17 year old Dell here. Threw a SSD and Linux on it and that damn thing boots faster than most brand new Desktops. Absolutely enough to surf the web, listen to music, watch videos or do the usual Linux stuff (ssh, etc.). You can even somewhat game on it via sunshine/moonlight.
I did the same with a Dell Wyse thin client laptop I acquired from work. Upgraded the RAM, popped a larger SSD into it, and installed Debian. Thing works great for the basics and I just RDP into my desktop for more intensive tasks.
That’s what I’m still doing now. I upgraded the RAM a couple years ago and the GPU last year, both with cheap older parts that were about $100.
The main problem I’ve run into so far is that Blender no longer runs since they only support CPUs ten years old or newer. But I don’t do that stuff anymore really anyway.
Yeah, once my Zephyrus dies I’ve decided that it’s my last “new” laptop that I buy. Sure, it can play games, but my usage has been drifting more “casual” over the years. For the top end of my computing: I really don’t need much to compile stuff and run chitubox.
How easy is it to get replacement parts for a ThinkPad?
A heads-up to anyone running old laptops; buy genuine replacement batteries while they’re available!
I have an aging XPS 13 and of course, Dell have discontinued the battery line. Opened it up one day and every cell had puffed out. It took buying a couple of fakes before finally finding a decent reseller on eBay who stocked what I needed. The fake batteries were not recognised by Dell’s hardware detection system thing, I imagine lots of other manufacturers might implement the same feature.
You will eventually have to replace it when there are no replacement batteries. Get one that’s focused on repairability. Then you can basically keep it forever
It’s often too late to realize it’s non repairable. When reviews first come out, no one reviews the drm on components. Even those teardown sites only cover how hard it is to open up a device but don’t cover if a part is drm’d until moths or years later. Because there is no way to know until 3rd party parts come out and they don’t work.
Given how dell AC adapters are the only ones that I know of with an extra wire that functionally just acts as drm, it’s not surprising they do the same with batteries.
Even HP’s elitebook I got (6th Gen Intel CPUs) work no problem with third party batteries and HP has all of the drm printer nonsense. Curiously if their modern elitebook have battery drm yet.
Old laptops also make for great servers and hobby computers. If you don’t need the form factor of a pi or mini pc, throw Debian or whatever on an old laptop and play away! I’ve got jellyfin, my DNS, reverse proxy and an octoprint server running on mine. It’s the little heart of our network.
IMO, one of the biggest risks of using a laptop as a server or some type of utility system is that you may not look at it regularly enough to see if the battery has a problem.
Go look at your hardware folks. Just stare at it for a few minutes every few months or more frequently. See if anything looks strange or different about it.
I don’t know anything about this Pizzacake person, but I don’t think this specific comic is any worse than the average newspaper gag strip, except they wouldn’t tackle a subject like this. It didn’t make me laugh, but I also wouldn’t call it awful. I’d definitely read this over literally any Dilbert strip ever.
I feel terrible when stuff I buy says it was made with love. Do I deserve the love of someone who never even met me? Do I deserve love at all? That’s why I prefer eating food made by unfeeling machines.
Yes, you deserve the love I put into food, regardless if it’s Foie Gras, Vegan Lasagne or Tater friggin’ Tots…and also regardless if I’m 100% there or just going through the motions as an unfeeling machine.
comicstrips
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.