The Iggblog

So I got this laptop. A while back my mother told me that my grandmother was having issues with her laptop. Specifically, there was something “wonky” with the power jack, and it would die from time to time. I hear this and immediately think to myself “2 dots of solder and this thing will be a-ok”. Before I can offer any sage-like advice, she mentions that my grandmother has already purchased a new device and wants to pitch the old one. She offers it to me, and I think “hey great… It’s probably some brick of a Pentium2 or Pentium 3 that I can replace the venerable Pipboy firewall with”. I’d been looking for a lower power solution for a while. Score.

So I go to pick it up yesterday and the thing is huge, first of all. by laptop standards anyways. Then I read the power supply… 19V at 4.74 amps… The thing draws 90 watts. That’s more than a “brick” of a laptop should draw. I boot it up, and check the system… It’s a Pentium 4 running at 2.5Ghz with 512 megs of ram, and some nVidia card in it to boot. Ok. Not a brick. This thing is faster than my “main” box at home. Score.

I wiped windows and put Ubuntu linux on it. I’m really not a linux fan (I’m a BSD guy for sure), but I really should know linux for work. So this is a great opportunity. So far it’s pretty cool. a little cumbersome and far too “windows-like” in many respects. not sure how long I’ll keep it in here, but there are some things I want to play with.

that’s all I got.