The Death of Windows XP and My First Linux Netbook

I have been running Linux exclusively on my computers since August 2020. While Linux is not my main writing topic here at The New Leaf Journal, I have written many articles which at least reference my using Linux. I have seen more tech-focused writers and video creators discuss their journey to Linux. A my Linux journey article is hardly necessary for me since I documented building my current desktop computer and installing Linux on it back in 2020 and have written numerous articles about doing different things on Linux. Suffice it to say, anyone who is interested in learning about my learning about Linux can peruse The New Leaf Journal archives.

But what if I told you that my first encounter with Linux came well before the launch of this humble website?

My True First Experience With Linux

One may think from all of my writing that my current PC is my first experience with Linux. To be sure, it is for all practical intents and purposes. However, it is not technically my first Linux computer, and by technically I am not appealing to some nonsense such as “my old Kindle Fire HDX ran Fire OS which is derived from Android which is totally Linux.” I had a bona fide Linux laptop several years before I started using Linux as a daily driver. I revealed that point in my first article covering Linux wherein I discussed installing Manjaro on my hand-built PC:

Until now, every computer I have used, with one exception, has run Windows. Over the years, I have used computers running Windows 95, XP, Vista, 7, and 10. The only time I ventured from Windows was when I installed Linux Ubuntu on a Windows XP notebook instead of upgrading the notebook to a newer edition of Windows. For the new computer, I decided to use the Manjaro distribution of Linux with the Plasma KDE desktop environment.

Me (emphasis added)

Three of my four articles published immediately before this one involved laundry. My first Linux story also features a laundromat, so I thought it would be fun to look back.

But before we get to the Linux install, some greater context on my computer history is in order.

My Early Computer History

These days I daily drive Linux on all of my computers, administer the server on which this website runs, and engage in random projects like running GrapheneOS instead of stock Android on my Google Pixel 6a or installing OpenWrt on a router to use as an Access Point because I can. (Note: None of this is to suggest I am a super high level Linux user. I would rate myself as an ordinary Linux user who is capable of reading the docs when necessary.)

Once upon a time, I was not much of a computer user at all. We got a Windows 95 in 1996 or 97, complete with a power switchboard that is still in operation. We only had the internet (the classic AOL package) for a few years before dropping it. I recall the Windows 95 fell out of use in 2001 or so before being briefly revived when I was in middle school and in the better part of my first two years of high school (without internet access at that point). I recall as late as May 2005 or early 2006 bringing a class assignment to school on a floppy disk after I saved it from the Windows 95. I will submit for the record though that computers were not a big part of my school life. There were only a few occasions that I had typed assignments for classes and the first time I ever used email for school was in the latter half of my senior year of high school in 2008.

(Note: I do not think my computer experience was particularly unusual for someone who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, and I think I was far from the only one who did not really use a computer at home throughout my time in middle school. I browsed the internet on occasion for game or NBA information on visits to my Mom’s office (which is where I first encountered Game FAQs), and I used the computers in our school’s very quaint computer labs. I played games on consoles, which I detailed in an article on the video games which left the strongest impressions on me. My personal computer history probably explains why, despite my being a fan of some old web concepts, I do not have particular nostalgia for web 1.0.)

Windows 95 died and we replaced it with a Dell XPS desktop with Windows XP pre-installed (complete with modern internet!) in late 2005 or early 2006. That period ended up being the first time since some occasional dabbling with the old Windows 95 as a kid (fond memories of Sonic’s Schoolhouse and all) that I really made use of a computer at home. I used AIM, had an ESPN Insider account, played some games (I was still console-first, however), made a YouTube account back when your YouTube account could be separate from a Google account, and saved photos to Picasa (I miss Picasa, that was the killed by Google that stung). I dare say that my greatest 2000s computer accomplishment was using Microsoft Publisher to create a new template for the school newspaper back in the summer of 2007.

But all things considered, I graded out as a normie Windows user.

Acquiring an Under-powered Acer Netbook

In 2009 when I was in college, I ran into some issues with the XPS and replaced it with a slightly lower-end desktop computer, albeit one running Windows Vista instead of XP (Note: I thought Vista was fine, never understood all the hatred). While we were getting the desktop, I decided that I could also use a laptop (I did not get a free Macbook from Brooklyn College like my NLJ colleague Victor V. Gurbo). I liked the netbook form-factor, so for one reason or another I picked up a very low power blue Acer Netbook which came with Windows XP. (I think the computers came from the former J&R in lower Manhattan.)

Because I no longer have the netbook for reasons I will discuss further down, I cannot confirm the model and specs. I did some research online and came away reasonably confident that I had an Acer Aspire One ZG5. You can see what it looked like in this 2009 article by Mick Morgan about installing Ubuntu on an Aspire One (fitting). Like me, he settled on the netbook in part because “it looks a lot cooler than most of the competition (particularly in blue…).”

The netbook had some obvious limitations when I acquired it – namely it was painfully slow. But I will credit it for providing my first experience with RSS feeds. It came with an RSS app called eSobi which also had some power search functionality (like many people, I briefly used Google Reader, but only after eSobi). Thank you Acer netbook!

In July 2011, I built my first computer. Nearly nine years after building that computer, I used it to launch The New Leaf Journal in April 2020. By 2011 I was aware of Linux and somewhat interested in learning about in the future, but to be sure, I did not know much about it and opted for Windows 7 (very nice), which I upgraded to Windows 10 in 2015 (not so nice).

