Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#1

Post by febeling » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)
geoff.greer.fm

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#2

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

I found the most interesting part at the bottom where he said he got his MacBook back and is still using his old 2007 ThinkPad more than the Mac now.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#3

Post by walrus01 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

I have a very old Thinkpad X40 convertible which I use occasionally as pretty much a dumb terminal. It runs the latest i386 version of xubuntu. CPU is a single core Pentium M something, 1.5GB of RAM, 40GB hard drive.

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X40

It works totally fine for SSH sessions and a web browser interface to not-very-complicated intranet tools accessed via a VPN, such as ticketing system, network monitoring software, etc.

If I want to leave a monitoring display of something running, I fullscreen it in a browser, rotate the thing into its tablet mode and prop it up against something on my desk.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#4

Post by ozzyman700 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

/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)

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#5

Post by syntaxing » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

Huge fan of Geoff's post. His X62 post is what inspired to build my own. Though we should probably put a 2017 year stamp on the title.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#6

Post by itg » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I found the most interesting part at the bottom where he said he got his MacBook back and is still using his old 2007 ThinkPad more than the Mac now.

Not surprising, I use a 2018 mbp at work yet prefer my thinkpad x220 which came out in 2011.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#7

Post by larrik » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

I'm genuinely surprised it doesn't have a touchpad. I don't think I've ever seen a laptop without one, and I used laptops back in the early/mid 90's.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#8

Post by sverige » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #7

I'm genuinely surprised it doesn't have a touchpad. I don't think I've ever seen a laptop without one, and I used laptops back in the early/mid 90's.

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.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#9

Post by markvdb » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

2011 Lenovo Thinkpad X220 daily user here. Really nice machine really for my needs, running the latest Debian smoothly.

I do have a spare ready to take over if needed. Old hardware could always die very suddenly. It's a frugal solution, both cheaper and more ecological than buying new.

Re: Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

#10

Post by ianwalter » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #7

I'm genuinely surprised it doesn't have a touchpad. I don't think I've ever seen a laptop without one, and I used laptops back in the early/mid 90's.

Yea same. The thinkpad I had from 2004 had a trackpad. Maybe the trackpad was optional?