Breathing new life into Lenovo Ideapad S510p with Zorin OS 18.1 Core. Need a little Legacy Nvidia 820M hardware wisdom

Installing Zorin OS
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Hello wonderful Zorin Community! :waving_hand:

I hope you are all doing well. I am incredibly excited to install the beautiful new Zorin OS 18.1 Core on my trusted older laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad S510p.

Zorin looks like the absolute perfect, polished home for this machine, and I would be deeply grateful for your collective wisdom and feedback to help me get the installation exactly right.

To give you the full picture, here are my complete hardware specifications:

CPU: Intel Core i3-4010U * RAM: 16 GB

  • Storage 1 (OS Drive): 128 GB SSD * Storage 2 (Data Drive): 1 TB HDD
  • Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4400 + NVIDIA GeForce 820M (2GB Legacy GPU)
  • Peripherals: Wi-Fi, LAN, and Webcam work flawlessly out of the box.
  • Bluetooth Note: The internal Bluetooth card is broken, so I will be using an external USB Bluetooth dongle instead.

Since this machine mixes a super-fast SSD/RAM combo with an older legacy Nvidia card, I want to ensure a smooth, stable setup. I would love to hear your thoughts, tips, or experiences regarding a few quick questions:

  • Dual Storage Setup: My plan is to install the Zorin OS root system entirely on the 128 GB SSD so it boots instantly, and use the 1 TB HDD strictly for heavy file storage. What is the friendliest way for a beginner to map the HDD so it mounts automatically as a storage folder on every boot?
  • Legacy NVIDIA 820M Driver: Because the 820M is a legacy card, I know the "modern NVIDIA drivers" option on the USB boot menu isn't meant for it. Should I boot into the standard open-source Nouveau driver option first, and then check the Additional Drivers tool post-install for the legacy 390.xx or 418.xx proprietary drivers?
  • Wayland vs Xorg: For an older Nvidia card like mine, do you recommend I stick with the default desktop, or should I click the gear icon at the login screen and switch to Zorin Desktop on Xorg for better graphical stability?

Really appreciate anyone taking the time to read this and share their experience. Can't wait to get Zorin up and running on this machine!

Thanks a ton!

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well off the top with the nvidia vid card X11 is the way looks like a 2 core cpu maybe install the zorin 17/18 lite version. Im sure someone will come alone and get ya on right path

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Welcome to the Forum!

I checked this and the latest Driver for it would be 430. But that isn't available in Zorin 18. and I guess, You would need an older Kernel to support that Driver. I think, You have 2 Options:

  • Stay on Zorin 18 and use Nouveau Driver
  • Go back to Zorin 17 and try it there. there You have older Kernels and older Nvidia Drivers available

Herre, You could simply try it out. Run Wayland and when it works, fine. When You should see Issues like Flickering, Stuttering or else, switch to Xorg.

Here it depends a bit how You want handle it. Because Your SSD is not very big, I would see the Following:
Choose during the Installation the ''Something else'' Install Option to create the Partitions manually. Then create 3 Partitions:

  1. Create the /home Partition on Your HDD formatted in ext4
  2. Create a EFI-Partition with 300mb on the SSD
  3. For the Rest of the SSD use the / Mount Point formatted in ext4
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