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Possible Netbook for Clutter?


Cluttermagnet

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Cluttermagnet

Hey, guys- what do you think of the possibilities of this Acer netbook for running

Linux from a USB flash drive. I know very little about Chrome, which is the OS

this one comes with. Main thing is, it's cheap. A refurb version is currently on sale

at NewEgg for about 140. Comments?

 

Clutter has personally never owned a lappie. BTW I see NO mention of an

Ethernet connector on this box. That would be a deal breaker for me,

I imagine...

 

http://www.newegg.co...-34314635-S3A9C

 

k2-_8dbce687-000a-41c4-a0f7-0aaaf09d0cd1.v1.jpg

P.S. See comments by "Karrel T." Looks like this box is intimately tied to

Google and the cloud?

 

How about something like this?

 

http://www.newegg.co...=9SIA4EK28U2338

 

Under 90. refurbished...

 

Or how about this one:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317917

 

Looks like a real laptop for 135. Has lots of jacks, even a DVD drive...

 

I'm wide open to suggestions for a low end rig that will behave running Linux...

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securitybreach

Chromebooks are nice laptops especially if you mainly only use a browser. They are great laptops for Linux machines as well although a bit underpowered. And, yes, this laptop does not have a ethernet port.

 

These machines are mainly geared towards browser only machines with browser extension/applications hence the low amount of ram and the slower processor.

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Cluttermagnet

Thanks, guys. Some useful feedback. Well, let me just ramble a bit... I've reached the usual place in the year where Comcast jacks up my rate for cable internet from 30 to 45 bucks. I'm not too hopeful of getting the rate back down around 30 bucks where I need it. Quite the contrary, they are hammering away on their customers to get them to upgrade to Docsis 3.0 modems to fully utilize the blazing fast speed now available. This is, to my way of thinking, totally unnecessary and unwanted. I don't stream stuff much, don't download a bunch of movies, etc. They are, in effect, delivering services I never ordered and then expecting me to pay the freight for a bunch of greedy, clueless bandwidth hogs. Ain't gonna happen. I have 3 Docsis 2.0 modems at home and at Betty's, and they are just fine by me. And I shelled out a bunch of money for them, at least 45-60 bucks a pop x3.

 

BTW I had a little chat with a rep in 'customer retention' at Comcast on the 5th of November, and I found her subtly snotty and defensive, unmovable in her conviction that Comcast is SUCH a swell deal and fairly priced, etc. It is NOT! Those guys are gouging their customers royally, have been for years. Anyway, this alleged 'customer service' type said she would have my account disconncted and it was NOT. Guess that would be a couple of points off on her attaboy badge if it went against her and she was charged with the loss of a customer. So she simply lied to me and said she would have my account closed and then did NOT do so! BTW the best she would offer me was 40 bucks a month, a 10 dollar increase for NOTHING from my perspective. Remember, I never ordered the blazing fast pipes. What I had already was more than enough. I'm a light internet user. I want METERED rates. Let people pay by the actual bandwidth they use. I don't want to subsidize these freaks! OMG every time I interact with Comcast my blood pressure goes up 20-30 points. I could chew nails...

 

Oh, and I want 'a la carte' pricing for cable TV channels- allow the customer to select only channels that are of actual interest to them, rather than cram 'packages' down peoples' throats... Yeah, like THAT'S really going to happen...

 

Obama is ABSOLUTELY right in coming out for net neutrality. In effect, he is saying that the cable companies ought to be regulated like the common carriers they actually are. And that everything is over-priced right now. Yeah, like THAT's actually going to happen... Heh!

 

So this is the time of year when I cancel Comcast and go back to dialup for a while. Often for about a year or so. I have daily access to a fast Comcast pipe at Betty's- and this is what this thread is really all about- getting my first lappie would enable me to have wifi access at various hot spots- and plug-in Ethernet at Betty's. Then I just wait them out, maybe call them once in a while, hoping to eventually score a no contract internet deal at 30 dollars. They do have contractors that try to win back customers by offering lowball rates to get them back. They do have such folks who will call you with a deal that no one inside Comcast can offer. I've received such a deal before. I'm not so addicted that I can't stand to have service disconnected for a while. Whatever. Heck, Cox Cable is running a promotion right now- fast internet for 20 bucks a month (one year contract). If ONLY there were competition...

