Mastodawn

🛠️ 💻 In the spirit of repairability and keeping good equipment alive, I've gathered up a few retired Thinkpads from local surplus auctions. I'm upgrading the RAM and drives and will be making them available in the next few weeks. These will be cozy little Solarpunk machines, older equipment preinstalled with a lightweight linux desktop and all the software you need for browsing, writing, docs, email, managing passwords, and videoconferencing.

I would like to find each one a good home with a nice person who will appreciate and take care of it. If you know of someone in the USA who would be a good fit, please put them in touch. I will be sending these for the cost of shipping (estimating about $40) with a completely optional tip jar to help cover the cost of upgraded parts.

When I have more details together I'll send out a link but for now ping me with any questions. Thanks! 🙏

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Corey Snipes 🌱Feb 18

Shipped out the first two rehabilitated Thinkpads this morning. These have SSD drives, upgraded RAM and are running Linux Mint instead of the usual bloatware/spyware. Light and lean. Yay for repairability. 🛠️

If there's someone in your life that needs decent laptop for general use, let me know. I will refresh and ship one at no charge. (Donations are welcome, to cover the cost of shipping.)

More info at the top of this thread.

#SolarPunk #RightToRepair #Linux #EthicalTech #reuse #EthicalTech

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Roy Feb 18

@coreysnipes You're amazing! I've been wanting to do something like this, but can't really afford to. Thanks for stepping up!

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Corey Snipes 🌱Feb 18

@RABid Thank you! I'm fortunate that I can devote a little $$ from the rest of the business to making this happen, and I also enjoy fixing stuff and helping people. So it works out.

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Toby Feb 20

@coreysnipes @RABid I just started selling Mint-flavored USB sticks on eBay for similar reasons. Not in it for the money. I just see too many people who have no idea what an ISO is suffering needlessly. Glad to see other people lighting candles instead of cursing the darkness.

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Corey Snipes 🌱Feb 20

@xenotrope @RABid That's a great idea. If you can share a listing or store link, I'd be happy to add it to my resources list.

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Toby Feb 20

@coreysnipes @RABid Just started this week. I sell these at a profit. Well, "profit". I'm looking to not lose money shipping hardware to strangers. I'm also considering an Etsy store for the same thing and maybe branching out to Zorin or MX or elementary OS if there's interest. I'm sick of people posting online "I hate Windows 11 but I have no idea what a sha256sum is" and then getting sandbagged by an optional procedure they may only end up doing once or twice in their lives.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/188067467380

Every USB stick is handmade by me and used to install on a real device. If the device fails, it goes in the trash, not in the mail.

Linux Mint 22.3 - Cinnamon Edition (64-bit) - Bootable USB thumb drive | eBay

The product is a bootable USB thumb drive containingLinux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon Edition, tested and ready to plug into your machine to install. This USB drive is a convenient and portable option for those looking to try out the Cinnamon Edition of Linux Mint on any compatible device.

eBay

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Corey Snipes 🌱Feb 20

@xenotrope That's really cool. I'm enjoying the hand-crafted parts of this laptop activity, too. Like you, I'm trying not to lose my shirt in the process. It's important to keep things like this financially sustainable. Might as well make some Haiku sticks while you're at it!

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Toby

@coreysnipes I'll make USB sticks for whatever folks are willing to buy if I can validate them before they ship.