Let me tell you about my Sony Z505. To be precise, it's s a Sony Z505 HE.
I bought this thing in 1999. With the extra, high-capacity battery and the external CD-ROM, I spent well over $2000 on it. It came with Windows 98! It had a 450 mhz Pentium III processor, so it was the fastest machine in my arsenal at the time.
It was fantastic. It weighed less than four pounds, had a hefty eight-gigabyte hard drive, and 128 megabytes of RAM. It was the ultimate development machine for VB6 and SQL Server 2000.
At the time, I was telecommutung every day. I used the machine to hack code at coffee shops and such. I loved using it. I would have conversations at demoes and job interviews about the machine. I even heard the guys who worked for Slashdot were using them, so I thought I was pretty cool.
Then, of course, it got old. The gigahertz-processor-frequency barrier was broken. Machines started coming with more RAM and large hard disks. I tried to keep up. I installed a new RAM module to increace the memory to 192 MB (the max for this model.) I found a site online that showed me how to crack the case and put a new 2.5-inch disk inside. When I did it, I broke the touchpad. The batteries quit working. I started doing all my work with Windows XP, which was too intense for the machine.
So eventually, I had a tiny, underpowered mini-laptop computer with no wireless, no batteries, and no touchpad. That cost over $2500 to buy. So I put it in a box in my storage room while I moved on to other things and forgot about it. Until a few things happened.
First, I got a new job. To get to the new job, I had to ride a commuter bus for about 45 minutes each way. So I suddenly got 90 minutes a day to spend with a computer. I started bringing my Thinkpad with me. But most of the time, it was just a little too large to see the screen. I would throw it in my bag, take it on the bus, and hope I could get a seat where there would be enough room to open the thing. I started working through Dive Into Python. But half of the days of the week, I couldn't get the lid back far enough to see thing. So I would cart around this eight-pound computer for nothing.
Then, I discovered Linux. Ubuntu to be precise, and Xubuntu to be really precise. I had been spending my spare time going through all the old computers I had and installing Xubuntu to see if I could. It wasn't very productive, but it was fun and didn't cost anything. After my experience with the Z505, I was against spending much money on computers.
Don't get me wrong, I had bought a refurbished Thinkpad for grad school, and was happily running Ubuntu on that. But the idea of plunking down much money for computers made me think. Xubuntu was working great on these older machines. The only these old, revived Xubuntu machines couldn't do was 1) play Doom III, which I didn't play anyway since I got, like, trapped in Hell or something and my guns quit working and 2) play flash videos, like yourtube. MSNBC news clips were the worst, but I could live without them.. I figured out that if I downloaded my favorite shows from Revision3 instead of watching the flash, it worked great.
Finally, the netbook revolution happened. Now this was cool. For three-hundred dollars, I could get a tiny Linux box that I could always open, see, and use, and only weighed about three pounds. For that kind of weight, I didn't have to lug around a big, heavy, full-size machine to read, write and code for my 90 minute "alone time."
But there were a few things about these machines that bothered me. First, I didn't like the tiny screens. 800-pixels wide was too small for me, and the larger screens came at the cost of screen height. The machines ran Linux, but hold on, it was a crippleware-version of the OS, and, although it would do anything I probably wanted, including run Python and watch Youtube, it wasn't the real thing. Ubuntu had released a special netbook "remix" version, but I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to figure out how to install it without a CD-ROM, or have to buy one after my VAIO experience.
But I couldn't help thinking abou the old Sony VAIO in my junkpile. It had a fantastic 12-inch LCD, and I had an unused wireless-G card to stick in it. It only weighed three pounds, too. And, although it only had 192 MB of RAM, it should be able to do almost anything a netbook could do.
Why should I drop fifteen hundred dollars on a new computer that Microsoft would just invalidate in a few years? That's not what computers are about for me. For me, computers are about solving problems and learning new things. I only want to spend money when my needs outpace the computer's abilities.
So I thought, why should I buy one of these underpowered little netbook computers when I already have one of my own? Why can't I revive the Z505, buy a new battery, and install Linux on there? So I made a plan: If I could get a decent operating system on there, I'd buy a new battery and make it my new "bus warrior" netbook.
Although I had been using Xubuntu on some other machines, I decided to try some other "lightweight" operating systems first to see if I could get something that really peformed great.
First, I tried Puppy Linux. I couldn't get it to boot from the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM on the VAIO works through the PCMCIA slot, and was, in fact, responsible for about $300 of the price of the machine. You had to buy it separately if you wanted to use the system restore disk, which I had to do once.
