Four years ago, I grabbed a $25 Compaq laptop that had been manufactured in 2008. We had a local electronics non-profit that would fix up donated equipment and sell it, and it was a great source of arcane equipment. I thought I’d take it along to my first Defcon, but I opted for a Linux/Android-Looking for a backup, I grabbed that laptop, with its Core 2 Duo and DVD drive(LightScribe!). friendly Chromebook instead, which I hardly used. But there’s something reassuring about having some form of laptop handy, even if it’s ancient.

A great thing about old laptops is the development of lightweight Linux distros, especially if you grab an older SSD. Even with an old Core 2 Duo, this little laptop does a decent job of the basics. I chose Zorin OS Lite this time, just to try something new. A quick install of VS Code and GitHub Desktop, and the laptop is surprisingly serviceable. At least, I’ll make that declaration when this post loads properly onto my blog (I’m still having a bit of fun with the setup).