Linux on a Tiny Potato

[@ActionRetro]

Get 20% off DeleteMe US consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/actionretro and use promo code ACTIONRETRO at checkout. DeleteMe International Plans: international.joindeleteme.com/

[@codyisrude]

I think you should go complete mad scientist and try to put a raspberry pi in it does not need to be the pi 5 i think a pi 2 or 3 would be more fitting for a device this old

[@AWIRE_onpc]

no

[@shemlesh]

@ActionRetro see if you can find a ben nanonote, it was an ultra portable mini netbook type device that fits in the palm of one hand, similar functional specs although running a JZ4720, can run debian, but shipped with OpenWRT. I was going to do an AmoebaOS port at somepoint in the future.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

you should try compiling a lazarus program in it and see how the programs run.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

@darkhorse29-yx8qh I know that. Did I say linux kernel? No. Commonsense would tell you that I am talkigm about compiling a lazarus program on the distro he used. Not that hard to understand.

[@gamergod9182]

-extremely underpowered -almost no memory -can barely run oh look, it's me!

[@EgoChip]

Me too!

[@vikutorusama]

Also me!

[@SteelSkin667]

Relatable

[@alejandroalzatesanchez]

same

[@juanmacias5922]

I feel understood.

[@HisVirusness]

"When we find garbage around here, we install Linux on it." This is the way.

[@FlintG]

Yup always has been. Revive old garbage with LInux.

[@ryoukaip]

​@@ZE_TRVTH_NVKE you'll regret saying this in the future, just saying

[@Snirby1629]

@@ZE_TRVTH_NVKE why don't you like linux? The reason it runs is because its customizable and not bloated with unnecesary stuff and weird updates as well as no spyware. Which happens to allow it to run on almost anything. I don't see anything bad with that unless your a microsfot employee

[@ZE_TRVTH_NVKE]

@@Snirby1629 Because it doesn't work on any of my hardware. No matter which distribution, there's always a problem, for which no one can give me a solution. OpenBSD and Genera just work.

[@Snirby1629]

@@ZE_TRVTH_NVKE im not an expert on linux, but i know a good amount of distros but ive never heard of those. Try something that is more stable if you are having issues

[@marcash3862]

In Italy (around 2011-12) this crappy little thing was gifted by Giordano Vini if you placed a large order of wine bottles. I installed slatedroid (a custom version of android gingerbread) following a guide for this specific model and managed to run simple apps like email, facebook and youtube. Still better than the joke of CE that was pre-installed.

[@LatiLag]

Present! 😅 I've one of these and now I can do something with it, wow! After 13 years.. .. and I've suggested this little scam at one of my friends because, for me, it was good!

[@Heidegaff]

This doesn't speak well about the quality of those wines...

[@LatiLag]

@@Heidegaff They were various, from different productors. I can't speak about the quality because I was only 13 years old, but for my parents they were not bad 😅.

[@enigmaster84]

My granfather got one! If I find it somewhere I know now at least I'll have fun trying to install Debian on it!

[@ozzie_goat]

This is the kind of computer that someone will bring into my job and scream at me to FIX IT but won't listen to any advice about upgrading

[@leonidas14775]

Fix it, looks like he did software-wise. As for broken hardware it would be cheaper to replace it with another used laptop unless you have another one to pull parts from.

[@David_Phantom]

Fancy seeing you here!

[@ApolloTheDerg]

Just need to add a heat sink to the soldered in USB WiFi dongle 😅

[@seireiart]

So relatable...

[@ozzie_goat]

@@David_Phantom What is this, a crossover episode?

[@Castaa]

That speaks to the flexibility of Linux and the incredible and tireless work of open source community.

[@MagikGimp]

incredibly pointless.

[@elu9780]

@@MagikGimp when someone does something for fun, do you also complain?

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

@@elu9780 of course he does. soulless, joyless people.