 

Oh, wait a minute- there supposedly is competition in my area now- one could, in theory select Verizon for their TV and internet and telephony- except that Verizon is probably hated even MORE than Comcast, on average, and that is pretty amazing when you think about it. Verizon wants only to cram packages down people's throats, and only rarely do they desperately offer non-contract packages. I haven't seen any lately, only once in a while. They want twice what I'm paying Comcast for internet only- and I don't want TV and telephony from them, only internet. Bah humbug! I want to pay LESS money for my internet pipe, not more! I don't have a lot of time to waste on watching TV. Life is too short. I can see all the TV I care to at Betty's...

 

(/rant off)

 

 

So getting back to my lappie topic, I think I am starting to rule out a netbook, actually, as they seem a bit more limited than what I have in mind. The 3rd example I gave in my original post, the Lenovo ThinkPad R61 15.6" Notebook with Intel Celeron 540 1.86GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB HDD, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, Win7 Home (32 Bit) is looking fairly good at around 135 dollars. But I'd really appreciate if you folks would tear it apart for me. Maybe it isn't so great with Linux.

 

I would want to know if it will boot to a USB thumb drive or not, because of the DVD-ROM drive. Most distros come on DVD these days.

 

What I most like about this lappie is all the jacks plus the optical drive. It has Ethernet AND dialup jacks, for gosh sakes. It has a VGA port AND an S-video jack. It has three USB ports (probably all USB 2). It has audio jacks. There's a lot of flexibility there. I am leaning towards that one right now. Need to decide in a day or two or the price goes away. Need to know if it is going to work with Linux and wifi easily, or be a mother bear.

 

Interestingly, it does not seem to have a mouse pad, only the mouse buttons above. I had to do a comparison to some review photos of the R61 online to tease out that detail...

 

Thanks for any comments and insights you guys might care to share here...

 

 

Afterthought: One of the reasons I like to have a DVD drive is that I picture myself showing up at a coffee shop or other such wireless hot spot with a Linux CD in the drive and booting to that. Go ahead, wireless lounge lizzard hacker dude- hack this! :w00tx100:

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securitybreach

One thing to keep in mind is that most laptops nowadays do not come with a telephony port (dialup port) as it is very uncommon today. You will most likely have to get a usb dial-up modem. I am honestly surprised that you can still get dial-up service (last time I used it was around 2000). I can't really imagine trying to use dialup nowadays as almost every site is jam packed with content. Do you use any special browser or any tools to strip websites of content or any other optimizations?

 

Any laptop made in the last 5 years or so can boot from usb as well as the optical drive.

 

Also, you said most distros come in dvd images...they come in ISO format which can be "burned" to a disc or usb drive (I have not burned a distro to a disc in at least 2 years)

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Afterthought: One of the reasons I like to have a DVD drive is that I picture myself showing up at a coffee shop or other such wireless hot spot with a Linux CD in the drive and booting to that. Go ahead, wireless lounge lizzard hacker dude- hack this! :w00tx100:

 

That's why I keep a usb drive running KaliLinux on my keyring

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Cluttermagnet

Great comments- let me digest further all you have said. This particular Lenovo lappie

actually has an RJ-11 modem jack on the side, right next to the RJ-45 Ethernet jack.

Amazing, what?

 

Yeah dialup is a real pain. Real slow loading of many web pages, some are just

impractibly slow and you move on...

 

It's on the cusp, don't know if it is 5 years or less since release. They did some mods.

I saw a review of the initial release model and it was older than 5 years. Interesting,

though- this is being offered as a refurb, i.e. not 'off lease'. I'm very tempted by this

thing...

 

 

Now off to Casa Clutter to run the wood stove. The cold is brutal this weekend- and

Clutter's pad is not particularly well insulated...

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Guest LilBambi

DOCSIS 3.0 OK I hear what you are saying, but One DOCSIS 3.0 modem can run circles are all three of the ones you have at each house.

 

You do not have to get them from your cable people. A local Best Buy generally had the ones for your cable company.

 

If it were me, I would get a single Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 and a nice router and call it smooth, but that's me.

 

I only wish we had ANY Cable broadband solution available at anything from $30 to $100 a mo. Would beat the socks off $150 a mo from Verizon Wireless (just for the data we share - was 20 GB/mo for that, but we got lucky in October to get the offering of Double Data for the same money)., so now we get a whopping (sarcasm here) 40 GB/mo for $150 to share between 2 phones and a MiFi.

