RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com> wrote:
> For those who don't have anything better to do with their lives...
>
> A couple years ago, when experimenting with Chromebooks, I found a cheap
> Dell Latitude 5300 2-in-1 Chromebook at Shop Goodwill that may or not have
> worked. So I took my chance. It was poorly cared for, had had soda spilled
> on the keyboard and, at first, wouldn't boot. I cleaned it up, opened it up,
> disconnected the battery and managed to get it to take a charge and boot up.
>
> As far as Chromebooks are concerned it was one of the top of the line ones,
> an 8th generation i5 CPU, 16 GBs of RAM and a 512 GB NVM SSD. I bought a new
> keyboard for it (which I've never installed) and, after experimenting with
> Linux on it, lost interest in Chromebooks. And it's mostly been sitting for
> the last couple years. I liked the computer itself, though. 13", high
> resolution touch screen (touch means nothing to me), reversible hinges so it
> can be used as a tablet (also means nothing to me), ran cool and had a long
> battery life. But ChromeOS got in the way. I explored options to make it
> into a regular computer, but found things like "the sound doesn't
> necessarily work right" and stuff like that. Might as well leave it a
> Chromebook rather than make it half-functional.
>
> And then a little over a week ago I saw someone selling a Latitude 5300 on
> CraigsList. An i7, 8th generation CPU, 32 GBs of RAM in nearly new condition.
> Turned out to be off-lease computers (they had more than one) from Idaho
> Power, who have plenty of money for new computers. (Just from what they got
> from me this summer.)
>
> At any rate I exchanged $80 cash for the computer (which had a new
> installed, authenticated copy of Windows 11) and that was that.
>
> I don't think the computer had ever been used away from a dock as a desktop.
> Good in one way. It looks new, no wear at all on the screen or keyboard. Not
> so good in another way, the keyboard had never been used and I think it was
> half corroded, as I had to loosen up the keys by pounding them for awhile.
> Most are working well now, but the one ones you don't hit often still have
> some "loosening" to do. These new laptops do not have the keyboards the old
> ones had. Definitely a drawback to "new."

Sounds like it was a corporate telework PC.

> Of course I wasn't going to use the computer with Windows 11, so I shrank
> the Windows partition and installed Linux Mint 22. It seemed to go alright,
> but it wouldn't boot. No grub came up at all.
>
> So I looked at the BIOS. Turned out that the issue was the type of RAID
> install that they had used with Windows 11. I changed the setting, Windows
> 11 wouldn't boot, but that was okay. I reinstalled Linux Mint 22 and,
> voila', it booted. So, if I wanted to use Windows 11 (why?) I could go into
> the BIOS, reset it to RAID and it would load, and vice versa with Linux. No
> big deal as I wasn't planning on using Windows 11 anyhow.
>
> Linux Mint ran great, no issues with the special keys, ran cool, screen came
> back when putting it to sleep, etc. Another great Dell Latitude experience
> with Linux.
>
> So I decided to change out the SSD with the Chromebook one, so I could have
> twice the storage. I thought that would be easy (and it probably would have
> been if I had a half a brain), but it turned out to be a four hour (or so)
> hassle. I backed up my Linux files on the Chromebook, didn't worry about
> backing anything up on the new Windows computer, as I was just going to
> install Linux Mint 22 again.

Four more hours of setup. Ouch.

> Then I created a restore microSD for the Chromebook. According to them it
> would be no trouble to restore the Chromebook after changing out the SSD. It
> took longer to create that recovery microSD than it takes to install Linux
> Mint from scratch. Oh well, no biggy. On to the SSD exchange.
>
> A total of 9 screws on each Latitude 5300, fairly easy to snap the back off,
> the SSD had a shield and heat tape, and required removing three screws on
> each one (no problem if I was younger and had better eyesight and was still
> as coordinated as I once was -- but a bit of a challenge for the old "me"
> that now exists). At any rate the exchange was made and the backs were
> screwed back on and... well crap.

If you think tiny screws are fun now, wait until after cataract surgery and
the Doc sets you up with 0/20 distance vision…better have strong bifocal
peepers on hand for stuff like this. I’ve been told that a 7 power Jewelers
headset’s not a bad solution.. I think even seen one with LED lights built
in.

