Update on Samsung Series 9

I have been using a Samsung Series 9 with Linux Mint Debian Edition for nearly two years. It is a wonderful machine to use. Crisp screen. Fast. Silent. Lovely keyboard. But it was a real pain to get working reliably under Linux. And with the reported BIOS bug you feel like on tender hooks doing a reinstall or upgrade.
I'm, however, relatively happy to report that apart from the occasional kernel panic when using USB ports it has been reliable. Now that I know it is USB sensitive, I take extra precautions when yanking out USB devices. Ensure it is properly unmounted, eject if able. Put machine into suspend mode, then yank out. A pain, but I'm more confident going the extra effort to avoid uncontrolled panics while in the middle of an edit.

I am disappointed with recent change of direction of Linux Mint Debian Edition. I like the rolling release. Having successfully implement two updates now, the process is relatively smooth. However they have abandoned the Xfce desktop as a installation choice. That will push me back to using base Debian. Which is not such a bad idea. I used Linux Mint initially due to its rolling distribution option. That this is simply a pointer to Debian testing, means I should be able to revert to Debian. More on this in a later post.

Please be sure to check my updated notes on this installation here. It has been maintained as the machine was tweaked and optimised.

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