okay, so I’ve needed an actual laptop for a while. i primarily use desktop or run shells from my phone and tablet via iSh (i’ve actually leveraged this setup a lot and it’s way more useful then it sounds). have always loved the idea of taking an older laptop, preferably a thinkpad model, corebooting it (probably libreboot), and throwing alpine on it for an ultra lightweight (not physically it’s like 3 pounds) dev board. if i desperately need an actual desktop environment on it i can always live boot something with persistence via flash drive. anyway, it occurred to me that I could still play around with zig under these sorts of constraints, along with c obviously. that being said, i have a few terminal based programs in zig that i’m looking forward to testing on a laptop from over a decade ago.
btw; not the tablet model and i snagged it for like 110 american. specs sound wild in the modern day ik
Core i5-3320M 2.6GHz 8GB (UP TO 16) DDR3 RAM 128GB
told the seller what i was doing with it and made a lower offer because im broke and it worked out. will update when it arrives and as i work on it if anyone is interested. looked damn clean too, so i’m excited.
I hope you give daily driving Alpine Linux a shot. It is actually really usable and the hardware environment, forces you to choose good software. Just pick a WM and a lightweight editor and you are good to go.
I have this laptop: Lenovo V15-IGL (82C3) Laptop: 256 GB Storage, 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM Intel(R) Celeron(R) N4020 CPU @ 1.10GHz
so it arrived today while i was at work and damn is this thing clean. it booted windows 10 in seconds before i even flashed it (which i will be trying to get done asap, waiting on a soic8 clip). i promptly threw on legacy boot/disabled secure boot and im currently making an alpine boot usb. i had arch, ubuntu (which i’m rewriting for this), fedora, and kali lying around but not alpine. rip.
okay so i will try and keep this updated as i flash it and get it set up for those interested. sorry it has been a few days, incredibly busy. for now here’s some shots of the laptop itself, its various and interesting ports (the expresscard/54 slot is particularly neat), and the alpine installation. it was just as clean as the listing portrayed.
lenovo thinkpad x230in addition to the listed ports it has an sim card slot that should work outside 3g once it’s flashed and a dock station port on the bottom
Seeing the laptop that got me through college is bringing back fun memories, but it being treated like a historical artifact makes me feel older than I’d care to admit.
Treat it with care, please. It’s a beautiful little machine.
x230 was my daily driver for quite a few years ! and a x200 before that… right now i upgraded to a slick x280 which is quite a bump in specs (50 more specs, obviously). i do love old thinkpads, they are sturdy and very well supported by linux. and i think i’ve never spent more than 300€ for a laptop.
110%, and i feel your pain. i was 2 years out of high school in 2012. that 8gb usb i had sitting around from the same era was mine and has had countless linux distros, files, and projects on it through the years. the x230 is less like a historical artifact for me and more like the laptop i always wanted but could in no way shape or form afford in 2012. i love this thing and it will definitely be my daily driver for now. i might even seek out an extra battery and the docking station which looks absolutely dope. especially comparing it alongside modern docking stations. having too much fun with it, and honestly does 95% of what i need it to do. what it doesn’t i can always throw in a live boot of another distro or use my desktop.
absolutely, old thinkpads are where it’s at, and heavily supported by libreboot/coreboot as well. one thing i definitely can’t wait to try once i flash it is using a modern sim card with unlimited data. i guess theoretically you could go a step further for opsec and use disposable sims even. supposedly though its only whitelisted from using cards past the 3g die off. so theoretically no whitelist via fw/bios flash means no blocking you. i will have to look more into that but damn that would be cool too
