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Another Client Gone


raymac46

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Another of the older ladies I helped with Linux has passed away. Jean was 93.

She took easily to a Linux PC - I fixed up a couple of junkers for her. Mostly she used it for writing email and Facebook so Linux Mint was perfect for her. Her last machine was an old Dell that originally belonged to Lillian.

Jean's brother is my neighbor. He has offered the old machine back to me. I don't know the exact specs but I think it's an Inspiron 530 from 2007 or so. I'll likely take it to wipe the hard drive and recycle, or maybe I'll just see what I can do to upgrade it for old times sake. The best I can do is a C2D dual core, 8 GB of DDR2, and a cheap SSD. It might make a good testbed for light distros like Sparky Linux.

RIP Jean - a lovely lady. Retired Methodist minister.

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Cluttermagnet

I used to help a lady named Jean, back when I still did Windows (late 90's to

mid-2000's). Jean passed a few years ago, but through her I met Betty.

Some years later, that friendship with Betty evolved into a committed

relationship. In the fullness of time, Betty and I were married. Friends for

15 years, married another wonderful 15 years. You just never know...

 

I still have Betty's Gateway (510?), an early 2000's PC, and it still works.

It's a little too slow to bother with, but I keep it out of sentimentality.

What little computer work I do these days is mainly on my fleet of Dell

Precision T3400's. I have around a half dozen of that type. Dated, but with

various upgrades in processors, cooling, RAM, drives, etc. they meet my

simple needs. I have Mint on every one of them.

 

Clutter

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Generally I have a ten year rule when it comes to upgrades on any machine - Linux or not. This Dell Inspiron would probably be around 12 years old. I haven't received it yet so I can't say.

I would only keep this unit for sentimental reasons as two of my favorite people used it at one time. Even the newest and most powerful C2D processor is pretty hopeless, although it is a 64 bit unit and so the latest Linux distro would work with it. Memory cannot exceed 8 GB and the power supply is such that you cannot add in a graphics card that needs a secondary PCIe cable. It would run an SSD if SATA2 is your bag. For simple email and light web surfing and office use it would be OK I think.

Edited by raymac46
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Cluttermagnet

Your rule of thumb makes sense! But- for sentimental reasons, I still have

my first PC with Windows 95 on it. It's a glommed together mid tower

with a 486-66 in it...

:lol:

 

Clutter

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Although I like to keep antique hardware around I don't keep and run obsolete software. I got into Linux because of the necessity to replace old versions of Windows 95 and Windows Me.

My first Linux laptop was a 1998 Compaq that ran Windows 95 (the O/S was corrupt when I got it.)

Linux makes it pretty convenient to keep old hardware going, but even that has limits. For instance I do not try to restore or use anything with a 32 bit processor today. Even a 64 bit that doesn't at least have multithreading is a frustrating experience.

You don't need bleeding edge to have a decent experience though. The laptop I'm typing this on is close to six years old, but it has a quad-core APU from AMD and a solid state drive I put in not too long ago.

Quad cores from 2012-2015 are probably the sweet spot in used stuff today. They are new enough to give snappy performance, and old enough that all the kernel drivers are going to work just fine.

ray@mx-laptop-basement:~
$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: mx-laptop-basement Kernel: 4.19.0-6-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
           v: 8.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 Distro: MX-19.2_x64 patito feo February 15  2020 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20377 v: Lenovo Flex 2-15D serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo Flex 2-15D v: 31900058 WIN serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO 
           v: 9FCN27WW date: 06/11/2015 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 20.4 Wh condition: 21.1/30.1 Wh (70%) model: SANYO L13S4A61 
           status: Unknown 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics bits: 64 
           type: MCP arch: Puma rev: 1 L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 15970 
           Speed: 1432 MHz min/max: 1000/2000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1189 2: 1098 3: 1280 
           4: 1066 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Mullins [Radeon R4/R5 Graphics] vendor: Lenovo driver: radeon v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:01.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD MULLINS (DRM 2.50.0 4.19.0-6-amd64 LLVM 7.0.1) 
           v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: AMD Kabini HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:01.1 
           Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:14.2 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-6-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 1000 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 1000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0 type: USB driver: btusb 
           bus ID: 1-1.2:6 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 87.37 GiB (18.8%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS500G2B0A size: 465.76 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 455.21 GiB used: 87.37 GiB (19.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 47.4 C mobo: 31.0 C gpu: radeon temp: 46 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 211 Uptime: 20m Memory: 6.74 GiB used: 1.00 GiB (14.8%) Init: SysVinit 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.3 inxi: 3.0.36 
ray@mx-laptop-basement:~

 

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I told him around $50 but it cost me nothing a few years ago. For it to be rehomed these days it would need to have its cpu upgraded to the most powerful Core 2 Duo, 8 GB of DDR2 RAM and probably an SSD. Even with used parts that will cost more than it's worth. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...

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Cluttermagnet

Agree- 32 bit hardware isn't worth working with any longer. Furthermore, there are now

so many great bargains and giveaways in the 64 bit realm. That completely seals the

deal for me!

 

Clutter

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Yes I can put in a much better CPU and 8 GB of DDR2 RAM for about $25. Add a cheap SSD and the machine will be good to test out light distros like LXQt based Debian or Sparky Linux. Working on old junk like this gives me experience in building and fixing PCs which always comes in handy.

I doubt I'll worry about a discrete graphics card given this junker will never play games other than solitaire. The hopelessly obsolete Intel integrated graphics can handle that.

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