[@Cyber_Gas]

​@@Bender-officialyeah sure

[@fhunter1test]

@@Bender-official Non-CE windows wouldn't run on it at all. And windows CE is more than a bit of a pain for many tasks

[@a1batross_]

>sudo eject mmcblk0 *thinkpad aggressively ejects sdcard at high velocity*

[@unamelable256]

Probably with fireball at the end

[@shadesoftime]

If you run it through the su shell, it will erase the card from existence

[@unamelable256]

@@shadesoftime If you gonna move card from su shell it will appear in real life locations. If shell will freeze, it probably teleport into backrooms or smh. I dind't read dungeon & dragons

[@hipster2283]

with a Garand ping

[@ConnerBurns]

My dad tried to get me to ask for one back in the day... I told him it was trash, and his argument was "it's only $99!". Glad we didn't get it!

[@cameronbosch1213]

"It's Windows from Microsoft; order today!" 😂

[@justarandomhandlewithnomeaning]

​@@cameronbosch1213 Developers, developers, developers!

[@darsparx]

Sounds about right, mom wanted to get a similar laptop for my sister when we were much younger. I think I actually persuaded her against it. Cheap electronics like that just ain't worth it XD

[@keylowmike85]

Installing modern Linux on potatoes is a rite of passage for a Linux user. I want to make a home lab out of older hardware running modern Linux and call it my potato farm. Awesome work!

[@SteelSkin667]

They say "one man's trash is another man's treasure". As it turns out, this is is that other man's KZbin channel.

[@unamelable256]

Im really surprised that this garbage machine is. Actually usable at some sick way but still. If i had this laptop as a kid - i would be happy anyways.

[@SteelSkin667]

​@@unamelable256 Honestly I think I would have a lot more fun using one of those today than I would have back when it was released. Tinkering with terrible old hardware is fun.

[@MacintoshMen]

Years back a friend of mine had one of of these and I ended up installing Android 2.2 on it. Made it quite a lot more useful than Windows CE

[@fallingwater]

I have an ancient Toshiba AC100. At the time it was considered one of the best arm portables to run experimental Linux on, but try as I might I couldn't get Linux to work on it and had to stick to Android 2.2. Words cannot describe how much I despise the laptop experience on that crappy adaptation of a portable interface, even just running a text editor is an exercise in frustration. I actually much prefer using my even older Nec 900C which runs Windows CE - at least you get a standard notepad interface.

[@SixOThree]

BTW. If I had a Lisa, I would donate it to the channel. I have too many computer. I asked every youtuber at VCF (that I actually talked to) what their white whale is and nobody mentioned anything I had. I am working on cataloging my collection. When I'm done, I'll share the catalog and see if there's anything people actually want. I don't have the ability to "curate" them all. Getting a second storage unit was the sign. So I need to start finding homes for these things. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you so much for taking the time to humor a fan. You guys come into our houses so frequently it feels like you are a part of our lives; so it's nice to get to actually meet you in person. We really do look up to you guys for all of the hard work you do and the knowledge you share.

[@laulaja-7186]

Thanks for doing this! Computer history is so underserved, especially given how much of the old stuff still does its original jobs (as well as many others) just fine.

[@PhirePhlame]

Here I thought Debian 12 on the early 2000s Dell Inspiron my grandma used to own was "modern Linux on a potato"

[@szr8]

If you could some how get modern Windows on it, you would soon have a baked potato. Putting Linux on old hardware can really give it new life, along with an SSD. That's what I did with a 2008 Vostro 1500 laptop, installed modern Debian and it works really well. Not _as_ fast as modern hardware, but still very usable and smooth in KDE, even with JS heavy web sites in Firefox and Chromium.

[@Tsaukpaetra]

The browser tab I'm using to watch this video in 720p is taking up 16x the amount of total RAM in that device.

[@j0anbug]

why is a browser tab taking 2 gigs of memory?

[@thiagoandrade9146]

He's using Chrome ​@@j0anbug

[@runed0s86]

Using Firefox, I'm not even using 512mb.

