My Operai just got a laptop for free, w00t
Saturday, May 23, 2009 6:38:52 PM
A friend of mine had me work on this laptop last year because his niece hosed the Windows XP on it (porn? virus?). I rescued it using Puppy Linux, restored the Windows, and gave it back to him to give to her because I thought they were needy and she really needed the laptop for school. I worked hard on that thing to save the Windows and all her files, then she goes out and buys a nice new one, and my friend tried to sell the one I fixed, which kind of pissed me off a little because I felt I should have gotten first dibs on it, and a good price to boot for doing all that work for free.
Anyway, he shows up again today with the same laptop so I can give him a Windows/Internet lesson as he knows nothing about computers. About a minute after XP boots up, the hard drive goes "bam-klackety-klak" and the thing dies. I felt a little bad that it died while *my* hands were on the keyboard, but he kind of understood it wasn't my fault even though it's all foreign to him.
As he was leaving, he mentioned trying to sell it again, which brought back that old wound of mine about being used as a fixer just so he could sell something. I told him he might could get $20 for a several-year-old non-booting laptop if he was lucky (I just happened to have a 20 in my wallet, lol). At that moment, he said what I'd hoped for, "you worked so hard on it, just keep it and I'm going to buy a new one." Heck yeah! Hehehe.
I told him he could buy a new hard drive for it (about $70), and I'd put Linux on there for him, but he wants a new Windows one, so I felt I'd been honest and offered him all the options before saying "thanks" and making it mine!
It's a pretty little Toshiba Satellite M55-S135, and I'm sure Linux is going to run on it like a dream. I'm heading out to the store in a few minutes to get a hard drive for it, and already have a Linux iso coming in on the bittorrent. I selected Xubuntu for it as it's a little shy on the RAM and has a ghetto Celeron processor in it, so I want something that will run light. I thought about Debian, but Xubuntu will be more pre-configged.
I'll do another post later after I get the little bitch running again.
I new "used" laptop for me! woohoooo!
Anyway, he shows up again today with the same laptop so I can give him a Windows/Internet lesson as he knows nothing about computers. About a minute after XP boots up, the hard drive goes "bam-klackety-klak" and the thing dies. I felt a little bad that it died while *my* hands were on the keyboard, but he kind of understood it wasn't my fault even though it's all foreign to him.
As he was leaving, he mentioned trying to sell it again, which brought back that old wound of mine about being used as a fixer just so he could sell something. I told him he might could get $20 for a several-year-old non-booting laptop if he was lucky (I just happened to have a 20 in my wallet, lol). At that moment, he said what I'd hoped for, "you worked so hard on it, just keep it and I'm going to buy a new one." Heck yeah! Hehehe.
I told him he could buy a new hard drive for it (about $70), and I'd put Linux on there for him, but he wants a new Windows one, so I felt I'd been honest and offered him all the options before saying "thanks" and making it mine!
It's a pretty little Toshiba Satellite M55-S135, and I'm sure Linux is going to run on it like a dream. I'm heading out to the store in a few minutes to get a hard drive for it, and already have a Linux iso coming in on the bittorrent. I selected Xubuntu for it as it's a little shy on the RAM and has a ghetto Celeron processor in it, so I want something that will run light. I thought about Debian, but Xubuntu will be more pre-configged.
I'll do another post later after I get the little bitch running again.
I new "used" laptop for me! woohoooo!
You must be 
(35%)
selurus # Saturday, May 23, 2009 8:04:13 PM
slackwrdave # Saturday, May 23, 2009 8:29:05 PM
Shaunak DeShaunak # Sunday, May 24, 2009 1:47:27 AM
PS: What type of favour....
PS: How about putting OpenSolaris on it. Tried it recently, its smashing.
slackwrdave # Sunday, May 24, 2009 5:45:17 AM
The greatest danger would be getting a "yes" answer when I was just trying to be daring.
BTW, I'm posting from the "new" lappy already. The hard drive has been replaced and the new OS installed and configged pretty good. It runs sweet and fast. I changed the X startup splash screen to the little Xubuntu mouse runnning in an Ubuntu "wheel". I love it.
I've never looked into OpenSolaris. That will give me somthing to do over the 3-day weekend.
Manpreet Singh DhillonManiDhillon # Sunday, May 24, 2009 6:02:14 AM
How about XFCE environment? Do you like it?
I'm fond of it, because I used it on an IBM Thinkpad 600E.
slackwrdave # Sunday, May 24, 2009 6:45:00 AM
It seems to have a nice balance of usability, visual appeal, and speed. I think it will be fine.
Years ago, Linux took a 12-pack of beer to get installed and sort of running. Now, 1.5 beers and you're done. Some of the thrill is gone.
Shaunak DeShaunak # Sunday, May 24, 2009 7:09:58 AM
Everything is so foolproof these days.
Ps: But never underestimate mother nature. For every foolproof solution built, nature creates a bigger fool.
slackwrdave # Sunday, May 24, 2009 3:00:52 PM
When I got my first computer years ago, I had to call tech support for something. The tech told me to right click on my desktop. I did the classic and looked all around at the top of my physical desk not sure what to do. To this day, every time I hear a joke about somebody doing that, I still secretly get embarrassed.
In a different vein:
I thought my mom was being a dope because every time I went over there to look at her computer, the desktop icons would be all over the place, including lots of new ones, and links to URL's, etc. I didn't want to confront her and say, "WTF are you doing?", so I slyly peeked in the room as she was using the machine. I discovered her hand and fingers trembled when she operated the mouse, causing the problems. The solution turned out to be replacing the mouse with a trackball and lengthening the mouse click intervals so that a very slow double click would still activate things.
Some things are truly dopey as shit, lol, other times it's a little unseen issue that grinds things to a halt.
...just felt like going off on another morning tangent.
LarryJWcofoppyplop # Monday, May 25, 2009 6:57:39 PM
slackwrdave # Monday, May 25, 2009 7:26:52 PM
Originally posted by cofoppyplop:
That just means you're an interesting person.
Alexodius PrimeAleksOD # Friday, May 29, 2009 4:33:34 PM
Chris Lowryoperando185 # Tuesday, May 18, 2010 4:51:47 PM
Same kinda thing happened to me: a colleague at work (also not too "handy" when it comes to computer hardware) gave me the defective laptop of her son, saying I could keep it for free if I could get it to work.
Turned out it only needed a new (working) HD...
I, too, put Xubuntu on it, added some RAM and bought a new battery (old one was dead, too), and put Fluxbox on it, next to XFCE, and I too have a still nice "new" extra laptop for free :-)
Mine is a Compaq Armada E500 with a PIII of 500 mhz and 256 MB RAM. XFCE runs an itsy bitsy teenie weenie slow (as is/was Win XP), but Fluxbox is superfast. Awesome.
"Xubuntu: because no one should be left behind!"
@slackwrdave, I think I'm seeing your Toshiba on Flickr
slackwrdave # Tuesday, May 18, 2010 9:11:25 PM
Originally posted by operando185:
Hey, that's nice! I found XFCE to be very functional *and* pretty.