> The non-Chromebook Latitude didn't see the SSD at all. I guess the
> partioning scheme on the Chromebook makes it impossible to use the hard
> drive unless it's erased before-hand. I thought I would be able to use
> Gparted to erase it in the computer using a Live USB "install" of Linux
> Mint. Nope. So I had to remove the back, retrieve the SSD and install it in
> a USB enclosure (fortunately I had one for when I upgraded my wife's SSD to
> a bigger drive). Gparted worked fine then, cleared off the (seemingly)
> 14,000 Chromebook partitions, reinstalled the SSD in the non-Chromebook
> Latitude 5300 (checked before closing it up) and installed Linux Mint 22 in
> about ten minutes. Used the whole disk (no Windows for this computer).

Ten minute install .. after all the other stuff. Sounds like another hour
or two.

> The Chromebook "recovery" turned out to be a much bigger trial. First, there
> was no way to use a microSD card for recovery -- why they allow you to use
> it when creating a "recovery" microSD, I have no idea. I guess they just
> like wasting your time.

Initially, I thought you were referring to the form factor of microSD;
there’s also been different architectures on how a PC has an attached SD
drive .. I only learned of this after our IT group shut down USB storage
(security), but I had an older Thinkpad whose SD was hooked up to the
motherboard by something other than USB, so it still worked.

> So, using a different Windows computer than before
> (I wasn't about to load Chrome on my Linux computer) I tried making a
> recovery USB device. The Chrome utility would download the recovery files,
> verify them, unpack them and then "write them" to the USB drive. Except it
> stayed at 0% for... forever. It didn't work. No error, no timing out, just
> didn't write the damned image. I tried this three times, switching out the
> USB at least once.
>
> Finally I looked it up on the Internet. "If it doesn't write the image,"
> someone said, "then open Chrome as Administrator." Well that was nice to
> know after wasting about an hour and a half. It did work, though. I had a
> Chromebook Latitude 5300 recovery USB. Except it wouldn't recover. I tried
> it three times. It went through another drawn out "verification" process,
> then threw an error. "There was a problem." That's all, "there was a
> problem." So I looked up what that "problem" was and was told to try another
> USB drive. So, I tried another USB drive... and still the same.
>
> Finally it kicked in -- no thanks to Google's Chromebook page. This SSD also
> needed to be erased. So remove the Chromebook's back, its SSD, installed it
> in the USB enclosure and erased all its partitions. Reinstalled, etc. Again,
> testing before screwing on the back, my "defective" USB recovery worked
> fine. And, finally, I had a "working" (so to speak) Chromebook back up and
> running.
>
> Now what I would like to do is buy a PC motherboard (I already have a
> keyboard) for that Chromebook Latitude and make it into a real computer
> where I can install Linux. But I really need it. So I'll see.
>
> Meanwhile I'm really enjoying the Linux Latitude 5300. I'm typing this
> overly long "rambling" in WordStar for DOS 7.0d, using the full screen mode
> in DOSBox-X -- as a 13" screen is small enough to do that. It's like going
> back to 1993 all over again (when the world wasn't quite so insane).
>
> As for Windows... I'm getting rid of it completely, wherever I have it
> installed.

I like keeping Windows around even if I don’t use it most of the time, as
it’s “one more tool in the toolbox”, as I’ve occasionally run into ‘Win
Only’ stuff.

> I forgot to mention that, when I was trying to make my Chromebook
> recovery disks it would do some crap where it wanted to format my USB drive,
> and would go into unending loop, "do you want to format this disk?" ...
> over and over again. When I tried to shut down Windows and restart it, using
> the on/off key, it wouldn't let me do anything until it upgraded. And, even
> when it did work, when I tried to shut it off it wanted to force another
> upgrade. So back to pushing the off key until it shut down. I hate Windows.
>
> Anyhow, I've got a "new" computer now. Originally shipped on March 30th,
> 2020. For what I need it works well. The main advantage (for me) over the
> E7450 is battery life. I actually like the keyboards on the old computers
> better, so I might take one and see if I can install DOS on it and use it
> for WordStar. We'll see.

There’s a market for old style keyboards (& USB adapters for actually old
ones); I even saw recently one for Apple ADB-to-USAB(!).

> Sorry to ramble for so long. WordStar always seems to put me in a rambling
> mood.

Moving on to mundane day-to-day stuff like traveling with mobile devices,
this “share WiFi passwords between one’s own devices” popped up today as an
interesting quality-of-life feature .. anyone know if it exists in a flavor
of Android-2-Linux?

<https://x.com/theappledesign/status/1837501835306820041?s=61&t=BwOr14HsTzyD0gnJjDCtLA>

-hh