Why does my laptop run at near or 100% CPU load?

[The Fugitive]

6 hours ago, simon43 said:

Thanks for all the good advice here.  I'm going to partition my drive and install Linux Mint, and see how the laptop performs.  As mentioned, it's an old laptop running bloated Windows 10, so no surprises that the CPU is under heavy load.

 

@MrJ2U, this is my second/back-up laptop.  My main laptop is a Ryzen i7 which runs fast and fine ????

Good solution. There are two options for Linux Mint; Ubuntu based and Debian based. You may find the Debian based runs a little lighter. Debian versions of SlimJet browser will install upon both.  

[ozimoron]

1 hour ago, The Fugitive said:

Good solution. There are two options for Linux Mint; Ubuntu based and Debian based. You may find the Debian based runs a little lighter. Debian versions of SlimJet browser will install upon both.  

Ubuntu is a debian distro. The main reason I see people choose mint is that it has a desktop which is more similar to windows. I have used ubuntu for the past 13 years.

[gargamon]

1 hour ago, The Fugitive said:

Good solution. There are two options for Linux Mint; Ubuntu based and Debian based. You may find the Debian based runs a little lighter. Debian versions of SlimJet browser will install upon both.  

But Ubuntu is debian based... 

[ozimoron]

1 hour ago, The Fugitive said:

Good solution. There are two options for Linux Mint; Ubuntu based and Debian based. You may find the Debian based runs a little lighter. Debian versions of SlimJet browser will install upon both.  

There are not 2 versions of linux mint. Apart from the desktop it's identical to ubuntu.

[The Fugitive]

1 hour ago, gargamon said:

But Ubuntu is debian based... 

https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

 

https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

 

We're talking about Linux Mint. Linux Mint is offered with a choice of either a Ubuntu or a Debian base.

[ozimoron]

5 minutes ago, The Fugitive said:

https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

 

https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

 

We're talking about Linux Mint. Linux Mint is offered with a choice of either a Ubuntu or a Debian base.

The difference between these two and ubuntu is basically the desktop UI. core differences: nil.

[The Fugitive]

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

There are not 2 versions of linux mint. Apart from the desktop it's identical to ubuntu.

'LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. The package base is provided by Debian instead'. Thank you for your information.

[ozimoron]

2 minutes ago, The Fugitive said:

'LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. The package base is provided by Debian instead'. Thank you for your information.

Functionally identical. They just want to remove reliance on Canonical for the package manager..