Then I tried DSL. I had to comb the Internet looking for how to get the thing to boot up. Finally, I found a command switch to pass the boot loader. I have no idea what it means:
DSL ide2=0x180, 0x386 acpi=off, nohotplug, nopcmcia
That worked pretty fast, but there were two problems. It didn't set up my Linksys wireless-g network card. I would have to use ndiswrapper to get that to work, and that would be a lot of feeling around in the dark. I also really, really missed Synaptic. In fact, when I realized how much I missed Synaptic, I knew what I had to do. I just went back to Xubuntu.
To get Xubuntu to boot, I had to turn ACPI off, and one or two other things in the advanced boot menu. But it worked like a charm. But after I installed it and restarted with the PCMCIA wireless card installed, it detected it and offered to install the (proprietary) driver. Awesome! So easy.
I bought a battery for it through Amazon for about $70 and I was finished. Bam. I've got a netbook for $70 with a 40 GB HDD.
But I still have a few problems, though. The USB port detected a USB flash drive, but it wouldn't detect my USB external disk. I have to do some homework on that, because I wanted to copy my tunes on here. I've always found USB devices to be flaky like that. The battery appears to last long enough for a whole day's bus ride and a half-hour of remote use at home, which is just about right. I might get more time out of it if I remove the wireless card and dim the LCD when I use it. And the wireless connection strength seems to only read about 80% even when I'm right next to the wireless router, but that might not be a big deal.
But that's how I got my netbook for $70. Actually, I paid $2500 for it since 1999, but at least I didn't have to buy anything new. And if it gets destroyed somehow, I won't be so upset. I have small children, you know, and they like to check out Daddy's toys.
UPDATE:
Here are the setting I made to get it to install.
It was fantastic. It weighed less than four pounds, had a hefty eight-gigabyte hard drive, and 128 megabytes of RAM. It was the ultimate development machine for VB6 and SQL Server 2000.
At the time, I was telecommutung every day. I used the machine to hack code at coffee shops and such. I loved using it. I would have conversations at demoes and job interviews about the machine. I even heard the guys who worked for Slashdot were using them, so I thought I was pretty cool.
Then, of course, it got old. The gigahertz-processor-frequency barrier was broken. Machines started coming with more RAM and large hard disks. I tried to keep up. I installed a new RAM module to increace the memory to 192 MB (the max for this model.) I found a site online that showed me how to crack the case and put a new 2.5-inch disk inside. When I did it, I broke the touchpad. The batteries quit working. I started doing all my work with Windows XP, which was too intense for the machine.
So eventually, I had a tiny, underpowered mini-laptop computer with no wireless, no batteries, and no touchpad. That cost over $2500 to buy. So I put it in a box in my storage room while I moved on to other things and forgot about it. Until a few things happened.
First, I got a new job. To get to the new job, I had to ride a commuter bus for about 45 minutes each way. So I suddenly got 90 minutes a day to spend with a computer. I started bringing my Thinkpad with me. But most of the time, it was just a little too large to see the screen. I would throw it in my bag, take it on the bus, and hope I could get a seat where there would be enough room to open the thing. I started working through Dive Into Python. But half of the days of the week, I couldn't get the lid back far enough to see thing. So I would cart around this eight-pound computer for nothing.
Then, I discovered Linux. Ubuntu to be precise, and Xubuntu to be really precise. I had been spending my spare time going through all the old computers I had and installing Xubuntu to see if I could. It wasn't very productive, but it was fun and didn't cost anything. After my experience with the Z505, I was against spending much money on computers.
Don't get me wrong, I had bought a refurbished Thinkpad for grad school, and was happily running Ubuntu on that. But the idea of plunking down much money for computers made me think. Xubuntu was working great on these older machines. The only these old, revived Xubuntu machines couldn't do was 1) play Doom III, which I didn't play anyway since I got, like, trapped in Hell or something and my guns quit working and 2) play flash videos, like yourtube. MSNBC news clips were the worst, but I could live without them.. I figured out that if I downloaded my favorite shows from Revision3 instead of watching the flash, it worked great.
Finally, the netbook revolution happened. Now this was cool. For three-hundred dollars, I could get a tiny Linux box that I could always open, see, and use, and only weighed about three pounds. For that kind of weight, I didn't have to lug around a big, heavy, full-size machine to read, write and code for my 90 minute "alone time."
But there were a few things about these machines that bothered me. First, I didn't like the tiny screens. 800-pixels wide was too small for me, and the larger screens came at the cost of screen height. The machines ran Linux, but hold on, it was a crippleware-version of the OS, and, although it would do anything I probably wanted, including run Python and watch Youtube, it wasn't the real thing. Ubuntu had released a special netbook "remix" version, but I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to figure out how to install it without a CD-ROM, or have to buy one after my VAIO experience.
