A friend of mine was talking about needing a computer, and after I made it home from work this evening, I got to thinking that I might have something to help him out.
I was given one of the original CR-48 test Chromebooks by Google back during the ChromeOS beta. As soon as someone figured out how to flash the bios to something compatible with Linux, I put a real operating system on it. I suppose this in itself was feedback of a sort for Google on my opinion of ChromeOS at the time .
Then I got bored with it and it eventually wound up sitting in a nook on my TV stand with a USB drive tied to it, acting as a headless server. I eventually upgraded to a better home server, and the little CR-48 spent the past year in a large storage container in my garage.
Behold the upcoming gift to my friend, to be presented tomorrow morning:
If you want to give it new life, it actually runs Ubuntu MATE pretty well. I mean it’s still an Atom powered machine, so it’s basically runs like it’s dragging an anchor behind it if it’s doing anything computationally intensive… but MATE is a comparatively lightweight and full featured anchor
I use a Acer C720 chromebook (Celeron, 2GB with a replacement 128GB SSD). Believe it or not, it performs well enough with Ubuntu Mate that I use it as my daily driver for writing, development, web browsing and email. It even runs older games well (native and wine). My wife and I also use it to play 1080p blueray rips on our TV (CPU @ 5-10% thanks to Intel’s video acceleration).
With Ubuntu Mate, I’ve never seen it use more than 1GB of RAM and the battery lasts 7-8 hours. Not bad for $400 AUD (including the SSD upgrade) .
Short of playing some modern first-person shooter at 60FPS (and frankly my dears, I don’t give a damn), what else do you want a computer to do?!
Oh… I should mention that my current laptop is a really cheap Toshiba that I picked up at BestBuy a couple Christmas’s back for $250. I brought it home, made sure it booted and made backup DVDs of the Win 8 install, powered it down and booted to an OpenSUSE Live CD and told it to take over the entire drive.
My only regrets with my cheapie laptop (which basically does desktop duty and is always plugged into the wall) is that it has an absolutely horrid screen viewing angle and a pretty flimsy keyboard. I think in June of this year I’m going to maybe get one of those System76 rigs paired with a nice 22" monitor.
This thing actually runs like a bat out of hell with MATE though. I have no real complaints at all, other than the low end build quality evidenced in the screen and keyboard quality.
Yeah I think I put up with ChromeOS for, oh, about 15 minutes before I hosed it. I even flashed the firmware so it ain’t coming back. Essentially it’s an Intel x86 laptop now with outstanding Gnu/Linux support but I didn’t have to give Microsoft or Apple a cent for it.
I suppose I should thank Google for subsidising the hardware and throwing in 100GB of free google drive storage.
The keyboard and screen aren’t great on the C720 either, but they are good enough what I do. My wife’s $1200 Macbook Air has a garbage screen and she doesn’t like the keyboard so price isn’t necessarily a guarantee.
In truth I’m over laptops as a rule. I’m finding my preferred approach is something light, cheap and cheerful for the road (i.e the C720) and either using it in desktop mode attached to quality, ergonomic peripherals when I’m stationary or investing in a quality, upgradable workstation that lasts for years.
I wish I could get System76 hardware down here for a decent price, but alas their shipping is horrendous and pushes the unit prices over the $1000AUD threshold which attracts import tax on top of it all.
I don’t buy new hardware. I pickup second hand kit from ebay and refurbish it. My two most recent computers are a Thinkpad T61p and Thinkpad X61s.
The T61p (ÂŁ89) flashed a modified BIOS to unlock 3Gbps SATA and disable thermal warnings. Added an Intel 320 40GB SSD (ÂŁ20). Upgraded the Merom T7500 CPU to Penryn T9500 (ÂŁ18), which is significantly quicker, more power efficient and runs much cooler. The T9500 has digital thermal sensors which is why the analogue sensors need to be disabled. I upgraded the RAM to 8GB (already had) , the documented maximum is 4GB. I added a 250GB SSD (already had) to the ultrabay and an eSATA/USB 3 ExpressCard (ÂŁ5). The T61p has nVidia Quadro FX 570M and a 15.6" 1900x1200 panel. It is a brilliant machine now. I wanted a high resolution laptop with a proper keyboard.
I gave the X61s (ÂŁ60) similar treatment. Again, flashed a modified BIOS to unlock 3Gbps SATA, fitted a 120GB SSD (ÂŁ54), swapped out the wifi for an Intel something (ÂŁ9) and upgrade the RAM to 8GB (ÂŁ40) which is also more than the documented maximum. Running Ubuntu MATE, of course, and has just a touch over 7 hours on battery.
You don’t have to go to these lengths, but here are my top tips for refurbishing old computers.
Fit an SSD. You can get PATA/IDE SSDs on eBay and I have a T43p that has been transformed by a ÂŁ20 IDE SSD.
If you need a new laptop battery, pay extra to get a genuine part. The cheap no brand alternatives never match the rated specifications and die quckly.
Apart from being fun, I like to mod these old computers because they feel like mine afterwards
Now Wimpy’s given me ideas. I’m sure I could build a nice desktop rig off ebay cheaper than I could buy… Hrmm.
I’ll need to study up on hardware if I decide on that. It’s a thought, either way
BTW, after playing with that CR-48 this morning, it really does run Ubuntu MATE fairly well, for what it is. I’m pretty impressed… and the chicklet style keyboard is better than “Old flimsy” here that I’m using.
I have to be fairly particular about what I get to meet size constraints as well. I converted a shallow coat closet into my “office nook”, so I’m pretty limited on space (thus the current laptop). I really like the idea of something like the Intel NUCS for that very reason, but I’d also like something with a better video solution than Intel, for occasional 3D gaming.
Oh well, it’s still a ways off. I promised the wife I’d wait till mid-year
I have a Dell L322X (XPS 13 Developer Edition) which desperately needs to move from vanilla 12.04 to 14.04.
Guess what will happen soon… (ok, it’s not that easy, Canonical and Dell riddled the thing with custom scripts to let pm work with the borked xhci/bt chips in it, but it’s “only” a matter of tracking them down and transplanting them on the new OS image. If I manage to pull it off, I’ll properly document it in the “Tips & Tricks” section).
Technically, they are packaged but they’re debs shipped with the (preseeded) d-i image on the recovery partition, I couldn’t find any dsc for them.
Or at least, I didn’t search long enough, there is an “oem” repository on Canonical’s archive, perhaps their dscs are lurking somewhere in there.
Re the desktop off eBay. I was thinking much the dsame thing last night after reading @Wimpy’s post. My current Ubuntu Mate workstation is based on an AMD Athlon X2 but its in a small form factor case with no room for more ram, or a graphics card or more drives
If I get another motherboard (I found one for $60) I can canabalise the parts, scrounge some more and build a newer system with half decent specs.
That would be a lot cheaper than upgrading my Mac mini with suitably compatible parts (data doubler, dual ssds, 2x8gb of Mac compatible dd3 ram).
Never heard of memconf before @Wimpy but that is a great little utility. As for ThinkPads, if you don’t count my PowerBook and the old Gateway I was given every single one of mine are ThinkPads. I have a 360CE with a 486DX2 running FreeBSD 10.1, T40, T61, T400, T410, T420 (my main laptop), W510 (Pretty much a desktop), R61i, and X200. They will last forever.
I Have Ubuntu Mate running on a external hard drive that is 400gb in a external enclosure. Its basically having Ubuntu Mate anywhere i go so you dont have to bring your computer just go over your friends house plug your external hard drive in and his computer is now yours.
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