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Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
Haven't heard of Alpine before. Unfortunately I don't have time to play right now.
- Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
If you do find the time I have a webpage with some notes on using Alpine Linux for the desktop:
https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/
It really is Linux Done Right™
https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/
It really is Linux Done Right™
deadbang
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
Bookmarked for its time. Right now I'm having too much fun with Stretch (and getting some work done too). Storm last week took out my main desktop, not just the power supply unfortunately although it tested bad, new one tests good but computer is still completely unresponsive. Lot of work to set up a mainframe with all the multimedia, samba and all, and as I'm sure you're well aware, most of the documentation is woefully out of date. Info can be found but it's not as simple as looking in the wiki. Thanks for the info!
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
I have a toy project based on minimal devuan, but I'm sure much of it would translate to debian minimal, too. It started rough but is mostly stable now. It's really just a bunch of under-the-hood tweaks to a minimal base, and is meant to be used with a simple window manager, like dwm or the boxes. The different configs and scripts accomplish the same tasks as other managers (wifi, power, etc) without the overhead of a GUI and with more flexibility for automation and customization.
https://github.com/souperdoupe/crunkbong
https://github.com/souperdoupe/crunkbong
noob question, but how are you measuring this?Head_on_a_Stick wrote:the musl libc base is noticeably lighter than the bloated GNU libc variant (as used by Debian)
the crunkbong project: scripts, operating system, the list goes on...bester69 wrote:There is nothing to install in linux, from time to time i go to google searching for something fresh to install in linux, but, there is nothing
- Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
I love that project, it is awesomen_hologram wrote:https://github.com/souperdoupe/crunkbong
I have a readout of the load average of the system over the last minute displaying in the status bar of my desktop:n_hologram wrote:noob question, but how are you measuring this?Head_on_a_Stick wrote:the musl libc base is noticeably lighter than the bloated GNU libc variant (as used by Debian)
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while sleep 1;do xsetroot -name "$(uptime|awk '{gsub(",","");print $9}') • $(apm|awk '/Battery/{print $4}') • $(date +'%F • %T')";done&
I also like to check memory usage at a bare desktop and I think Alpine Linux holds the record at the moment (~32MiB used in a 64-bit system with 4GiB total RAM) but OpenBSD only uses slightly more memory with a slightly lower load average so... *shrugs*
EDIT: I would claim a subjective benefit in respect of how snappy the system feels but this is probably just my imagination:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Benchmarks ftw!
deadbang
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
So long as you feel it's better, who else cares? One of the things I like about Linux, and open-source in general, is the right to suit yourself. I was going to say the ability, but that's up to you also, to aquire it or not. Sorry if I'm a bit off-topic. Oh, OK, not all that sorry.Head_on_a_Stick wrote: EDIT: I would claim a subjective benefit in respect of how snappy the system feels but this is probably just my imagination:
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
Me! Dell Inspiron 9400 with 2gb ram and 512mb vram running Debian 9 with mate is now a working computer! I use it for minecraft servers when my friends come over, as a client in a pinch, an apache server for my intranet, all kinds of stuff! Linux FTW!!
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
Apline has given my Acer Aspire 5715z a new lease of life, I was using it as my main system for a month or two.
It had been lying gathering dust for a few years as I couldn't get the fan working properly under linux, I gave up after a few failed attempts to install windows7/10/dosbox to update the bios.
Along came Alpine and the fan works perfectly, no idea why, alongside a much cleaner and lighter system. I have Debian as a glibc chroot, and Void, installed from within Alpine, which is nice. The system also runs pretty smooth on a 32gb flash drive in a usb 2 port.
It had been lying gathering dust for a few years as I couldn't get the fan working properly under linux, I gave up after a few failed attempts to install windows7/10/dosbox to update the bios.
Along came Alpine and the fan works perfectly, no idea why, alongside a much cleaner and lighter system. I have Debian as a glibc chroot, and Void, installed from within Alpine, which is nice. The system also runs pretty smooth on a 32gb flash drive in a usb 2 port.
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
not old but still a laptop ASUS X540SA... running debian stretch... sometimes freezing.... but it's working pretty well!!!!!!!!
Cheers from Panamá!!!!!!!
Cheers from Panamá!!!!!!!