 

I love rural Virginia and we can not afford to buy again elsewhere or rent elsewhere, but the data charges are really rough.

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Cluttermagnet

Well, I thought about this overnight, ended up getting the Lenovo R61 for 135.

Free Shipping. It's a bit dated, but we'll see... Got pretty good reviews after

release. This is an early Christmas present from Betty, who does like her big

Lenovo lappie, BTW (G570). I'm typing on that box right now. So this is a first-

Clutter's first laptop...

 

Fran- I'm sure the Docsis 3 modems run circles around my Docsis 2 boxes.

Why, then, am I not highly motivated to go get one? BTW all 3 of our Motorola

modems were bought from NewEgg. They pay for themselves in the first

year, so far as avoiding the rental fees from the cable company. I guess I am

just a light user. A little surfing, a little emailing, occasion downloads of Linux

distros and updates. That's about it. I think that folks who stream a lot of

movies find the faster speeds compelling. I just don't, at least so far...

Of course DSL beats dialup and any cable beats the pants out of DSL- but

I guess the lowest tier of cable level bandwidths is fine with me.

 

So let's see how well this new (to me) lappie handles various Linux distros

and wifi, etc. The optical drive is 'OK', I guess, in that it should be able to

boot to a Linux DVD (I think). I'm OK that I can't burn a DVD, I guess.

Could always swap out tht drive for a DVD burner. Anyway, this thing takes

some sort of memory cards like maybe SD or whatever- so in theory I may

be able to boot to OS's on cards, too. A lot to learn here.

 

I'm looking forward to taking this thing out on the road to sample wifi, just

for the experience of it, not so much as a lifestyle. It has an Ethernet jack,

I can run it that way at Betty's. It has a modem jack, I can put it on dialup

and I do maintain a dialup account in perpetuity- 5 bucks a month and it

comes with an email account. Totally worth it just for the email alone...

 

Well, I now nervously await the experience... no idea if everything will work

right away or if I'll have to tinker... there are so many different versions of

the R61 out there...

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You can also always boot distro from usb drives using unetbootin (available in any distro's repositories) http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

 

That looks like a nice laptop and I think it will do just fine with Linux

 

BTW why did you say getting an email account is worth 5 bucks a month? I have never had to pay for an email account and I have 9 email accounts (6 gmail accounts, yahoo account and a hotmail email) that are all free.

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Cluttermagnet

Wow, the email is really a whole separate subject, Josh. I, too have some of the

freebies like Yahoo- but I also have two paid email accounts. Back in the day I

used to email with actual email clients like Pegasus and Thunderbird, etc.

That grew to be so onerous for me, what with all the platforms I work on and

my constant fiddling with distros- plus the inevitable forward march of the

Linux kernel anyway. I found it getting harder and harder to remember how to

set up the stupid email clients, so I went with webmail oriented emailing and

that is where I am today.

 

It got so bad that I could no longer get xchat to work any more- simply could

no longer figure out the intricacies of configuring the darn thing. I had some

nice friends who I used to hang out with and can no longer figure out how to

connect with them since they made changes to their server. I miss that group...

(Yes, I know xchat is not an email client, just making a point here- I'm getting

older and the memory is wearing a little thin)

 

I dunno- the paid email accounts seemed to me to have value back then.

They could be set up the way you wanted to work with email clients.

Although that has changed for me, I keep one account because I have

used it for so long and so many people would try to contact me via that

account that I simply wouldn't consider closing it. The other one was a

'freebie' that came along with a dialup ISP service at 5 bucks a month.

If you ever worked with dialup back in the day, you would know that

5 bucks is pretty cheap for a monthly rate on dialup. It's way cheaper

than cable and, of course, you get what you pay for. But OTOH in those

rare outages of Comcast, I can still get on the net with dialup. You never

know when that might come in handy, say for some critical, timely emailing

which just can't wait...

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Cluttermagnet

Of course you could get this ultra cheap deal and run Windows 8.1. Free 16 GB extra card and free Office 365 with front and rear camera what is not to like about it.

 

http://www.theregist...at_you_pay_for/

 

:look:

 

That is amusing. Hopefully my Lenovo R61 will be a bit better than that. Heh!

Yes, clutter is frugal. I just love dabbling at the low end, for some reason.

