A few weeks ago , I purchased an old blue hp stream 11 for $30 with no operating system for this reason. I wanted something to just carry around and use for a very few simple things. Instead of high weight windows, I put on stripped down Debian Linux with xfce desktop. For writing, libreoffice with offline language tool grammar checker. Also for writing, focuswriter. For my other minimal software: VSCode and Geany for HTML and CSS creation. Photoflare for image editing for webpages. Vlc for study music, Calibre for ebooks, and a few other little things. For me, this works wonderfully. It’s just enough without being slow and without being distracting. I also sign into nothing on this machine when it is online. All study music and documents come via USB thumb drive. That is also how I transfer them to my main machine for clean up and upload to web servers or wherever they need to go.
Thank you for this. This information is so helpful and I am taking note. I saved a video to one of my lists, a sort of masterclass on Linux. Based on other viewer comments, I will replace the hard drive and install more RAM. And I will definitely share in an upcoming video. Cheers!
I would suggest to replace the harddrive maybe. On the one hand this can get tricky to dig in the technical stuff but on the other hand if an old laptop has an old mechanical harddrive it is probably over it is expceted life span and gets prone to data loss.
Surprised to see the small viewcount. Looks like the algorithm knows me more than I thought. Nice video! I also have an old Lenovo still and I always thought about how - at some point - people would be seeking older things again to focus on what really matters, depending on their goal or task. Needless to say that we have all but arrived in a time where people collectively take a step back and it is really a good thing. Interacting with old technology is also something that gives you a new perspective on what is considered brand new, especially since there is this running theme of things beeing "reinvented" in a way. Anyways, looking forward to new content. For a creative person, RUclips is always a welcome change, especially when work life no longer seems to suffice.
Thank you so much! I actually went down a rabbit hole looking at old technology being sold on eBay - I find it all so fascinating. I am working on a video about that coming out soon. Yes, I love the fact that people as a collective are taking a step back to focus on what really matters. Cheers! :)
I love older tech and rescuing and repurposing older gear. My wife is frequently annoyed by the volume of crusty old hardware, but I adopt and pass them along if I don’t have a good use. I actually used to have an X60 that I rescued from a thrift store for maybe 50 SEK. I broke (fan died then the main board started acting very odd even after a fan replacement, so it probably cooked something), but I missed the form factor. So maybe a half a year back I got an X40 (which is even older, but same size) from a seller in Germany. No drive. No drive door. No power (but that wasn’t a big deal, since I had ones that would work). The drive was not SATA but 2.5” IDE, which is not something you have around… however I had a very slim IDE to CF card adapter that just fit and put a 16GB card in. I then put on FreeDOS and old 1980s word processors and productivity tools. I tinkered with hobbyist USB drivers and got it to work reliably with a tiny thumb drive, so I can migrate things to and from easily. The battery is not great and near impossible to find, but with such a low spec software/OS setup, I get 1.5 hours easily (and I can see the remaining charge from FreeDOS’s tools, so not just blind). I recently found a drive cover and I even soldered in (and dremeled the case a bit) a 1€ AliExpress USB-C power delivery board… so it looks a bit rough, but I can charge with any modern laptop charger and it pulls the proper current and voltage. Nothing more distraction free than DOS. Comes up right away. FreeDOS’s APM tools not only allow me to see the power percentage and estimates, but also put it to sleep properly. It’s literally one of my most favorite computers ever, even if it is so underpowered and obsolete.
Wow! That is so resourceful of you. I did a quick search on eBay for the x40 battery and you are right, they are hard to come by. I find more CMOS batteries which I recently learned are for the BIOS chip. The batteries that did come up for the x40 are few and far in between and range in cost from $100 to $112 US dollars. Now you got me interested in the x40 and have saved some listings to my eBay watch list. Thanks so much for sharing. All the best!
Love r/writerdeck and Un Kyu Lee's Micro Journals.
I use a couple newer thinkpads for work, but the keyboards are nowhere as amazing as the one on your X61. Great for typing! 🙏
Great video. I've just found your channel, and I'm already very impressed. Subscribed and liked. Looking forward to your other videos now. Thanks. :)
A few weeks ago , I purchased an old blue hp stream 11 for $30 with no operating system for this reason. I wanted something to just carry around and use for a very few simple things.