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
My latest is a 6930p, HP Elitebook it's about 8-10 yrs old? It was a decent upgrade for me. My eyes are getting old so the switch from a 10 inch to 14 is really nice, 2gb to 4gb ram. I put a cheap ssd in it. Pretty snazzy, and I got it for next to nothing from my reliable local hardware shop.
p.s. okay it's not -really- snazzy, it's built like a tank and has just about every hardware known to man in it.
p.s. okay it's not -really- snazzy, it's built like a tank and has just about every hardware known to man in it.
resigned by AI ChatGPT
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
I purposely bought an older refurbished old road warrior laptop, a 2012 Dell Latitude E6430 with a few character scars to install a Linux system. This thing is metal and solid ! Under the hood: a dual core i5 with 16GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD drive. I installed Debian Buster (only, no dual boot Windows) with KDE plasma. It's sweet..and its fast !
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
you put that SSD in there?piperdan wrote:I purposely bought an older refurbished old road warrior laptop, a 2012 Dell Latitude E6430 with a few character scars to install a Linux system. This thing is metal and solid ! Under the hood: a dual core i5 with 16GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD drive.
i am currently hunting for a used laptop; may i enquire if yours plays HEVC video? here's a hi-res example and here's a mid-res example - they should not tax the CPU too much, i.e. the GPU should support decoding it.
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
First question: Nope. I bought it that way as a used / refurbished laptop online from BestBuy.you put that SSD in there?
i am currently hunting for a used laptop; may i enquire if yours plays HEVC video? here's a hi-res example and here's a mid-res example - they should not tax the CPU too much, i.e. the GPU should support decoding it.
Second Question: It plays both your video links.....no problem or hesitation.
Here's the specs:
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danny@Home:~$ inxi -F
System: Host: Home Kernel: 4.18.0-2-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.13.5 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E6430 v: 01 serial: <root required>
Mobo: Dell model: N/A serial: <root required> BIOS: Dell v: A12 date: 05/20/2013
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/60.0 Wh (37%)
CPU: Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3340M bits: 64 type: MT MCP L2 cache: 3072 KiB
Speed: 1619 MHz min/max: 1200/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1439 2: 1502 3: 1490 4: 1500
Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GF108GLM [NVS 5200M] driver: nouveau v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVC1 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.1.9
Audio: Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-2-amd64
Network: Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
IF: eno1 state: down mac: f0:1f:af:1b:c2:dd
Device-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: 6c:88:14:7d:ae:fc
Drives: Local Storage: total: 232.89 GiB used: 13.68 GiB (5.9%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SK Hynix model: HFS250G32TND-N1A2A size: 232.89 GiB
RAID: Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci
Partition: ID-1: / size: 212.53 GiB used: 13.68 GiB (6.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.95 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 65.0 C mobo: 48.0 C sodimm: 41.0 C gpu: nouveau temp: 55 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2882
Info: Processes: 191 Uptime: 33m Memory: 15.62 GiB used: 1.29 GiB (8.3%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.27
danny@Home:~$
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
^ oh, it has dual graphics.
how's that working? do you need to tell it which gpu to use?
when you played the example videos, did you get the impression that the cpu is taking the brunt, or does it offload to one of the gpus?
how's that working? do you need to tell it which gpu to use?
when you played the example videos, did you get the impression that the cpu is taking the brunt, or does it offload to one of the gpus?
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
I apologize for my ignorance. I didn't even know I had dual graphics. I thought I just had one graphics device and two audio devices:debiman wrote:^ oh, it has dual graphics.
how's that working? do you need to tell it which gpu to use?
when you played the example videos, did you get the impression that the cpu is taking the brunt, or does it offload to one of the gpus?
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Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GF108GLM [NVS 5200M] driver: nouveau v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVC1 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.1.9
Audio: Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-2-amd64
Ksysguard monitor showed that the cpu had a couple of spikes up to 70%, with the average 40-50% during the playing of the hi-res video.
I was also able to add a couple of gpu sensor trends, which remained unchanged through the playing of the video (at GPU Core: 0.98V, and 57 deg.C)
Hope that helps.
- oswaldkelso
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
Private + Shared = RAM used Program
44.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 44.5 KiB perpboot
64.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 64.5 KiB socklog
72.0 KiB + 1.5 KiB = 73.5 KiB crond
92.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 92.5 KiB perpd
124.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 124.5 KiB init
68.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 182.5 KiB rc.main
72.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 186.5 KiB startx
196.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 196.5 KiB acpid
152.0 KiB + 49.5 KiB = 201.5 KiB tinylog (9)
156.0 KiB + 314.5 KiB = 470.5 KiB xinit
284.0 KiB + 224.5 KiB = 508.5 KiB dbus-daemon
420.0 KiB + 92.5 KiB = 512.5 KiB dhcpcd
664.0 KiB + 232.5 KiB = 896.5 KiB mksh (3)
1.5 MiB + 162.5 KiB = 1.7 MiB wpa_supplicant
2.7 MiB + 918.5 KiB = 3.6 MiB dwm
3.5 MiB + 4.8 MiB = 8.4 MiB udevd (15)
7.9 MiB + 665.5 KiB = 8.5 MiB Xorg
---------------------------------
25.6 MiB
=================================
Linux dragora 4.18.9-gnu #2 SMP Tue Sep 25 02:05:05 UTC 2018 i686 GNU/Linux
D3 alpha2 on my 11 year old Dell inspiron 6400.
