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Re: Two Chromebooks: was Re: LENOVO IdeaPad 100S 11.6" Laptop



On Sunday 13 November 2016 09:38:52 Joe wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Nov 2016 00:10:21 -0600
>
> Doug <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> wrote:
> > I don't know what these Chromebooks sell for, and of course you know
> > that they are diskless
> > (which is maybe what you want) but there are frequently sales of
> > refurbished used Dell laptops

Dells tend to be particularly heavy.

> > in the $120 to $160 price range, and they are 14" or 15" with at
> > least 256 GiB drives and 4 GiB ram.
> > Try and get one with something other than Broadcom wifi--it's a real
> > challenge to make it work,
> > unless you want to run Windows.
>
> The size is an issue, at least for me. I have an HP 15" laptop, which
> cost maybe $250 brand new, as I need a Windows laptop to run various
> odd peripherals. But it travels with me by car, there's no way I would
> carry that beast around on a strap.

Quite!!  That is the whole point.  I am aiming at less than a kilo.  (Around 2 
pounds the other side of the pond.)
>
> I also have an Acer Aspire One netbook, which I carry around when I need
> a portable computer for anything other than work.

Excuse me while I weep and re-don and rend my black clothes.  My much loved 
and perfect Acer Aspire One, which ran Debian and TDE with EVERYTHING 
working, was conned out of me (more fool me :-(  ) and *dismantled* for 
*spares*.  That is what I would like to replace.  I could buy a second hand 
one, but I have had bad experiences except where I knew the seller.

> It weighs a fraction 
> of what the big laptop weighs. It has a small, slow SSD, so I also
> carry a (genuinely) pocket-sized USB hard drive for more demanding jobs,
> probably the smallest ever made and, of course, unobtainable now.
> Almost every [x86-based] computer I've ever tried boots from this, and
> both netbook and drive run Debian unstable.
>
> Both are more than five years old, which is not a bad life for portable
> stuff. I've been looking for replacements for some time, but tablets and
> netbook-sized stuff all seem unable to run Linux (the Acer came with
> Linpus, based on Fedora).

Yes, so did mine.  I left Linpus on while I went on holiday since I was afraid 
that I might have some trouble getting the wireless going in the time 
available, and "after all, how bad can any Linux be?".  I found out.

Linpus lasted about 30 seconds after I got back from holiday and I installed 
Debian.  The wireless almost just worked.  This was some years ago.  I needed 
a backported kernel and a backported wicd.  That was it.  That was all I had 
to do and the whole thing Just Worked.

> Sorry, I don't count it as 'running' if only 
> half of the hardware works. Time seems to be running out, modern
> hardware no longer has an Ethernet port and has only one or two USB
> ports. I want a *computer*, if I wanted a toy I'd get a smartphone.

I know.  I have a tablet, but I don't like it.  It isn't a computer.  It runs 
Android for when I need it.

Lisi
<adds ashes on head to rent black clothes>


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