[@appleleptiker]

Right... I have 9 tabs open and I'm watching this video on 1440p. And that equals 277MB. So wtf is your browser doing??

[@eMorphized]

​@@appleleptiker Probably KZbin-related memory leaks

[@DevsterDudeKnowsYourIP]

I like potatoes. Especially with cheese. Delicious.

[@d_sanu]

Being an Indian I like potato fry and potato curry 😂

[@Gseppo]

Respectable Opinion

[@tropicalresolution]

and chips lolz

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

Welcome to the salty spitton... how tough are ya? How tough am i?! I like my potatoes... Hmph, yeah right ...without any dressings or cookings.. Just washed and still crunchy.

[@soknightsam]

Oh it's cheesy alright lol

[@MrDowntemp0]

I almost bought one of those back in the day. I knew it was garbage, even then, but the thought of having such a tiny and cheap PC to run linux on was tempting. I ended up picking up a more substantial netbook for probably quadruple the cost, but it was lovely while it lasted.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

a tiny linux on a tiny potato sounds like a match made in heaven to be honest🥰🥰

[@d_sanu]

"just let me die" Hey why, you've given him a second chance to live ! (wow so many likes)

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

when we find garbage around here we install linux on it🤣🤣

[@barmalini]

nope, it's not the second chance, it is just one-time shot of adrenaline. This thing will be decommissioned days after the video was made and die!

[@sfx1999]

I suspect part of the reason for the poor performance is that it is not accessing the SD card with a high speed interface. If it has USB 2, you could try using the SD card bootloader to boot a USB drive and see if it's faster. It's probably swapping a lot, though, so it might wear down some of those flash devices with block erases.

[@mehmetfrataydn5304]

and you presume it has usb 2

[@newrecs4969]

@@mehmetfrataydn5304 usb 2.0 came out in 2004 so it would make sense for even the lowest end devices to have it half a decade later

[@dionelr]

I feel for this little laptop. It's a tool waiting for a Sylvania-sized problem.

[@darkwinter7395]

Perhaps it could change a lightbulb?

[@dionelr]

@@darkwinter7395 Let's not get crazy now 😂.

[@rnts08]

Dumb terminal. Or microcontroller for something robotic. 😂

[@49Amit-j8t]

Thanks man 🤝 really appreciated for listening to my comment... There wasn't a proper tutorial entire on KZbin.. u really saved my device..

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

So you're the root fs girl?

[@Cyber_Gas]

​@@adventureoflinkmk2no he or her idk propably said that they said to install linux on it under the original video or atleast thats what i think

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

@@Cyber_Gas okay because it was mentioned something about a root fs

[@Cyber_Gas]

@@adventureoflinkmk2 ok

[@someguystudios23]

I'm glad you're doing something like this in a video - i have nearly that exact one and it's been sitting!

[@ufopsi]

I played around with System 7 for hours and hours on my beloved Performa 450. This channel brings back so many memories. 😊

[@manuel.dignani]

Windows: requires an 8th gen CPU to be supported average Linux experience: Complete desktop environment using 36mb of ram

[@Balrog-tf3bg]

I love the idea of these little netbooks, but tech at the time really wasn’t ready

[@InfernosReaper]

The tech was kinda actually there, but the *software* wasn't and computers live or die by software. That's why there are machines from the 70s still in use today

[@Ad-fu3wi]

There were fully usable small form factor laptops at the time this thing came out. It was just cheap manufactured landfill from the start.

[@An-kw3ec]

Japanese brands were already doing them since the 80s, very popular there.

[@shibotto]

That's the fist time I see Dillo not loading in a split second XD

[@hobby_games]

Here in Brazil, they sell some similar crap, it's called Positivo, and to this day there are machines on the market that run Windwos 10 poorly.

[@HarrisFS]

This little underdog has been dreaming of this day since it was born.

[@laulaja-7186]

Garbage? That would of been a monster back in the 90s! What a beautiful piece of gear. Thanks so much for demoing it, now I want one too... 🙂

[@zero38operator]

Sean, thank you so much for making these wonderful videos!

