Why on earth would I spend $29.17 on a new (to me) laptop? Well, before I tell you what I was thinking, you might think, where can a person get a laptop for that little? So let’s start there.
eBay sometimes has incredible deals, if you know what to look for. In preparation for my Linux class (that I’m teaching the second half of the Spring semester as part of the Del Val Center for Learning in Retirement program), I’m shopping for a really good older laptop that can support some of the popular Linux distros (Ubuntu, Manjaro, Solus, etc.). I have an old Dell Latitude E5400 that I really like and that works well with 64-bit versions of Linux, so I thought I would go shopping for another.
On eBay I found this one: Dell E5400 14″ Laptop 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM (Grade B). The pictures and description seemed good so I paid my $29.17, plus $12.15 for expedited priority mail. So for a grand total of $41.32, I have what appears to be a laptop that’s never actually been used – it looks brand new inside and out. The hard drive was pulled and there’s no power supply, but I have spares so there was no additional cost to me to get this laptop up and running. And run it does – very well!
I installed a Linux distro called Solus Budgie on it. If you happen to be taking my Linux class this Spring, we’ll go over how to download and install Linux, but for the sake of this post, suffice to say that the process of getting Linux installed and running on this laptop was really easy. And once the installation is complete, and software was updated, the end result is pretty phenomenal. This could be someone’s primary workhorse PC, and they probably wouldn’t even miss Windows or MacOS.
Here’s a picture of my $29.17 laptop PC.