 

I'm a notorious string saver (metaphorically speaking). It is fairly typical for me

to spy an old, flea-bitten, antique (1960's) vacuum tube 'boat anchor' at a

weekend swap meet, and what I see is the beautiful cabinet, not the obsolete

electronics inside. I have made such purchases and dragged them home

(like for 5 dollars- or free!). I like to design and build. I'm like the sculptor who

sees the finished statue inside the rock. To be clear, I buy it for the cabinet,

and discard (recycle) the obsolete innards*. There are, to be sure, those who

actually prize the older tube gear, and specialize in restoring and operating it...

 

(* I may save the power transformer and perhaps a few other parts)

 

Oh, yes- I usually put a piece of tape over the camera lens on a laptop. :whistling:

 

I found a new word in the article: fondleslab. Amazing. I wonder if that is

perhaps a uniquely British word, or just the newest new age internet lingo?

:hysterical:

 

 

P.S. Here is something a radio amateur might build in a nice old cabinet-

it's a 1000 watt transmitter ('linear amplifier') built by a 'ham' in Australia:

 

813_Amplifier_4_Tubes_Top.JPG

 

But he built his own cabinet:

 

813_Amplifier_4_Tubes_Front.JPG

 

Here's what I snagged for a similar job- it's about the same size, turned on its side.

I have two. Lose all the front panel and internal components, reusing only the case

and the front panel:

 

744Small.jpg?t=1415988287457

 

This thing was a masterpiece of design in the early 1960's. Today you could build a

same spec device that would easily fit in your hand. Kind of a shame to disassemble

it, however. It's a thing of beauty, inside and out...

Edited by Cluttermagnet
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Guest LilBambi

We love old and antique stuff too and have much of it. ;)

 

But when it comes to Internet, with my business, I need as much speed as I can get. If I could get Cable broadband Internet, it would be top tier for sure.

 

As it is, we pay through the nose for the Verizon Wireless. Just had to get a new MiFi with 4G/LTE and with our double data (whole whopping 40GB/mo), it will likely rip through it in no time. ;)

 

When right near the unit when I set it up, here's the stats:

 

3917004117.png

 

And not as close (only 1-3 bars on the Wireless - 3 bars on the LTE) on the Linux box:

 

3917081111.png

 

I still give Verizon a low score even though they are doing stuff to help the costs a bit (not much but some), but they still moved the antenna (instead of adding an antenna) on the tower, and after all these years of paying through the nose, this is the treatment we get, it sucks! So now we are considered 'fringe'. Really irks me...

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Cluttermagnet

Yep. Don't get me going on the whole ISP thing...

 

Well, my Lenovo R61 came in record time from CA. It was free shipping but I swear they

must have expressed it anyway. Two days later it shows up on the doorstep. So there is

a Refurb C of A on the bottom and you input the 25 character code during setup of Win7.

All went well. It will get activated whenever I allow Windows online. Meanwhile I have a

live DVD session of Mint 17, 64 bit, running on it, and here I am on Betty's Ethernet

connection.

 

Already looks like it may have to go back for a replacement over a bad space key. The

thing sits crooked- it's higher on the left end. If you strike the extreme right end of the bar,

you get no space, but the center or left end of the bar gets you a space. I get a *lot* of

run-together words and have to go back and edit. I will try gently prying the right end

up before I give upon it, but it doesn't look good. Many, many run-on words if I type fast.

Seems I mostly strike the right end of the space bar with my right thumb...

 

Yep, it definitely has to go back. Bummer...

Edited by Cluttermagnet
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securitybreach

I would check on a replacement keyboard. I had to buy one for one of my netbooks and it only cost $28 shipping and all. I watched a video on how to replace the keyboard on my specific model and it only took about 5 minutes to replace. This was the first time I replaced a keyboard on a laptop but it was fairly easy to do.

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Cluttermagnet

If shipping turns out to be 25. then perhaps- but I think it will ship surface for maybe 12 bucks.

Let NewEgg send me another unit. I'm steamed! They should have caught this. The

lopsided space key was visibly obvious, it was not level with the other keys.

 

I should not have to repair what they sent me. That's ridiculous. The guarantee is 90 days

parts and 90 days labor. It's supposed to be a 'like new' (refurb) unit. This is inexcusable.

BTW the refurb is done by a 3rd party, not NewEgg, so far as I understand.

