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Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

geoff.greer.fm

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Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#201

Post by dhimes »

pjmlp wrote: post #104

This laptop is an Asus dual core from 2009, initially released with Windows 7, currently running Windows 10, maxed out to 8GB and an 1 TB SSD. Still quite fit to run VS, Eclipse, Android Studio. Only issue that the fan has already seen better days. No wonder that PC makers cannot sell enough machines nowadays to keep investors happy.

I have an Asus (Model UL50V) from 2009 with an Intel Centrino- 4 GB RAM. It's my everyday machine. It is getting slow at many things (but a recent hack to Thunderbird settings helped a little). I dual boot Linux Mint 17.2 (Ubuntu 14.04 IIRC), although I haven't actually booted windows in years. I have a Toshiba Satellite for travel, windows 10, and in virtualbox I have a Mint system that basically recreates my work environment (which is usually Fluxbox).

The one good thing about about using the old system is that using Virtualbox isn't annoyingly slow.

I am looking forward to upgrading my work box to a linux-native desktop (System 76 or such) and joining the modern age! I was hoping to outwait Spectrum/ but now that is looking hopeless?

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#202

Post by 0815test »

ams6110 wrote: post #176
stcredzero wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to make a modern day equivalent of a Model 100. By that, I mean a highly portable instant-on computer one can do remote terminal work on with seemingly endless battery life. The first programming job I was ever paid for, I did a large part of dialed in through a modem over landlines. Emacs was fantastic for that! (Because it's an OS masquerading as an editor.)

> Someone needs to make a modern day equivalent of a Model 100. By that, I mean a highly portable instant-on computer one can do remote terminal work on with seemingly endless battery life. They do. They are called Chromebooks.

Chromebooks suck. Just buy a cheap Windows laptop (and most recent models are going for the Chromebook-like "ultrabook" form factor anyway, even at the low end) and put lightweight Linux on it. You don't really get better specs for the price if you go the Chromebook route, and the whole way they're setup makes them pointless toys.

(...No, I'm not going to look for the correct custom firmware for whatever my model of Chromebook happens to be, or put up with a machine that will wipe its storage unless I hit the right key combo as it boots! Again, that's hardly a marker of a professionally-built device!)

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#203

Post by ozzyman700 »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #68
ozzyman700 wrote: post #4

/tpg/ on /g/ is probably my favorite aspect of 4chan besides /prog/ Thinkpads are wonderful machines with lots of upgrade options. A T61 with an SSD and ram upgrade is quite usable for most everything except high quality video playback .Performance on win10 is ram dependent but with i3 and debian installed ram usage at idle is so so so low (sub gig)

I watch a lot of video so streaming + local 1080p+ (or even 4K) playback is a must for me at high bitrates. What's the oldest Thinkpad device that can handle that I wonder?

I would link to /tpg/ but i cannot currently. if you ctrl f /g/'s catalog for '/tpg/' there should be a link to a wiki that gives a great rundown of every model.

If you have a complete aversion to 4chan, any model that has a 1080p screen would be a good quantifier, I am not sure how many pre IBM sale thinkpads exist with that requirement though. The W series tends to have the best graphics processors as well. The T series being their general line and the X being their portable smaller laptops.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#204

Post by 0815test »

dingaling wrote: post #188
0815test wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...Old laptops without [RAM+SSD] upgrades aren’t really viable these days unless you work all day in a terminal. Huh, I don't think this is correct. A lightweight Linux distribution such as Debian can make very good use of even a spinning-rust HDD, as long as it has enough available RAM that it's not hitting disk all the time. As I've mentioned in a different comment, even 512MB RAM can be more than enough _if_ you…

I have some Dell D430 ultralights that max out at 2GB. Usually once a day the OOM Killer slaughters the file manager or GIMP or sometimes X itself. It really is too chancy now for serious use, I'd suggest 4GB minimum.

Sounds like a software problem to me. Put Debian on them with a Xfce/LXDE/i3wm session, and 2GB should be more than enough. 4GB is outright plentiful.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#205

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

I'm simply not interested in where laptops are going. I'm a healthy adult male, so a few hundred grams of weight is not an issue. I also find thin laptops very uncomfortable to use in certain positions where you balance it against your body.

I really should buy a 'clunky', 'heavy' laptop before they all disappear and all that's left are wafer thin machines with soldered-on everything.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#206

Post by fixvzbdjzis »

I used an old SGI Fuel (700Mhz, 2GB Ram) as my daily driver @ work until 2013. I would rdesktop to use heavy websites, but other than that it rocked.

Stopped using it because I graduated and I didn’t want to pay the electricity bill or keep a jet engine running at night (light sleeper)

If anyone here had successfully converted an SGI to a fanless SSD unit, let me know!

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#207

Post by elagost »

post_break wrote: post #131
mbrumlow wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor how? I have a nice IPS in x220 and it looks amazing!

I have an IPS in an X230 and it Ghosts really bad.

My X220 does the exact same thing. Usually pretty fine though, but definitely noticeable, multiple times a week. I keep my display timeout pretty low and have a blank screen for the lock screen (slock, i3lock, swaylock).

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#208

Post by amanaplanacanal »

I have a laptop which is 6 years old (not a thinkpad) which I was on the verge of tossing because I needed a new keyboard for it. Except for the broken keyboard, it's still a great machine, but the unavailability of parts was a problem.

Luckily I was able to find one and had it shipped from China. 10 minutes later it's as good as new. I found others on ebay, but they weren't actually available any more.

I had a similar experience recently for a cellphone, but instead of hardware it was software. I can't get security updates for it anymore. Except for that, it's still a great phone.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#209

Post by coredog64 »

wwweston wrote: post #88

My daily driver is mid-2012 pre-retina MBP. It's entirely adequate. I fear the day it dies because there are no more non-glossy MBPs, and I'm either going to have to make the choice to give up a matte display or give up macOS. It did recently go down and I pulled out a 2008 MBP. Mostly adequate, lag does start to show, though. My guess is that it's an issue of constrained memory (max 4GB?) as much as processor. Tops…

There’s a guy that has built a patching tool to “Hackintosh” an older, unsupported Mac with the newest OS:

http://dosdude1.com/mojave/

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#210

Post by qu4z-2 »

larrik wrote: post #189
sverige wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the TrackPoint, which is sort of a famous love/hate feature. (I love it.) The ThinkPad is my favorite all-time laptop design. No surprise to me that the author is still using it after getting his MacBook back from the shop.

Ah yes, the "randomly click on the screen while typing G or H" device. I always pulled that off mine. Didn't love that tapping it produced a mouseclick.

You can turn off tap-to-click (and I strongly recommend doing just that). Other than that it's the best pointer input device, though.
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