But let us return to the Acer.

Windows XP EoL Leads to My Year of the Linux Laptop

Astute readers will notice that I acquired the Windows XP-powered Acer laptop right about when Windows XP entered extended support (note I was almost certainly completely unaware of the Windows XP support situation at that time). Microsoft ended extended support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. I know that some people are passionate about running unsupported versions of Windows and I am sure there are still people walking the streets among us and run Windows XP machines facing the internet. However, while I was a fairly normie computer user, I intuited that it was probably a bad idea to run a wholly unsupported version of Windows on an internet-facing computer. I think my Acer was too weak to upgrade, but in any event the machine was not capable enough for me to be inclined to spend money upgrading it. Would I throw it away? I would not.

Recall I noted earlier that I was vaguely aware of this thing called Linux back when I built my desktop computer in July 2011. While I do not recall the extent of my very limited Linux knowledge back in April 2014, I knew enough to know that I could, in theory, replace Windows XP with Linux for the high price of free of cost and have a computer that would continue to receive updates. The concept of “Linux distribution” was most certainly beyond me in 2014, so I did the normie thing and read the installation guide on the Ubuntu website.

April 2014: Installing Ubuntu on an Old Acer Netbook

I do not have clear and distinct memories of the process of installing Linux on my netbook. I assume that I burned Ubuntu to a USB, booted into the live environment, and then installed, but again – all I remember is that I did install Ubuntu on the netbook and ran into no issues that would make it particularly memorable. I wiped the Windows XP install with Ubuntu so I was not trying any dual booting shenanigans.

(Note: I think and assume that my desktop environment was Unity but the concept of “desktop environment” was beyond my frame of reference in 2014-16.)

While the Linux desktop and laptop experience has (so I heard) improved significantly over the years, I do not recall having any notable issues with Ubuntu on the netbook. To the best of my recollection everything I needed worked out of the box. My first priority for the Ubuntu netbook was to install LibreOffice (still a part of my workflow). I had some previous experience with both OpenOffice and LibreOffice and did not have a strong preference for Microsoft Word over LibreOffice Writer. I do not remember if I used a GUI package manager on Ubuntu or installed the .deb file for LibreOffice from the official website (I am certain I did not use the command line and had no idea what sudo or apt meant). I probably also installed some version of Minesweeper, but I do not remember using the Ubuntu netbook for any extended period for anything other than word processing in LibreOffice Writer.

My Ubuntu Acer Netbook Laundromat Memories

I promised at the top of the article that my Ubuntu netbook would involve laundromats. I started working from home drafting law articles for an immigration law firm in 2015 (the same law firm I work for now as a legal research specialist). I almost exclusively used my 2011 desktop computer for work. However, there was one place where the Ubuntu netbook was useful: The laundromat. With the netbook, I could turn my time at the laundry into money by drafting and editing articles at the laundromat. I came to associate my humble little Linux device with those afternoons and evenings at the laundry.

Bye Bye Netbook, Bye Bye Linux (for about four years, at least)

Unfortunately, my Ubuntu netbook died not too long into its Linux revival (probably in the winter or spring of 2016 but I do not remember exactly when). One day it did not turn on and simply refused to turn on. I replaced it with significantly larger laptop running Windows 10 in 2016 before a trip to Texas (I figured any work I did on the trip would more or less pay for the laptop). The death of my Ubuntu-fied Acer netbook would be the last time I touched Linux until I installed it on my current computer in August 2020.

(The laptop that replaced my Acer netbook is still with us. I wrote about replacing Windows on it with Peppermint OS in 2020. It has gone through a few Linux distributions and saw some use as a psuedo desktop computer in the front room before I replaced it with a mini PC in January 2025. It still works but I have not figured out what I want to do with it at the moment.)

Parting Thoughts

My first experience with Linux on the netbook was largely positive, albeit limited. I only used the netbook for word processing and did not learn much about using Linux from the experience (I am not sure whether I ever used the terminal or took the time to understand what a package manager was). I did come away from the experience thinking that Linux (Ubuntu in that case) worked as well for me as Windows for certain, specific use-cases.

My first positive experience with Linux had little-to-no influence on my decision to take a you only live once approach to installing Linux on my new computer in 2020, despite having minimal practical Linux experience (the Ubuntu netbook was the extent of it) and having previously been a very ordinary Windows user without a tech background. My reasons for switching to Linux were motivated more by my not being a big fan of big tech, having had a somewhat negative experience with Windows 10 (granting I had liked Windows 7 on that same computer), being under the impression that I could run what I needed to and play most of my games on Linux, and not wanting to spend money on Windows after having spent a bit over $900 on the parts for my computer (roughly in that order). It is for that reason that I only noted in passing that I had briefly used Ubuntu several years before switching to Linux in my New Computer, New Leaf article.

While my original decision to use Ubuntu was a practical way to get a little bit of extra use from a waning netbook and my use of the netbook was purely practical, it is fun to look back at it now some 10 years later now that I am daily driving Linux on all of my computers and writing about my first Linux experience in a markdown editor. I had vaguely planned to write an article on the anecdote for some time – I did not expect that I would be reminded of my plans by writing three articles about laundromats.