But I couldn't help thinking abou the old Sony VAIO in my junkpile. It had a fantastic 12-inch LCD, and I had an unused wireless-G card to stick in it. It only weighed three pounds, too. And, although it only had 192 MB of RAM, it should be able to do almost anything a netbook could do.
Why should I drop fifteen hundred dollars on a new computer that Microsoft would just invalidate in a few years? That's not what computers are about for me. For me, computers are about solving problems and learning new things. I only want to spend money when my needs outpace the computer's abilities.
So I thought, why should I buy one of these underpowered little netbook computers when I already have one of my own? Why can't I revive the Z505, buy a new battery, and install Linux on there? So I made a plan: If I could get a decent operating system on there, I'd buy a new battery and make it my new "bus warrior" netbook.
Although I had been using Xubuntu on some other machines, I decided to try some other "lightweight" operating systems first to see if I could get something that really peformed great.
First, I tried Puppy Linux. I couldn't get it to boot from the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM on the VAIO works through the PCMCIA slot, and was, in fact, responsible for about $300 of the price of the machine. You had to buy it separately if you wanted to use the system restore disk, which I had to do once.
Then I tried DSL. I had to comb the Internet looking for how to get the thing to boot up. Finally, I found a command switch to pass the boot loader. I have no idea what it means:
DSL ide2=0x180, 0x386 acpi=off, nohotplug, nopcmcia
That worked pretty fast, but there were two problems. It didn't set up my Linksys wireless-g network card. I would have to use ndiswrapper to get that to work, and that would be a lot of feeling around in the dark. I also really, really missed Synaptic. In fact, when I realized how much I missed Synaptic, I knew what I had to do. I just went back to Xubuntu.
To get Xubuntu to boot, I had to turn ACPI off, and one or two other things in the advanced boot menu. But it worked like a charm. But after I installed it and restarted with the PCMCIA wireless card installed, it detected it and offered to install the (proprietary) driver. Awesome! So easy.
I bought a battery for it through Amazon for about $70 and I was finished. Bam. I've got a netbook for $70 with a 40 GB HDD.
But I still have a few problems, though. The USB port detected a USB flash drive, but it wouldn't detect my USB external disk. I have to do some homework on that, because I wanted to copy my tunes on here. I've always found USB devices to be flaky like that. The battery appears to last long enough for a whole day's bus ride and a half-hour of remote use at home, which is just about right. I might get more time out of it if I remove the wireless card and dim the LCD when I use it. And the wireless connection strength seems to only read about 80% even when I'm right next to the wireless router, but that might not be a big deal.
But that's how I got my netbook for $70. Actually, I paid $2500 for it since 1999, but at least I didn't have to buy anything new. And if it gets destroyed somehow, I won't be so upset. I have small children, you know, and they like to check out Daddy's toys.
UPDATE: Here are the setting I made to get it to install.
There has been 38 Responses to 'New Old Netbook' so far
jambarama
I had similar issues with DSL & puppy. I ended up using arch, which I love.
If xubuntu works for you, that's great. I had issues with it running too slowly on my old laptop. Fluxbuntu ended up doing the trick for me. Of course you can just throw fluxbox onto xubuntu and remove xfce for a similar effect, but fluxbuntu feels snappier.
In the end I went with arch because I didn't like losing a few hours to upgrade each time a new ubuntu was released. The release system of arch is awesome - no dates, as soon as there is an update, you grab it, and your system always stays up to date. No dist-upgrades.
Vincent says:
Nice post, I'm currently runnning Xubuntu from my USB drive on my father's laptop, works flawlessly and it allows me to save everything I do even though I'm not working on my own computer (which, of course, also runs Xubuntu despite not being that old).
There were some USB devices that have caused problems with me in the past - sometimes running "lsusb" (in a terminal or from Alt+F2) helps to get them deteced.
Jasper says:
Nice! Ubuntu is better thuogh. :)
Central Thai Guy says:
Nice to hear you got it running. I like fiddling with the old boxes too, and got Linux Mint-XFCE up for a friend last week. I just wanted to drop that your problem with the external HDD might just be because of your USB ports are USB 1.0. The slow old school ports have issues sometimes. I don't know why, but I've had the same problem on an old compaq presario that I used for years.
Anonymous
I don't get it!
Does the computer do any thing different than it did in 1999?
Why not just buy the battery and leave it at that instead of spending all that time installing another OS other than the sport of it.
