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I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

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Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#71
post #47

I run NixOS on a coreboot-ed T420 and I absolutely love everything on the outside, but it really shows its age when compared to the display on my Macbook or it comes to running heavier software ie. rust-analyzer, Chrome, or Nix builds. If Lenovo were to release a modern T420-like, with identical chassis, battery system and similar IO port variety, but a modern display, modern internals (replaceable SSD! soldered RAM…

T14 Gen 5 AMD is perhaps the current best you can go for with non-soldered RAM.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#72
post #47

I run NixOS on a coreboot-ed T420 and I absolutely love everything on the outside, but it really shows its age when compared to the display on my Macbook or it comes to running heavier software ie. rust-analyzer, Chrome, or Nix builds. If Lenovo were to release a modern T420-like, with identical chassis, battery system and similar IO port variety, but a modern display, modern internals (replaceable SSD! soldered RAM…

I’ve never heard of a thinkpad without a replaceable ssd.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#74
post #27

Off-topic about the Nassim Nicholas Taleb opening: Does anybody else feel like he just restates obvious things in a more formalized and somewhat pompous way? I do not mind formalization but I feel like I am supposed to swoon over it as if some profound truth, that was not already implied in our every day thinking, was being revealed.

I don't think it is obvious to everyone that a 20 year old laptop had a better survival chance over the next year than a new one. Most people think old is more fragile. Sometimes it is though (e.g. parts for a plane need to be replaced every X hours of service)

at some point is it even the same laptop? I don't think the original laptop has a better chance of surviving

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#75
There’s nothing out there that matches the bold business look and feel of old thinkpads, my personal favorite being the x61. These machines are so well-built and beautiful, and I respect and understand the decision to try and keep them running. But I would respect a restomod more =)

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#76

I wish that Framework could attain the same lofty levels of "second hand market success" that ThinkPads enjoy. A lot of the "Thinkpad fans" I've talked to genuinely want them, or respect them for similar reasons they enjoy the ThinkPad legacy. ThinkPads are durable but every day they get older, slower and more difficult to source parts for as collectors entrench themselves and the requirements of operating systems (a…

Obligatory "I can't even order Framework in my country" post.

But I can get as many Thinkpads as I want.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#77
post #37

ThinkPads back when were certainly good, sturdy machines, though I could never get along with the nipple. Another great older machine for me was the purple Sony Vaio - magnesium alloy, came with Win2K installed. I bought one, and then immediately bought another - the first I repurposed as a Linux server and I carried them both (easily) around for demoing this and that. My latest, which I think is going to be in the T…

Yes the T30's nipple was a bit strange.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dctaft/413198278/

I quite like the cup style trackpoint even if it tended to leave a small circle on the screen.

That particular laptop died in middle age due to motherboard hardware defects.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#78

Having run some hardware for about 20 years (recently deceased), the problem that eventually happens is that newer OSes drop support for old hardware. If you hit some weird bug on your setup on a new OS release, there won't be anyone to help you fix it[1]. So then you're stuck on an old OS. In time, that means you can't run the latest userland software either, which relies on more modern OS features (eg: your Firefox…

> In my case, the boot loader stopped working for my hardware on FreeBSD 11.4

That's interesting/strange. Did you report it? I'd expect them to care about that serious of a breakage in a point release.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#79
The tightness of hardware integration isn't a bug, it's genuinely a feature; In fact, it's the defining feature that makes Apple hardware great. Socketed RAM, CPU, and Storage just weren't worth the tradeoffs, namely size, weight, cost, and performance. Including those modular interfaces just wasn't worth it when the internal interfaces would be obsolete within 5 years, and the average user was replacing sub-components 0 times over the life of the device.

The user being able to swap parts easily is _neat_ but it's just not an required feature, any more than the user of a car being able to easily hot-swap the engine. The right level of integration provides a tradeoff the maximizes reliability, cost, performance, and repair. A professional can still replace almost any component of a modern laptop, with a few thousand $ of specialized tools, and the battery, the only component with a fixed lifetime, can be easily replaced at home.

I really hope Framework can continue to develop hardware with documented repairability, without falling for the myth that tight integration and quality are mutually exclusive.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#80
Respect! I still run x230 with Linux for fun and so my kids can smash the keys on the keyboard (btw imho the keyboard feeling is better than in any laptop I used since then) and they feel good about themselves that they do the same thing as dad
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