kernel had a bug where snap’s can’t start up, so I just restarted into the LTS kernel to use it then restarted back into my main kernel.

Hannah Montana Linux

I use yt-dlg as a GUI for yt-dl.

I find it works pretty well.

Don’t use Gparted unless you know what you are doing as it is relatively easy to screw up.

Gnome disks is a much more user friendly option and you don’t have to mess around with changing permissions as what changes you make in it are owned by the logged in user.

He didn’t specify what sort of M.2 SSD he has so I thought that I would throw it out there as an option.

Plus as he said it was for an older computer & was looking for the cheapest adaptor that works, I guessed that he wasn’t too concerned about getting the most performance possible out of the setup.

Startech does a M.2 SSD to 2.5" SATA drive adapter.

1. Linux is not Windows

Do not expect things to work as they do in Windows.

2. The terminal is not to be feared (it only bites when told to)

While you can get most things done via a GUI option using the Terminal is much more powerful and gives more information.

3. Not all hardware works with or works well with Linux

This pertains mostly to Laptops and peripherals, but always do a quick Google search to check for any issues.

One of the big issues for people is sound, a lot of computer & parts makers like to use the cheapest no-name parts they can because Windows lets them require “drivers” aka software fixes for poor hardware whereas Linux tends to give unaltered output leading to complaints about sound quality.

4. Not all software works on or works well on Linux

You are not going to find software from Adobe, Microsoft office 365 etc running on Linux even using WINE.

Some games will not work on Linux even using the Proton compatibility software.

5. Linux software is often lacking in the visuals but has lots of options under the hood.

There is a lot of software made for Linux are made by devs who focus more on the under the hood performance than making the software GUI look pretty. So don’t be put off by the looks of a lot of Linux software.

6. Alternative to is a great website.

I highly recommend Using the Alternativeto website to (as the name implies) find alternatives to software you use on Windows.

7. Backup’s are your friend

Setup an external device be it an internal hard drive, external hard drive or NAS as a backup target for your files.

You can use Timeshift to backup the entire drive (and it can reload a chosen backup directly onto the drive), Lucky backup to sync specified folders (either one way or both ways) to your drives or as I do use both.

And backup before doing major updates.

I have Timeshift setup to backup the entire drive (including $home) to a separate internal HDD and Luckybackup set to backup my important folders to an external USB HDD.

8. Accidents will happen

As you are learning how to use and navigate you will have accidents that will require a full reinstall, don’t fear this has happened to everyone else and why you backup your files so it’s an annoyance instead of the end of the world.

What you can do is have a 1-2Tb SSD and use that as your day to day drive then use Timeshift to regularly backup the entire drive to a HDD.