Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

parksb.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 178 posts

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#161

Post by kasabali »

ndiddy wrote: post #114
drdexebtjl wrote: post #16

These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop. They were already painfully slow when they were new, so much so that OEMs shipped them dual booting a stripped down OS. I had an HP Mini. It had a weird 1024x600 display panel, and a lot of applications expect you to have at least 1024x768. Sometimes apps would work fine until they opened a modal that was just a bit too tall, and you had to pray that En…

Another thing to keep in mind if you have an old netbook lying around is that a lot of the later models that came out after Windows 7 have PowerVR graphics (rebranded as "Intel GMA 3600") instead of the basic Intel chipset graphics. The only operating systems that will work with the GMA 3600 are 32-bit Windows 7 and whatever version of Fedora was current in 2012 (thanks to a closed source beta driver Intel released).…

Someone should vibe reverse that driver

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#163

Post by prmoustache »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #16

These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop. They were already painfully slow when they were new, so much so that OEMs shipped them dual booting a stripped down OS. I had an HP Mini. It had a weird 1024x600 display panel, and a lot of applications expect you to have at least 1024x768. Sometimes apps would work fine until they opened a modal that was just a bit too tall, and you had to pray that En…

> These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop.

Impossible is not the correct word. But one need to have lower expectation, favor lighterweight (tui or cli) apps whenever possible, avoid the ADriddledweb, etc.

The main point is there is very little reason to do that because by now most of these old netbooks batteries are dead which remove the advantage of their form factor as you cannot bring them everywhere as you used to and you can get a cheap second hand laptop or desktop with a larger screen, a much better keyboard, 8gb pf ram and a much better cpu for very little money these days.

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#164

Post by stasiu »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #95
iammjm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too had it and remember it fondly, it got me through my studies. Very portable machine. I eventually swapped it for a thinkpad which I loved even more. Now I’m with a MacBook Air for the time being, but I think I’ll get another thinkpad when the time comes

I miss the form factor of the old netbooks. The 2gb swappable to generally up to 4gb ram was really never great, though was fine with linux as long as you set your swap partition up correctly, though I wouldn't be expecting much in the way of running things like virtualbox or any modern IDE. The 32bit support only was fine then, not now (and with only 2-4gb ram, you didn't want 64bit anyway). Perfectly adequate for m…

Crunchbang was one of the first distros after Ubuntu I came across, it was cool, quite an influence in my vision of what Linux could be.

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#165

Post by dannyw »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #122
drdexebtjl wrote: post #16

These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop. They were already painfully slow when they were new, so much so that OEMs shipped them dual booting a stripped down OS. I had an HP Mini. It had a weird 1024x600 display panel, and a lot of applications expect you to have at least 1024x768. Sometimes apps would work fine until they opened a modal that was just a bit too tall, and you had to pray that En…

"These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop." I used one as a replacement for a "desktop computer" for 7+ years Here, "desktop" means the form factor not the interface I used NetBSD as the OS. I never tried to use Windows. It was during this time that I stopped using X11 entirely, i.e., no "desktop" metaphor, no terminal emulator programs, and began staying in VGA textmode 100% of the time If I n…

Could I ask for more information about the specs of the machine you had? Curious what processor, how much RAM it had, and what you did for storage (did you expand it / use external drives?)

Fascinated by your experiences here!

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#166

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #122
drdexebtjl wrote: post #16

These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop. They were already painfully slow when they were new, so much so that OEMs shipped them dual booting a stripped down OS. I had an HP Mini. It had a weird 1024x600 display panel, and a lot of applications expect you to have at least 1024x768. Sometimes apps would work fine until they opened a modal that was just a bit too tall, and you had to pray that En…

"These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop." I used one as a replacement for a "desktop computer" for 7+ years Here, "desktop" means the form factor not the interface I used NetBSD as the OS. I never tried to use Windows. It was during this time that I stopped using X11 entirely, i.e., no "desktop" metaphor, no terminal emulator programs, and began staying in VGA textmode 100% of the time If I n…

CPU Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz

Memory 512MB DDR2 667MHz

Storage 160GB SATA

10.1" screen. For me, this was great in VGA textmode

I prefer to keep OS and personal data separate (This is one important difference from ChromeOS that appeared a few years later)