Siddharth says:
nice to know there are still people using old PCs.. I still have my dads 95 Toshiba. 333Mhz, 2Gb HD, no net, no CD drive, there is a floppy drive though, b & W screen, trackball mouse and 64Mb RAM.. I like playing with it and just messing with the device doing nothing useful with it.. It's still in excellent shape and I loathe to get rid of it.. more like my dad'l bury me if I do.. heh heh
Pete C
Not sure if this is the problem but some external drives are powered by the USB port. Older USB ports gave out less volts then the new USB2.0 do
cocopuffz says:
I love reading a good Linux story. =) I've had an itch to get a netbook for myself, but I can't seem to kill my LinuxMint xfce laptop. It keeps going and going. It's not too old. A p4 2.8 with 1 gig of mem, but it ran gnome slowly with all the effects turned on. With xfce it's snappy, I can run xp in virtualbox etc. Everyday I'm more and more impressed with Linux. I have a modern day OS, running on modest specs (compared to todays machines).
Skaag Argonius says:
If you grab a Circa 1999 Apple Laptop you get the same results, with some amazing software.
Brie says:
I love stories like this. I got Puppy on a Thinkpad 240. I bought a wireless from ebay and up'd the ram. I take it when traveling.
Airencracken says:
Powertop! :D
int19h says:
Thanks for a well written post! Seems like you found a cheap and good way to reuse an old laptop, which is great.
When it comes to netbooks, flash works perfectly fine, though. Even if netbooks are delivered with beginner-friendly Linux-installations, that doesn't mean you an install your own distro.
I use ArchLinux on an Acer Aspire One and I love both the machine and the distro.
(and to "jasper": Ubuntu and Xubuntu are the same, except a slightly different selection of packages)
rektide says:
I run Debian on the P1120 I've had since 2003. 8.9 inch WSVGA touchscreen 2.2lbs slow as a dog crusoe processor... yup it too is an original netbook.
I had to take the hard drive out, put it in a USB enclosure, and attach it to another system to get my Debian on it.
andersen.hc says:
I love bringing old machines back from exile, tom once again, be productive. My old machines usually turn into a server. I still have a P90 with 64 mb of ram running debian etch as a web server, file server, and database server. :p
Btw, you can install other linux systems on the Eee pc. You don't have to stick with the default one
Daengbo says:
Like some others here, I'm going to recommend something. LXDE. If you installed Xubuntu, then just look for LXDE in the repositories and install that. When you log in again, choose an LXDE session. It's GTK-based, just like XFCE, but it's a lot lighter and uses PCManFM as a file manager.
XFCE used to be pretty light, but it's gotten so many new features that it's really at about 80% of Gnome's usage right now. I'll bet that you find Xubuntu a little slow, eh?
I have LXDE running on two laptops (one is Debian Lenny and one is Ubuntu 8.04). They are both from the 2000 time period and are PIIIs 500-700MHz with 128MB RAM. They perform well and are sufficiently fast, though you can't open a lot of apps or tabs with them. The core system takes about 48MB RAM including modern stuff like hot-plugging and preview icons.
Best of luck.
p.s. If you want to just install an amazing, light distro based on LXDE, slitax has FF3 and weighs in at a total of 25MB for the live CD. It's not a .deb distro, though.
Anonymous
You can get Flash 9 or 10 working on it pretty easily. I have Ubuntu on several machines with Flash 10.
Warren 'Llama' Ernst says:
Hey there. I have the exact same notebook in the exact same condition (except I didn't trash the trackpad when i replaced the hard drive years ago.) I've had similar problems installing various Linuxes on it, and figured xBuntu (pick your version) would never work. So, can you help me out? What exact disc image did you use (I assume it was the installer disc and not the LiveCD.) What exact startup options did you pick? If you could take a few minutes to retrace your steps, it would help a sony-recycler out. Thanks.
joshyMinor says:
I have always liked the Sony notebooks, lately the VAIOs are the coolest looking ones on the store shelves.
Jess
www.anolite.echoz.com
Anonymous
Nice post, I'm pleased to read I'm not the only one playing around with these "old" machines :)
I've been using CrunchBang Linux on my Satellite Pro 4300 -- it's a PIII 600Mhz with 128MB RAM. Works like a dream with CrunchBang Linux, works like a dog with Xubuntu :S
Anonymous
Very informative post and comments,
Is there a Forum that has a linux-old laptop focus where I can ask a multitude of questions along the lines of those posed here. I have no lucl loading various Linux on a Fujitsu 555 Life book or an an even older HP. Lap top never sees boot disk for Puppy or Ubuntu.
rainexpected says:
TinyMe. Uses OpenBox and is much snappier than Xubuntu on my 300Mhz Dell Inspiron.