Dragora-ice is nearly there as a more conventional choice for alpha3, albeit getting a wee bit heavier.
Now we just need to build some packages!
Qi the package builder can be used on other distros with a bit of work and without interference (allegedly) testers required if your feeling brave.
44.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 44.5 KiB perpboot
64.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 64.5 KiB socklog
72.0 KiB + 1.5 KiB = 73.5 KiB crond
92.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 92.5 KiB perpd
124.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 124.5 KiB init
68.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 182.5 KiB rc.main
72.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 186.5 KiB startx
196.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 196.5 KiB acpid
152.0 KiB + 49.5 KiB = 201.5 KiB tinylog (9)
156.0 KiB + 314.5 KiB = 470.5 KiB xinit
284.0 KiB + 224.5 KiB = 508.5 KiB dbus-daemon
420.0 KiB + 92.5 KiB = 512.5 KiB dhcpcd
664.0 KiB + 232.5 KiB = 896.5 KiB mksh (3)
1.5 MiB + 162.5 KiB = 1.7 MiB wpa_supplicant
2.7 MiB + 918.5 KiB = 3.6 MiB dwm
3.5 MiB + 4.8 MiB = 8.4 MiB udevd (15)
7.9 MiB + 665.5 KiB = 8.5 MiB Xorg
---------------------------------
25.6 MiB
=================================
Linux dragora 4.18.9-gnu #2 SMP Tue Sep 25 02:05:05 UTC 2018 i686 GNU/Linux
D3 alpha2 on my 11 year old Dell inspiron 6400.
Dragora-ice is nearly there as a more conventional choice for alpha3, albeit getting a wee bit heavier.
Now we just need to build some packages!
Qi the package builder can be used on other distros with a bit of work and without interference (allegedly) testers required if your feeling brave.
Free Software Matters
Ash init durbatulûk, ash init gimbatul,
Ash init thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
My oldest used PC: 1999 imac 333Mhz 256MB PPC abandoned by Debian
Ash init durbatulûk, ash init gimbatul,
Ash init thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
My oldest used PC: 1999 imac 333Mhz 256MB PPC abandoned by Debian
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
on second inspection, your output doesn't say anything about hybrid graphics except that i'm pretty sure that these intel CPUs include a GPU; plus the nvidia, makes two.piperdan wrote: I didn't knowingly switch anything.
Ksysguard monitor showed that the cpu had a couple of spikes up to 70%, with the average 40-50% during the playing of the hi-res video.
I was also able to add a couple of gpu sensor trends, which remained unchanged through the playing of the video (at GPU Core: 0.98V, and 57 deg.C)
Hope that helps.
anyhow, i recently put my hands on a very similar machine, they're really nice. compact, beautiful, sturdy.
unfortunately the video test was abysmal (probably because the seller had put a new copy of win 10 on the machine) so i decided not to buy it. have settled on a new and super cheap jumper ezbook 3 pro now.
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
That sounds like a deal. However, how did you install Debian? Was there any hardships with installing to the emmc? That's under a kilo right? how's the performance?
Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
^ are you asking me?
it hasn't arrived yet.
manjaro seems to be running fine on it (touchpad issue has also been fixed by now).
it hasn't arrived yet.
manjaro seems to be running fine on it (touchpad issue has also been fixed by now).
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Re: Who is using old laptops, thanks to linux?
I have an old Toshiba A1 that still has Winxp on it. I tried (like hell) to get Debian on it. But I found there are known, not fixable, problems with the beast. Wanted to get it to work on today's wifi, since Xp only has wep authentication. But just couldn't get it to work. SO it stays as an old WinXP games box (starcraft Diablo2 ) But I have a Thinkpad W700 that is my go-to testing box. I recently enlisted it in a Trinity Desktop test that worked. I also picked up an old highschool surplus Thinkpad X100e as an expendable toter. I had Debian buster with cinnamon on it (some idiot before TRIED to upgrade it to windows 10 ) Anyway. Debian ran OK on it but there is a known issue with the fan not working right. I was in the process of trying to fix it when I go my hands on a Windows 7 usb install and put it back in (as it was meant to be) The Z700 has dual hard drives and I'm tempted to move everything off drive 1 and setting it up as a Dualboot. I swapped them out for a spare to test the Trinity load-over.