[@ogrejd]

Thank you for reminding me that xeyes still exists. I remember how much it lagged my desktop back in my Debian 2.2 'potato' days. :)

[@8antipode9]

Hey Sean! Love what you do. I started out repairing TRS-80 CoCo2s (the computer I had as a kid) and my collection has grown to Ataris, Amigas, Commodore and Apple. I'm currently playing with Intel Core 2 MacMinis and a Lampshade G4. I'm working on installing Gentoo on the G4 (and planning LightDM and XFCE), and Arch works really well on the Mac Minis. I'm really a Linux NOOB though, so Gentoo is the only distro I could get to boot on the G4 without graphical issues (at least with a monitor plugged in, the attached display still won't properly display the console!) Anyway, thanks for the videos, they're a good source of inspiration.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

This was Fun 👍 I've been running Antix Debian and IceWM on old Intel Atom Netbooks for many years 👍😜

[@fallingwater]

I wish Antix didn't have such outdated support for everything. It's cool on old Atoms but there are some newer CPUs on which it'd really shine - I tried installing it on some HP craptop I was given for free with a N5000 and not for love of money would the audio chip work. Install Ubuntu and it works immediately, but then you have to live with Ubuntu.

[@andresbravo2003]

I never seen running Debian on this! Nice!

[@UnixPerdunix]

Debian is like DOOM - it runs on everything.

[@leontechtalks]

same with arch

[@achille0072]

@@leontechtalks arch is my go-to with old laptops, having total control over the installation is just a blessing

[@mattelder1971]

Which brings up a good question. How well would Doom run on this under Debian?

[@achille0072]

@@mattelder1971 under Debian? Why not booting it directly? I mean, there are doom ports that are bootable images

[@icuke1]

​@@achille0072this laptop probably doesn't have any kind of usable bootloader

[@Nikolai508]

"And what have we learned here today? Nothing", I can't tell you how much that made me laugh. We love the content though.

[@barmalini]

This is really impressive. I have some experience with running older hardware too, but my favourite distribution is Puppy linux

[@Robert67010]

I bought one of these once for my first wife. She used it to remote into the Windows XP desktop and it worked really well that way.

[@weldum1]

i'm going to try it, but my "sylvania" netbook appears to be a later one, with an 800mhz wondermedia WM8650 and 256MB of ram, it should be a little bit faster it comes with both windows CE in the internal memory and android on an sd card

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

Should have a mali-400 which then is supported by the lima driver. You might still be living in a world without blitter support though, as DRM is stupid.

[@heyitsnemo]

I thought you went over this one, but then I saw it was different video. Thanks.

[@RockRedGenesis]

Ah, playing a Minecraft clone at the impressive framerate of XX Frames per week! Classic Action Retro!

[@brandonbrooks2845]

Enjoyed meeting you at VCF Southwest! That Sylvania was a speed demon!!!

[@tylerdean980]

Try out antix, it's a smooth little icewm distro based on debian with a more lightweight set of programs and init system for older computers

[@baltasarq]

It's a great candidate to use as a text-only linux.

[@NOPerative]

I noticed by the end of the video that that little device appears to have a wide screen display; was expecting a 4:3, honestly. Fascinating stuff.

[@domramsey]

I think it would still be useful as a little terminal in a server room.

[@jumpstar9000]

It looks like quite a nice machine tbh.

[@katanah3195]

Not a bad candidate to be used as a portable dumb terminal for stuff like SSH'ing into machines intended to be remotely accessed. Which is kinda all these cheap pieces of shit were ever good for, their only real benefits are that they're cheap and portable.

[@d_sanu]

you mean thinclients?

[@domramsey]

@@d_sanu "Thin Client" is just a 90s marketing term for "Shit Computer"

[@eDoc2020]

@@domramsey "Thin client" is more about the software than the hardware.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Oh wow! I managed to install Linux on mine once, but never could get a working GUI. This is impressive, and it makes me want to revisit Linux on my Sylvania as well! I wonder if DOOM will run on this thing through Linux...

