Working on the assumption that Win10 being EOL is going to cause an influx of old hardware becoming available, I was thinking it might be a good time to start looking for a good deal on a laptop for travel. It doesn’t HAVE to be an old unsupported laptop, but saving something from e-waste is a bonus. Here’s the kind of thing I’m looking for.
- Something small-ish, around a 13" screen.
- Can install Linux. Generally a given, I know. But I think not always an option with Chromebooks? I’m OK with a Chromebook as long as I can replace ChromeOS with Linux.
- X86_64 preferred. For games, though obviously not a great platform for that. Not opposed to ARM, but the PineBook Pro is compelling as a small low-cost ARM laptop, it’d have to be a better deal than that.
- Somewhat serviceable. I’d like to have the option to replace the batteries, storage, and memory. Being able to replace the wireless card would be nice.
- Durable would be a bonus. It probably won’t see a lot of use, but it’ll get tossed around in a backpack or in luggage.
- Specs aren’t too important. I like my distros lightweight, and a web browser will be the most demanding thing it’ll run.
All of that might be too much of a unicorn, but if I can find a good deal that mostly fits, I’ll be happy.
Thinkpad X1 Nano. Great specs, approx. 920 grams, super lightweight. Decent CPU and RAM (I did some light video editing on mine and it’s great), and a 2k screen (13 inch).
I’m using Debian on mine, works out of the box (like all Thinkpads, in my experience).
Specs aren’t too important. I like my distros lightweight, and a web browser will be the most demanding thing it’ll run.
web browsers are pretty fucking heavy these days, I think the minimum spec for an “ok” experience is a 3rd gen quad core “mobile” chip like the 3612qm or an 8th gen quad core “ultrabook” chip like the 8650u
Thinkpads are super durable and kind of fun. I got a bunch of T420s (nice) from my boss for free and they’re all running Mint fantastically, as well as some 90s games. (They are being used for the occasional LAN party)
The T420 is from around 2011, so if you spent money on one you could get a better one easy.
Any used Thinkpad will work well for you, just search eBay with your price cap and screen size.
10-year old lenovo thinkpad unanimously wins, as expected
Thinkpads were basically made for Linux, depending on your Budget you can get a Thinkpad X220, X230, T420 or T430 for small money - perfectly usesble machines and Linux (my experience is CachyOS & Arch) work out of the box.
For a bigger budget i could recomment the T480, it’s still upgradeable.
And for a bigger budget i’d recommend a T14 GEN2
Are the T14’s easily upgraded too?
unfortunately not, power wise it only lets you upgrade the RAM.
but those CPU´s are vastly superior to those 2nd and 3rd Gen i7´s you can put into a t420/t430
the german website https://thinkwiki.de/ has detailed information about possible upgrades of every model :)
I don’t have any specific recommendations for you, but I will say that
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pretty much every modern Chromebook will be able to have Linux installed over ChromeOS. You might have to open it up and remove a write-protect screw.
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Linux is a surprisingly good platform for games these days, actually. Steam has done a lot of work to get it there.
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If you’re wanting lightweight specs, you’re probably going to find the best bang for your buck in an old Chromebook; however, I don’t know if you’ll see as many of those coming on the market, and you’ll want to watch out for old school devices. Those things get worked over pretty hard.
• pretty much every modern Chromebook will be able to have Linux installed over ChromeOS. You might have to open it up and remove a write-protect screw.
I did exactly that. That thing with the screw is only for older models. I did it on a somewhat newer model and I had to open it up and disconnect the battery. Newer models need a SuzyQ cable to switch from ChromeOS to Linux. All of them need to run the MrChromebox script after disabling write protection. Well, except ARM Chromebooks. They are not compatible with the script. For some of these devices PostmarketOS is the way to go.
ARM Chromebook running non-chrome is, afaik, barely functional to get to a terminal. Don’t think of running anything Linux on them unless you really like hardware development.
SOME models do work pretty good with PostmarketOS. Very few with all hardware features working, some with nearly all features working. Mostly classical laptop devices. Convertibles and tablets on the other hand work generally less good. Well of course there’s a gigantic shitload of devices that don’t even have a functional display and a even bigger pile that’s not even booting.
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