The USB stick contained OS only, HDD was used for data storage only, if at all. For example, I might not use the HDD at all, leaving it as is when I bought the computer. or I might use the HDD to store public data like public zone files

I primarily used external drives for personal data storage (This is another important difference from ChromeOS, no "cloud" storage)

As such, when the computer eventually dies, I have the OS on USB stick and data on external drives, easily portable to new computers

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#167

Post by 93n »

ColdStream wrote: post #151
93n wrote: post #115

I still run, and am writing this from, a 16-or-17 year old Dell E6510 (i5-540) that serves as my "around the house" computer. The battery life (with a huge 9 cell that protrudes out the back) isn't great, and it's hot and heavy, but with 8GiB of RAM and an SSD it works pretty well on Trixie with Cinnamon. My main machine is a 13 year old Lenovo y510p running Debian and KDE. You'd be hard-pressed to tell that it's any…

I am in the same boat as you. I run a T400 from 2009. It would have been fairly high end for the time (2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM) and I think that is why it has held up so well. As now, there is a very wide performance profile for machines around then. From sub Ghz Celerons up to 3Ghz plus dual core things.

I'd expect your T400 is similar to my E6510 in terms of construction since they're both business machines from the same era. The E6510 is a tank. The hinges are still solid and there's no wear on the keyboard. There's a single panel, held on by just a single screw, that pops off on the bottom to expose the majority of user-replaceable parts.

It'd be useless with Windows, but works great with Linux. The only issue I have is severe lag on google maps.

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#168

Post by 93n »

ColdStream wrote: post #151
93n wrote: post #115

I still run, and am writing this from, a 16-or-17 year old Dell E6510 (i5-540) that serves as my "around the house" computer. The battery life (with a huge 9 cell that protrudes out the back) isn't great, and it's hot and heavy, but with 8GiB of RAM and an SSD it works pretty well on Trixie with Cinnamon. My main machine is a 13 year old Lenovo y510p running Debian and KDE. You'd be hard-pressed to tell that it's any…

I am in the same boat as you. I run a T400 from 2009. It would have been fairly high end for the time (2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM) and I think that is why it has held up so well. As now, there is a very wide performance profile for machines around then. From sub Ghz Celerons up to 3Ghz plus dual core things.

Tangentially, my home server is a slightly newer NUC with a toy of a celeron N3050. That runs great for the overwhelming majority of use cases, too. The only obviously slow operations are anything heavily CPU-bound, like compiling (esphome) and photo indexing (photoprism). In the latter case, I run it at night on a cron, so it's not really an issue in practice.

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#169

Post by PrimalPower »

theevilsharpie wrote: post #26
trelane wrote: post #8

I really miss netbooks. They were an amazing moment for Linux. No surprise Microsoft killed them.

> I really miss netbooks. They were an amazing moment for Linux. No surprise Microsoft killed them. As far as cheap, low-spec, disposable laptops go, Chromebooks are the spiritual successor to netbooks.

perhaps, but chromebooks still come in laptop sizes these days. Other than a few stragglers (e.g lenovo duet), the majority of chromebooks are 12-14 inches.

If you are chasing the form factor, macbooks are serious competitors with really good battery life and tactile feel.

The beauty of netbooks was that ~10 inch form factor. Really the perfect companion device without needing a special bag to carry.

In many ways netbooks were a over a decade too early, and came right before the mobile hardware computing boom.

Netbooks are still not feasibile today, modern web design has made smaller lower res displays completely unusable today.

Tech Companies are trying to push foldable phones and tablets into this niche - but there was always something nice about a keyboard.

Re: Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux

#170

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

dannyw wrote: post #165
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"These 2008-2010 era netbooks are impossible to use as a desktop." I used one as a replacement for a "desktop computer" for 7+ years Here, "desktop" means the form factor not the interface I used NetBSD as the OS. I never tried to use Windows. It was during this time that I stopped using X11 entirely, i.e., no "desktop" metaphor, no terminal emulator programs, and began staying in VGA textmode 100% of the time If I n…

Could I ask for more information about the specs of the machine you had? Curious what processor, how much RAM it had, and what you did for storage (did you expand it / use external drives?) Fascinated by your experiences here!

May I ask what makes these experiences fascinating

Genuinely curious

Post reply on HN