[@ApolloTheDerg]

Video it please

[@tschorsch]

I'm sure it would. It ran on a lot slower machines than this. Doom came out in 1993 and the CPU of the day was the 486 which ran at 50MHz. This runs at 300MHz. It's a different architecture (ARM vs x86), but still it's probably a lot faster.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

@@tschorsch Modern Linux and a launcher for Doom gives a lot more overhead than Windows 95 running it natively.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

@@ApolloTheDerg I finally got a GUI, but I can't run anything from inside the GUI, my machine just freezes. This thing is so hard to work on!

[@RedSntDK]

I have an ASUS EeePC from 2008, originally 1GB, but I splurged on a 2GB module earlier this year, and I went with antiX linux. It's odd to say, but it does feel a little bloated as it comes with like 6 desktop environments you can play around with, all aimed at low powered devices so IceWM, XFCE, LXQT etc. But overall more useful than other distros aimed at low powered devices like Bodhi. Gotta wonder if Q4OS would run on a Sylvania..

[@me234234]

It is crazy what unexpected stuff you find in stores that are not even designed to sell stuff like that but sometimes they do

[@xenoxaos1]

My guess is you may get better performance if you install the os to the nand. There are probably two /dev/mtd one spi for the bootloader and one for the flash nand.

[@retronoobtech8551]

@ActionRetro Hahahaha, I see you took me at my word! Really funny and well done video

[@kylek6922]

You know how you can speed that thing up... Send it through a potato gun! 😂

[@LloydLynx]

I used to have an Augen E-Go netbook that was the same hardware but rebranded and severely limited so you couldn't boot another OS or even install programs. It had an ARM MagicEyes 533Mhz, iirc a quad core.

[@AgentKilo]

Duuude I'm a sucker for messing with normally unusable hardware like this, I'm almost tempted to find one like this and install some crazy stuff lol

[@ChrisNoble-w9k]

It was nice of her to help you out

[@PaulSpades]

Kudos to the devs that made modern debian work with ancient arm devices. And to the maintainers of jwm and xfce, dillo and netsurf. I think tiny core linux is a better fit for this slow thing. But hey, if it can bring up a graphical environment of any kind and edit text files, that's somewhat useful.

[@chikyuuP]

I absolutely need a potato laptop so i can make mashed potatoes for dinner

[@ApolloTheDerg]

Let it cook!

[@rigen97]

this kinda feel unethical like injecting adrenalin right to the heart of someone with DNR tattooed to their chest

[@unamelable256]

Its impresive to see that this WinCE garbage performs at all. Because i thinked that it was a Toy than a full performed machine.

[@escapetherace1943]

linux can bring a 1970's toaster on the internet, probably

[@narutrixil]

Did you crank up all the optimizer flags when compiling classic cube?

[@jonot15]

if you look at the make output it's being built without any optimizations.

[@crazychicken2005]

I was one of the people to see this horrendous thing at VCF! I did not touch it as I thought so much as moving the mouse cursor would make it overheat, but it was a sight to behold! You may not remember it, but I actually brought over a tiny laptop of my own that I found on the free table (a Toshiba NB305). I also got Linux on it but, for whatever reason, it immediately locks up when I try to wake it from sleep and I have no idea why. Hopefully I'll find a solution to that. I hope to see this lemon of a netbook again sometime, I really got a kick out of seeing it. See you next year! EDIT: Found a solution to the sleep/wake issue! Turns out the dynamic CPU scaling was causing the CPU clock to become unstable, crashing the CPU. Turning off the dynamic CPU scaling fixed it.

[@jonnycando]

I remember when these were for sale…. Just thought “this can’t be any good!

[@MarkTheMorose]

You were right all along.

[@treowayne]

It seems like that machine's best use is to run without a GUI at all. Use it for command-line stuff only. SSH into other machines. Play MUDs. That kind of thing. See if you can go an entire week using only command-line applications (outside of video editing).

