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.
If you are super cheap like me, but enjoy well made machines try out an ancient macbook pro. I have a 2011 macbook pro 13" with the first gen (I think?) I5 CPU and 4gb ram. Got it from eBay, it used to belong to a school and someone ground the engraving off the lid, but there is a vinyl skin covering the damage.
It only cost me $40 Canadian, the battery lasts like new, and it came with a new charger. I installed arch Linux, on a new sata ssd, and its been great! WiFi was harder to get setup, but I figured it out. Can’t get Bluetooth working…
I love that it has a DVD drive, many ports including Ethernet, SD card, enough USB.
Its slow, but keeps up with everything I do… Mainly use it for watching YouTube, watching my jellyfin library, listening to music, using telegram, light python projects, some web site development with Hugo, and I ssh into my main PC with it.