Selling Trisquel Laptops

9 Antworten [Letzter Beitrag]
rinakra
Offline
Beigetreten: 11/20/2019

So I recently acquired 3 pretty old Fujitsu Lifebook tablet computers. One of them is a 32 bit computer... but it actually is not so slow that browsing the internet is impossible, it it runs Texmaker and Xournal nicely. The others are dual core which is pretty good for basic stuff. In any case, after a little work, they will all run and are all compatible with Trisquel (in the sense that the wifi and bluetooth work without dongles). So I don't need all these computers obviously. I bought them all without hard drives just to play around with. I had the idea of throwing some hard drives in there and installing Trisquel and then selling them to people on Ebay for a minimal/nonexistent profit, just so that a) they don't go to waste, b) I can get some of the money back I wasted buying various different computers c) It allows me to recycle some parts from other computers I owned that died, d) it just kind of gets more people using Trisquel.

My friend told me this might be a bad idea because perhaps if the new owner of the computer is not experienced with Linux, and starts to have issues with it, especially seeing as the computer is pretty old, then people might start to get a negative image of Trisquel and then I would sort of be hurting the image of free software. I kind of think this is an unlikely idea. If you can get a working convertible tablet computer with Trisquel pre-installed and everything running nicely without doing any work at all, all for less than $100, it seems like someone out there might want that and it can only be a good thing. I was just wondering what you all think.

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Beigetreten: 06/06/2018

I want one. Because I have been thinking to buy a tablet to use GIMP with a stylus. But even if you sell them less than 10$, the shipping cost would be the problem. I live in Japan. Where do you send those from?

rinakra
Offline
Beigetreten: 11/20/2019

Hm... I live in New York. However, after a quick internet search, it looks like the cost of shipping is about $30 and would take between 7 and 14 days to Japan. That's actually a lot better than I thought!

I would totally send one to you for the price of the hard drive (and you can just tell me what type/size you want).

Of course it might make more sense to buy one that's closer. They are actually made in Japan after all. I will say that you should look for the model t4215 or t4220. Any older than that and the motherboard only supports 32-bit cpus. The t5xxx and t7xx models are actually way more cheaply built, oddly enough. I'm not really sure why but the screws are low quality making it difficult to take apart and the hinges are more likely to be loose etc.

Let me know what you think.

nadebula.1984
Offline
Beigetreten: 05/01/2018

Maybe X200t (with libreboot or at least coreboot) is suitable for you?

BTW, I usually try to find some Japanese or Korean branded legacy notebooks (Fujitsu, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, etc.), and it seems that I have a better chance to get Atheros cards in such computers.

calher

I am a member!

Offline
Beigetreten: 06/19/2015

People just aren't interested in free/libre software. I don't see the
point anymore. I'm going to go join the Amish now.

rinakra
Offline
Beigetreten: 11/20/2019

As a side note, buying these things off Ebay actually seems to be an effective way to get Trisquel-compatible wifi cards for much, much cheaper than buying them from Minifree, even if you don't actually want the computer itself. This is kind of funny actually.

GNUbahn
Offline
Beigetreten: 02/18/2016

If I am not mistaken, you get better (faster) wifi-cards from

vikings.net: https://store.vikings.net/libre-friendly-hardware/atheros450

or

technoethical.com: https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Beigetreten: 06/06/2018

I was thinking I will never connect to the internet with the laptop. Because if I could use GIMP and copy works to a USB or something, I will be satisfied. But New York is a bit far from my country. Less than $10 is very attractive though.
I have been suggesting free software to people for their privacy and security, including some of my online English tutors (DMM). I would appreciate it if you could inform me here that when you start to sell those laptops on ebay or somewhere. Most of them are European so the postage would be cheaper. I might want one or some of them might want one. I also installed Trisquel on a cheap laptop first time. It was Aspire one. Because I read that even some users here used non-librebooted laptops. Maybe strypey still uses Aspire one and even chaosmonk also has suggested to buy a $3 wifi card on ebay than buying Thinkpenguin's expensive wifi cards, IIRC. I also suggest it because a router I bought from Thinkpenguin recently seems to be already broken and I cannot say their supports were excellent.
Of course X200t or galaxy tab 2 would be better choices but again, I was not going to connect it to the internet from the beginning. And the economy of those countries where they live in are generally not so strong, so, yeah. Thank you for the offer anyway. I will think about it.

nadebula.1984
Offline
Beigetreten: 05/01/2018

(Unfortunately,) I just gave away one ThinkPad X41t Tablet with Atheros card to someone else recently. If this topic was posted earlier, you could have a chance to get it for free (i.e., you'd only need to pay the shipment fee)...

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Beigetreten: 06/06/2018

In so-called capitalism, having a better product can have an initiative in business talks. Of course, the labor force is one of the products. When the UK was livelily in the midst of leaving the EU, the Japanese government gently suggested a modest suggestion of staying in the EU mainly for economic reasons (that does not mean Japanese politicians are capable, maybe that means only some Japanese economists are capable) gently, a British parliamentarian said “None of your business. the UK will leave the EU no matter what anyone may say.” excitedly, with a smile. Surely it didn't matter for us if the UK left the EU or not, I just thought the Britons were interesting, especially their curious... obstinate manlike something. Studies on the impact since the referendum showed that the average British household's inflation increased by £ 404 per year and a loss of 2 to 2.5 percent of UK GDP. Is that a so-called British joke?

edit: added "business talks", and "In a so-called capitalist society" > "In so-called capitalism"

edit2