[@eDoc2020]

VNC and RDP, etc should also be fairly usable.

[@codeman99-dev]

2:21 Forgive if I'm wrong here. I thought it was generally a bad idea to use a journaling file system on SD cards?

[@TheMadRRConductor]

I bet this pc could be a good candidate for Tiny Core linux and even Damn Small Linux

[@sudiprajbanshiii]

Thanks for the video, I've enjoyed a ton

[@jorgemejias6701]

Loading XFCE, even as sluggish as it was, was extraordinary. It obviously won't be able to play videos on KZbin, but I wonder if using youtube-dl and mpv it would be able to play 240p videos. Would you accept the challenge, Sean?

[@berinslaptop]

the iopener "jailbait" distro, and the zipitwireless 2, have different linux build versions that can be found online and are highly tuned to run on hardware like this device. The build has lots of excess processes "parasitic" processes that are not needed and cut down on cpu preformance.

[@SJ-co6nk]

I watched a video about this unit this week and I was wondering if you could install linux on this guy. Man... Thank you...

[@jeyendeoso]

Action retro: Now its time to run Debian Little CVS netbook: I'm tired boss 😭

[@d_sanu]

Netbook: Debian brought my energy back thanks man!

[@isaacwright2247]

Isaac Wright: CVS in SW VA and NE TN is all medical stuff. No Sylvania Windows CE netbook for you!

[@bitwize]

Wouldn't surprise me if that little thing had just a framebuffer -- no GPU -- and so OpenGL is falling back on software rendering. That alone will tank your fps on a 3D game. I tried tracking one of these down when they were out at CVS and on sale for $70. Couldn't find one. Have a couple of other tiny computers from the day, including an MSI Wind netbook and one of those Nokia Internet Tablets.

[@Unan1mouz]

The fact that you can even install other OS on this is unbelievable and amazing at the same time. lol

[@adiposerex5150]

That mini is perfect. I used to get these all the time.

[@bobpegram8042]

I have a suggested Linux distro for 32 bit machines (as long as there is enough hard drive space, RAM, and a DVD drive). It is Emmabuntus. It loads a huge amount of software with the Debian 12 based OS. It also has a 64 bit version. Since it is Debian based it is extremely stable. It has the choice of LXQT or XFCE desktop. This distro was set up with the enormous amount of software to automatically install because it is used to install in recycled computers sent to Africa. It supports English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. I use it on my old clunker Dell Vostro 1500 (64 bit) which is not my main computer.

[@amateurprogrammer25]

I've seen slow computers before -- back in the day I tried general purpose computing on a 1st gen RasPi -- but I've never seen a computer take _multiple seconds to run neofetch_

[@WalnutSpice]

This is a really fun video for me because I actually had one back in the day, my dad saw it on sale for like $50 and thought it was cool and gave it to me. I was very impressed in just how very so awful it was in every single aspect. I wanted to dig into it to have some fun as I really couldn't get WinCE to do much, but within just a few weeks the keyboard and onboard storage both seemed to just die

[@Treffaut]

Funny thing is, all I really want is typing, maybe emails. Video is a luxury, but if I just need something done, it doesn’t take much. Makes my every laptop feel like a $2000 Facebook machine.

[@Nick-xt2dx]

I remember seeing these on display at a CVS as a child. Always wondered how bad it could be and who would buy a computer at CVS.

[@leylandlynxvlog]

It took exactly an hour to compile ClassiCube. However I think it could be useable for basic wordprocessing and such. Or maybe even better as an ssh terminal, without a GUI.

[@danmanx2]

Holy moley, one more step down and you'll be running linux on a toaster. I remember seeing these computers and wanting one. My only foray into the netbook world was a Dell Mini 9 that ran Ubuntu Linux. I put Windows XP on it! (Back then, I didn't use linux). Great video!

[@Spyd77]

The "just let me die" part was hilarious.

