Downside of Buying Cheap

Less than a Fistful of Dollars

You pay a little cash and you get a nice cheap laptop. As someone that had to jump off the deep end to finally daily drive Linux by using an early Raspberry Pi that my wife got me when the project first got started, it's nothing to run a potato. Over the years, I've grown to enjoy CLI & TUI programs a lot more along with brewing up a few of my own bash scripts. So the idea of digging out pocket change for functional hardware is not a big deal. Even as someone that enjoys watching a lot of YouTube, it's been great to figure out methods on how to address hardware limits. MPV or yt-dlp are there to help figure it out, drop the video profile & move my YouTube subs to RSS & plop that in Newsboat with some custom macros to fire up on lower limits, BAM! I'm a rural guy who has had to live behind the times long enough, it ain't no thang to endure constraints.

Still there are my old foes that kept me out of the Linux daily driving game for decades. Issues with sound, screens, wifi, and Bluetooth. So many regrets about skipping being in the Linux game early on. On many occasions, there were CDs & DVDs of a good ISO that I left it on the wayside because I was too stubborn sit down and solve or just contend with tolerating some kind of hardware issue. Now I'm here converting this Walmart "Gateway" branded Chinese laptop that has mostly worked but a few flareups like touchscreen not functioning & Bluetooth. Yet, unlike in the pst I can live without the touchscreen and even Bluetooth even though it is my baby that I'd like. I'll just spend a bit of time later on troubleshooting that and seeing if there is some fix. It's an old enough device there is probably a forum post or reddit one that might have a lead. Right now, its tomorrow's problem. In a short amount of time the device running BOG SLOW on Windows with its Celeron CPU is living quite well for me on Linux with just a couple missing features.

Surprisingly later on this time around I got somewhat functional touchscreen but its not there on size or function but nothing so far on Bluetooth. Not sure where to begin and I can just use headphones or line out to Bluetooth speaker. Might just have to eat it.

There is also a Chromebook I got for open box return at Bestbuy during Covid for cheap. I had some installs working on it great but it doesn't have audio out the gate. There are ways to patch the kernel I had working but I didn't lock that and my love of Arch Linux had me constantly update it causing return to the headache of not having audio. The patch is a struggle due to the underpowered CPU requires doing all the work on another device then transferring it back. Think going forward no more fussing with it.

Maybe I should just be abandoning some of features will just be good for me. Live with the constraints like a challenge to enjoy different kind of computing. Not everything needs to be a super functional desktop but can be a writing or coding box that I can just enjoy. This "Gateway" laptop is just a fun device to leave on the table or couch in Tent mode to stream a few videos but not all of them. At the end of the day I like SSH, Rustdesk or Moonlight, and VIM/NEOVIM on machines mostly which it can do.

The Chromebook can just be a put in my bicycle bag and chill at the library being a great coding box that won't really do much video. I can put my streams in audio only mode, its no big deal. If I mess up greatly and drop this sub $30 device on the highway it won't break my heart too bad. These downsides for me is something I need to stop getting all bent out of shape trying to fix. Its possible to fix it all and if it does then count it as some blessing. A big factor for me is not getting to heart broken with a pricey purchase that I end breaking or damaging by accident. I'm a klutz and someone that can lose their glasses on their face. This has led to broken cellphones that my wife has had to help me fix and lots of wrecked electronics.

I love new hardware and pulled the trigger plenty of times but not going to lie, I've been in similar position. Buying ROG laptop on its first model release gave me issues hardware wise no matter if it was Windows or Linux. Bought a used Microslop Surface thinking the kickstand and touch feature would be nice. Now I have a broken hinge, screen, headphone port & just now the two USB & a charge port not working. That is not to mention Mircoslop switch to Linux has a great team moving them to Linux but you still lose features and other items.

If you have these issues, don't be like I was long ago. Maybe just learn to enjoy the challenges and find ways to see if you can enjoy the device like is some kind "distraction" free software development box or your Novel writing or Static Website machine.

I fully understand that it's not too hard for me because I still like to listen to baseball & public radio in this era and track the game baseball game with some AMAZING CLI apps. The web can somewhat be browsed with CLI apps. There are many options out there and its all pretty fun if you learn to see it as a challenge rather than a frustration. Constraints are known to have helped make many a things like games, hardware, and other numerous things operate much better and be well loved & appreciated items or processes.