A new user resurrecting a netbook

[poohduck]

I've been largely bed ridden for a few weeks, which has allowed me to focus on rebuilding an old netbook. Its an emachines em350 (atom n450). I've upped the ram to 2gb, and it's had an intel 250gb ssd for a while.

I've installed sparky 4.6.1 minimal, and I'm still removing stuff, installing a few better things. It has been a baptism of fire; I haven't really found much useful info online (more misinformation).

One of the problems I had was just trying to register here! It took days, and using a 2nd email account (never received first or second emails on first account I used). Just a head's up if anyone is interested. Hotmail account did not receive anything (including junk).

I taught myself to modify taskbar etc using Panel - it seemed complicated for something that anywhere else is simple. I am enjoying it though.

Right now I'm trying to move var and home to a different partition, then put trim on a  schedule. I also want to image the os partition to a file as a backup. That should probably be my priority now that I think of it; already a lot of time invested here :)

I did try puppy - it doesn't really like to work as full install - I wanted full install to preserve memory. And bodhi - slow. This has been the best so far.

The other issue that really bugged me with sparky was not having full rights, but I discover gexec and root terminal, so all is good :)

[poohduck]

Just cloned the sys partition with clonezilla, no compression. Copied it to the data partition. I imagine I will need my home folder too to rebuild if all goes pear shaped? While trying to move home to a different partition, the system booted up with an empty home folder (misinformation on how to move home folder to different partition); there was no visible desktop and minimal programs available. It took me a while to put the system back together. It makes for a steep learning curve.

[blaze]

Welcome to the Sparky forums poohduck.

[Wombat]

Welcome!

I taught myself to modify taskbar etc using Panel

Other desktops may be more to your liking as each usually comes with different ways of configuring. There is a alternative desktop installer in SparkyAptus.

I also want to image the os partition to a file as a backup.

Not personally sure of the benefits of doing this. In Windows, yes. However it's so simple to  download the latest version of Sparkylinux to re-install. I have a few extra partitions where everythings saved and only re-install into the home partition. Just rememember to use the manual install method. The Live Disk allows access to the hard drive to enable any unsaved files to be moved.

[poohduck]

I've installed sparky on another, even older, laptop. All went smooth with partitions etc.