Instead of high weight windows, I put on stripped down Debian Linux with xfce desktop. For writing, libreoffice with offline language tool grammar checker. Also for writing, focuswriter.
For my other minimal software: VSCode and Geany for HTML and CSS creation. Photoflare for image editing for webpages. Vlc for study music, Calibre for ebooks, and a few other little things.
For me, this works wonderfully. It’s just enough without being slow and without being distracting.
I also sign into nothing on this machine when it is online. All study music and documents come via USB thumb drive. That is also how I transfer them to my main machine for clean up and upload to web servers or wherever they need to go.
Thank you for this. This information is so helpful and I am taking note. I saved a video to one of my lists, a sort of masterclass on Linux. Based on other viewer comments, I will replace the hard drive and install more RAM. And I will definitely share in an upcoming video. Cheers!
I would suggest to replace the harddrive maybe. On the one hand this can get tricky to dig in the technical stuff but on the other hand if an old laptop has an old mechanical harddrive it is probably over it is expceted life span and gets prone to data loss.
Thank you! Yes, I agree. That is something not to be overlooked especially when I made this my writing tool. I will do that next. Cheers!
Surprised to see the small viewcount. Looks like the algorithm knows me more than I thought. Nice video! I also have an old Lenovo still and I always thought about how - at some point - people would be seeking older things again to focus on what really matters, depending on their goal or task. Needless to say that we have all but arrived in a time where people collectively take a step back and it is really a good thing. Interacting with old technology is also something that gives you a new perspective on what is considered brand new, especially since there is this running theme of things beeing "reinvented" in a way.
Anyways, looking forward to new content. For a creative person, RUclips is always a welcome change, especially when work life no longer seems to suffice.
Thank you so much! I actually went down a rabbit hole looking at old technology being sold on eBay - I find it all so fascinating. I am working on a video about that coming out soon.
Yes, I love the fact that people as a collective are taking a step back to focus on what really matters.
Cheers! :)
Throw in an SSD
Install Debian
Set it to boot without the GUI
Install WordGrinder and Pandoc
Success.
Judy Blume didn’t write Ramona, that was Beverly Cleary. I loved them both as a kid too.
Thank you for clarifying that :) I don't know why I associated Judy Blume with the Ramona series. Overall all those books were great reads. Cheers! :)
I love older tech and rescuing and repurposing older gear. My wife is frequently annoyed by the volume of crusty old hardware, but I adopt and pass them along if I don’t have a good use.
I actually used to have an X60 that I rescued from a thrift store for maybe 50 SEK. I broke (fan died then the main board started acting very odd even after a fan replacement, so it probably cooked something), but I missed the form factor.
So maybe a half a year back I got an X40 (which is even older, but same size) from a seller in Germany. No drive. No drive door. No power (but that wasn’t a big deal, since I had ones that would work). The drive was not SATA but 2.5” IDE, which is not something you have around… however I had a very slim IDE to CF card adapter that just fit and put a 16GB card in. I then put on FreeDOS and old 1980s word processors and productivity tools. I tinkered with hobbyist USB drivers and got it to work reliably with a tiny thumb drive, so I can migrate things to and from easily.
The battery is not great and near impossible to find, but with such a low spec software/OS setup, I get 1.5 hours easily (and I can see the remaining charge from FreeDOS’s tools, so not just blind).
I recently found a drive cover and I even soldered in (and dremeled the case a bit) a 1€ AliExpress USB-C power delivery board… so it looks a bit rough, but I can charge with any modern laptop charger and it pulls the proper current and voltage.
Nothing more distraction free than DOS. Comes up right away. FreeDOS’s APM tools not only allow me to see the power percentage and estimates, but also put it to sleep properly.
It’s literally one of my most favorite computers ever, even if it is so underpowered and obsolete.
Wow! That is so resourceful of you. I did a quick search on eBay for the x40 battery and you are right, they are hard to come by. I find more CMOS batteries which I recently learned are for the BIOS chip. The batteries that did come up for the x40 are few and far in between and range in cost from $100 to $112 US dollars. Now you got me interested in the x40 and have saved some listings to my eBay watch list. Thanks so much for sharing. All the best!