this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

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Old Computer Ideas (hexbear.net)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by RedRook1917@hexbear.net to c/libre@hexbear.net
 

I have been gifted a few ancient laptops from the stone age (2005-2014). Any ideas on what I can do with them? Are there any modern Linux distros that would run on old hardware like this? I'll take any suggestions this wonderful community has to offer.

Edit: The laptops are:

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[–] Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net 4 points 5 days ago

I think the main thing to check is whether it can run 64-bit OS and whether it has SATA ports for an SSD.

I was able to run Arch with some tiling WM using this old laptop: https://www.newegg.com/asus-u50-series-15-6-intel-core-i3-330m-intel-hd-graphics-4gb-ddr3-memory-500gb-hdd/p/N82E16834220763

Main issue was playing videos which caused the laptop to overheat. Overall, the performance was not good, but I was still using a laptop HDD instead of an SSD, which would significantly impact its performance. I also had a weird amount of RAM installed like 6GB for some reason lol