[@isleifoterogarcia4478]

One on the best things in my life is trying Linux. Even if the machines are miserable, it shows “respect” on them. Only just a little patience, like on the Guns n’ Roses song. Great video and hurrays for Linux!

[@xWatexx]

This would have been a beast in the DOS days

[@apojoga]

"When we find garbage, we install Linux on it" LMAO

[@EirikrTinkerTries]

Oh baaaaby! You are a tech wizard for real! Such magical spells hast thou been kast upon thine Sylvania! Curious however, to see NetBSD, as Haiku does not (yet?!) have an ARM port!

[@kquote0364]

haiku does have an arm port but it's pretty unusable iirc

[@BastetFurry]

This machine would make a nice portable Terminal without X running, just telnet and ssh installed, maybe lynx for some console browsing. You can get quite a huge way with just the console.

[@luki8806]

I have a "project pc" with similar specs, where I played with command line only linux stuff. Maybe you should try some of these programs: fbi for viewing images, mpv actually can play videos without a gui, moc for music player and radio-active for internet radio. Also lynx -g gives you a kind of a minimal web experience on a potato. You can have mc as a file manager tool and dosbox for some games. Maybe trinity as a DE worth a shot because why not.

[@sealed267]

> fbi for viewing images good luck, FBI 😂

[@AllonKirtchik]

Having watched this and CRD’s series on quick start OSes, does anyone know if WinCE was ever used for such an application?

[@lindoran]

New tee shirt idea "when we find garbage around here, we install Linux on it" with the computer and the "just let me die"

[@djdrew11]

I HAVE one of these running debian. The battery still kind of works, but it'll die before it ever boots.

[@CaribouDataScience]

How about Haiku?

[@teapot401]

It is really slow on MBs of rams.

[@clasqm]

On an ARM chip? Not gonna happen any time soon.

[@AlienFrog648]

"I mean it's not unusable, it's unbearable!" - a very ActionRetro thing to say)

[@hyun-shik7327]

I have a Thinkpad T42 with Debian and it really seems like the biggest thing holding it back is the 32-bit CPU. Other than that it can basically run any software that still has support.

[@SockyNoob]

It went from a useless novelty to a somewhat useful novelty. I love it.

[@GuyManley]

Man, I remember when these were prevalent and I really wanted one out of morbid curiosity. Just having a laptop back then felt premium. These netbooks were adorably small and around 100 dollars. I never did get one though. I've been scratching the under powered but usable Linux itch with a few different Raspi form factor SBCs.

[@tadeuszmarin5704]

I got an updated version of this same potato, with exactly the same chassis and display, but 1GB of RAM and a quad core ARM cpu. It ran Android 5.1, I recall. The problem is that unlike the previous versions that ran WinCE, this SoC is undocumented and no one ever figured out how to boot anything other than Android on it.

[@mikedev101]

I once had one of these abominations when I was a kid. Curious as I was, I trashed it for parts. Nearly caused a house fire by "playing" with the battery at one point. Kinda wish I kept the thing in one piece, but I've got too many other terrible laptops lying around...

[@RepurposeAutomation]

So cute! Reminds me of a netwinder.

[@LloydLynx]

I'd love to get one of these! It'd be great to run lynx and websurf, handle portable media, and show off to friends. And who knows what other uses I'd find for it.

[@eDoc2020]

Practically speaking an N270 netbook is a much more functional choice.

[@LloydLynx]

@@eDoc2020 Funny you should mention it. I bought a $25 Ideapad S10 yesterday.

[@jensputzlocher8345]

Bought a used N270 DellMini10v in 2012 to convert in into a hackintosh (MacOs10.6). Last years i revived it with MX Linux Fluxbox. Not very fast, but useable.

[@orektez]

i once setup linux on a zipit z2.. that was an experience. a slow one. ended up using it for irc more then anything.

[@bobriemersma]

"When we find garbage, install Linux!" That's it in a nutshell.

[@F_Around_and_find_out]

Linux is just the beginning!