Dell Support Experience to order and replace laptop battery

This is based on the experience of one of my family with Dell Support whose Dell Inspiron uses a 3 cell 4.1V 3500 mAH Li-ion battery - part number FW8KR11. This was confirmed in Linux using dmidecode. Open a terminal window and enter the command below.$ sudo dmidecode <enter>Portable BatteryLocation: Sys. Battery BayManufacturer: BYDManufacture Date: … Continue reading Dell Support Experience to order and replace laptop battery →

How to increase font size of menus, lists in Spotify in Linux

To scale the font size of Spotify on Linux, open a terminal window and enter the following command.$ spotify --force-device-scale-factor=1.5 <enter> You will find that spotify menus are now bigger and more readable. To make them scale permanently whenever Spotify starts, create a desktop shortcut and put the scaling factor in the desktop file. $ … Continue reading How to increase font size of menus, lists in Spotify in Linux →

Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop too slow with Windows 11. Upgrade to M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD

After upgrading the Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop to Windows 11, the big problem is the speed of the laptop. It deteriorates to the extent that it takes almost 5 minutes to boot. Each click on the desktop to open an app takes almost 30 seconds. With this performance, the laptop is virtually useless. The laptop … Continue reading Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop too slow with Windows 11. Upgrade to M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD →

Experience with upgrade of RAM memory on Dell Inspiron 5580 and Dell Inspiron 5570 laptops

If you are one of those who run Virtual Box and use any other OS in it, then the base memory of the Dell Inspiron 5580 of 8 gb DDR4 RAM and an NVME PCIe SSD will still not give near good performance of Windows or the other OS in Virtual Box. The simplest solution … Continue reading Experience with upgrade of RAM memory on Dell Inspiron 5580 and Dell Inspiron 5570 laptops →

How to report battery issue to Dell using SupportAssist Diagnostics if you use Linux

Dell has an application SupportAssist on the laptops it sells. To them, this is their bible about the information on your laptop. Any issue reported to Dell, ends up with technical support staff who ask to run SupportAssist first thing. On a Linux machine, SupportAssist will not work, even in a virtual machine. To overcome … Continue reading How to report battery issue to Dell using SupportAssist Diagnostics if you use Linux →

Upgrade RAM on a Dell Inspiron 5580 laptop

The easiest way to do this is to visit the Crucial site, and scan the computer if you use Windows. However, on Linux, find out details about the RAM installed open a terminal window and enter :$ sudo dmidecode | more <enter> And scroll through the list till you get to the DIMM block. Here … Continue reading Upgrade RAM on a Dell Inspiron 5580 laptop →

How to install Adobe Reader for Linux on Linux Mint or Ubuntu

Download the last Linux version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from the archives of Adobe after opening a terminal window and enter:$ wget ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/9.x/9.5.5/enu/AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i386linux_enu.deb <enter> To install open a terminal window and enter:$ sudo apt-get install ./AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i386linux_enu.deb <enter> A word of caution that it may be outdated and unpatched.

Bloatware removed from Samsung M51 device

Mobile devices come with lots of bloatware that is not used by many of us. Till there are legal regulations prohibiting the installation of factory bloatware, it pays to delete bloatware that is not used or never used. Before proceeding with the steps to remove bloatware, make sure a data backup has been taken, because, … Continue reading Bloatware removed from Samsung M51 device →

There’s something about TRIM in LinuxMint or Ubuntu Linux

Got a new PCIe NVMe SSD device? It starts lagging after a few months of use on Linux Mint and to optimize it, do the following after opening a terminal window $ journalctl | grep fstrim.service <enter>This will display when the TRIM was last executed. It normally does this once a week. Verify when the … Continue reading There’s something about TRIM in LinuxMint or Ubuntu Linux →

Optimize Firefox by verifying integrity of places database

Start firefox and visit about:supportLocate the heading Places Database the click on Verify Integrity. This will optimize Firefox. Do this periodically.