Sometime around 2017 (IIRC) I got nostalgic for a little "netbook" type computer and decided, for some reason, that an HP Stream 14 would scratch that itch.
These are really low spec machines, even for 2016-2017. It came with Windows 10 and the first Windows Update basically filled the disk and effectively bricked the device. LOL!
I installed Linux on it after that (ofc) but didn't really use it much. So slow....
I was digging around in my service manuals library this evening and stumbled over it in a drawer of files... for some unknown reason it was in the drawer.
I started it up thinking it was still running Arch from back before Covid and might be entertaining to try to get it to update to the present.
Hmm, Alpine 3.21 boots console but sway is installed. Weird, no recollection of doing anything with this machine 12-18 months ago. "I'm not saying it's aliens..."
Ok, Alpine updates to 3.23 without issues. I'm not much of a tiling window manager person so I installed Plasma. Bad idea! With 4GB of ram and an afterthought of a CPU and storage it doesn't run very well at all.
Installed LXQt with labwc and it runs great! Tweaking and themeing to come. (Hi @Tionisla 👋 )
Not sure what I'm going to do with this machine but currently it is pretty usable for simple stuff. Screen and keyboard sucks, pretty close to e-waste. Lesson: ~$200 (retail) laptop is about as good as you would expect a $200 laptop to be. Ha.
#Linux #AlpineLinux #LXQt #netbook #labwc #windows #Windows10