Anonymous
I got a 505 a few years back and ran FreeBSD/fluxbox on it.
I ended up giving it to my brother about the time Warty was released but I am not surpised to hear Xubuntu is good with it.
My last Xubuntu box is a Sharp Actius AV-18 and it SCREAMS on it. If you need a little more umph than the 505 can give you should check it out.
TV Guide says:
Bringing old machines back to life...sweet.
Duane says:
Great timing, I'm right now trying to revive an old 1999 Thinkpad for the kids to have as a toy. Bought new battery and hard drive, but keep getting kernel panics whenever I try to boot Ubuntu (even from CD!). So far Knoppix was the only distro that would boot, and that's if I invoked "nodma" at boot time. Have not yet tried Xubuntu, but that'll be my next one!
You say it can't do Flash, though? That'd be a deal killer for the kids' toy -- too many free and simple educational games would would be left out.
harish says:
You should try Fluxbuntu its even lighter than XFCE4 as it is based on fluxbox.
emptythevoid says:
Awesome article! I love reading about people's experiences reviving old computers. We have several old Panasonic Toughbooks at work (CF-T2s) that are loaded with Windows XP and have no CD-ROM drives, and don't support USB booting. The one I have has 768MB of RAM and a Pentium M, 900Mhz. I wanted to install Ubuntu on it a long time ago, but was befuddled about how to do it without using the CD or a USB stick. Then Wubi came along. As long as I could live with XP sitting on the hard drive, I was able to easily install Ubuntu and turn this lightweight laptop into a netbook. Not everything works perfectly - the touchscreen refuses to calibrate correctly, and I haven't been able to get the SD card reader to work, but everything else is great! And although the battery life isn't great, I've got several swappable batteries lying around. Oh, and hibernation won't work, since I'm using Wubi, but suspend works just fine. I love it!
Anonymous
Good story of using Linux on old hardware but you oscillate between a new netbook being underpowered and not having much power in your old one. I've suggested it before, the new Aspire1's from Acer are the golden ring of networks. For $350 US you get 120GB drive, 1G ram, 9" screen. Dual booting Linux and Windows also works, though I haven't completely configured my linux install yet.
Leslie Wong says:
I have a similar Sony 505 (500Mhz, 256MB) at home that is running Windows Server 2003. I use it for a domain controller, DNS and DHCP with Windows, Mac and Linux boxes. It works OK.
Jim Turner says:
To get external HDs to work with USB-1 ports (my Dell C-series boxes had them), you need a 5v "wallwart" (power-supply) in that USB-1 ports do not provide enough amps to power most modern HDs. I bought a usb hub one time that came with one for that purpose and the ext. HD wrapper case has a port for one.
mikemunsil says:
I got Mandrake running on my TS505 Sony Vaio a while (well, a long while) back.
Thing is, I can't get it to start up now. I think the CMOS battery is dead.
Anonymous
in other words, you have a computer.
- V - says:
Nice blog - good to see old hardware being recycled.
Anonymous
Linux-on-laptops, has lots of info on specific installs on lots of machines. there are others, just can't remember them now HTH
Anonymous
For the best bang per Mhz, try
Linux Mint Fluxbox:
http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=404
All that minty goodness and lightning fast and super easy on resources.
I sound like an advertisement, but I'm just a happy user.
SamD says:
Distros like Puppy stumped me for a while but there is a workaround.
Buy or borrow an external USB CD drive. Make an extra copy of the install CD. What happens is that you boot from the PCMCIA CD drive and install from the USB CD drive.
Works every time on my Z505R.
Anonymous
Try http://vectorlinux.com/
Vector Linux is an up and coming distro that has a lot to offer older hardware. Works excellent on my PII 333 with 192MB of RAM.
It really impressed me, and I am also a fan of xubuntu.
John. says:
I have an old Vaio laptop in a bin somewhere in the basement - It's more than ten years old, and I think it shipped with Windows 95 on it. I installed DSl on it about a year ago, for similar reasons to yours - to see if I could. But then I moved on to bigger and better things. Your post has given me the itch to dig the old dinosaur out and reformat it. I love Ubuntu but have never looked into Xubuntu. I'll have to explore! Thanks!
Mark D. says:
I have the exact same model of Vaio, and I've been trying to get linux on it for a while
What advanced boot settings did you use? I was able to find out that i needed to turn off ACPI, but what else did you do?