 

My savings go poof! The cost of shipping and the general botheration- a couple of lost

hours, etc. Probably not worth it... But in due time I will have a replacement unit, and on it

goes... These look pretty OK, booted fine to Linux Mint 17, don't know about wireless yet

but probably will work out-of-box...

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securitybreach

I understand but it all depends on if you feel like waiting... You have to do an RMA which will take a day or so, ship back the item which will take a week, wait on them to send a replacement which will take another week. So your talking about a few weeks at best.

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Hello,

 

The ThinkPad R61 is a cost-reduced version of the ThinkPad T61, and it should run Linux nicely.

 

According to this ThinkWiki page, the R61 should come with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, so perhaps yours can be upgraded to one as well. It may be upgradeable to 4GB or even 8GB of memory, although 4GB DDR2 SO-DIMMs are pretty expensive these days.

 

You might also want to read up on the unofficial "Middleton BIOS" upgrade for ThinkPads of that era and see if it applies to your system.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

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Cluttermagnet

Thanks, Aryeh- I get the strong impression that the R61 'evolved' enough that

one is likely to find different versions floating around. Of course, mine might

have been downgraded to that Celeron, but that is how this batch of refurb

units is being marketed. I did indeed see a lot of R61 writeups where the CPU

was a Core 2 Duo IC. If it will run a C2D processor, I may have a spare.

Depends on the capabilities of my particular mobo. As I say, I think there

are several revision levels floating around... I have a 2.13GHz C2D in the

775 package. Maybe it will fit. I'll look into it eventually, after I get a second

unit that hopefully has an acceptable keyboard. I've seen a video or a

tutorial somewhere on changing out the CPU, think I can probably handle it.

 

My initial impression is that it is going to run Linux OS's OK.

 

Yes, the R61 is a less expensive version of the T61, which had a magnesium

case. The R61 does have a 'roll bar' internal to the plastic clamshell halves.

Reviewers generally liked this version of the case and thought it was pretty

strong and stiff.

 

I'll look into the BIOS issue. Haven't yet learned how to put the box into

BIOS settings. But the defaults were set up to look first for bootable media,

and it had no trouble finding a Linux DVD in the drive. Since it has been in

the hands of a Refurb house, it's possible the latest BIOS has already been

installed.

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Cluttermagnet

Josh- The slowest part is going to be me- just getting the thing packed and

weighed, then checking PO/UPS/Fedex to see who has the best rate, then

taking it to be shipped. I'm not going to waste funds on express shipping.

After NewEgg gets it, I expect to see a replacement relatively fast. It made

my head spin, how fast they got the first unit to me- and I paid no shipping.

Nonetheless, it appears they expressed it to me. I don't necessarily fault

NewEgg on this. The laptop is from a 3rd party refurbisher.

 

I have had some items from NewEgg come from a warehouse in NJ, where

they have a lot of stock pre-positioned for the East Coast. Maybe my lappie

also came out of that facility.

 

BTW the packaging is pretty clever, and is definitely re-usable. All I have

to do is box it up with a copy of my RMA inside. Their RMA's are quick and

painless, done online. Way better than having to go by phone...

 

All I'm going to need is some 2in cellophane tape and a felt marker to

write the RMA number on the box...

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securitybreach

Yeah I am familar with newegg rmas as I have done returned a few products over the years to newegg, tigerdirect, amazon etc. Their all decent but there is a waiting period for all RMAs,

 

Monday, I am RMA-ing a motherboard to Gigabit...

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Hello,

 

Download a copy of the ThinkPad R61 Hardware Maintenance Manual when you have a chance, it contains comprehensive explanation of how to service the unit as well as part numbers. Here's a little .CMD script you can run from within Windows to get some of the various model and version numbers for the unit:

 

@ECHO OFF
ECHO return the motherboard brand and model
wmic.exe baseboard get product
ECHO .
ECHO return the BIOS version information, serial and version.
wmic.exe bios get name,serialnumber,version
ECHO .
ECHO return the system serial number, product name and manufacturer.
Wmic.exe csproduct get vendor,name,identifyingnumber

 

To get into the BIOS, you can either press the ThinkVantage button (I believe it is a blue button above the main keyboard on the R61 series) or the F1 key at boot up.

 

The "Middleton BIOS" is very unofficial and I doubt a refurbisher would install it as it unlocks some things that are, well, unsupported.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

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