An inexpensive 10" laptop to run Linux.
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I have a 1st Gen Surface Go running Kubuntu and it works pretty well. Oddly, the Stylus works better using Wayland than X11. I don't use it for much other than note taking and remote access to my main computer, and they're available on ebay for around $100-150.
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Is there some reason why it needs to be 10" specifically? 10" is a pretty uncommon size, and may needlessly limit your options to ancient netbooks from 15 years ago.
If something like a used 11-13" business laptop would be acceptable for your use case then there are a whole slew of options in the $50-70 range on ebay, maybe less if you find a good deal. I think there is also something to be said for getting something with a halfway reasonable keyboard which will not be agonizing to type on.
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Zoomers takes notes on their phones, bet they do programming as well
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I really just want small and light, and Cheap. 11" is fine. I have a 15" right now. If I decide to give up on Timberborn (I rarely play it and it is the only thing that keeps a windows machine on hand) then this could get re-installed with probably debian with no GUI... I play it rarely, but I still play it. I wish I could get it to run under Debian 12 on my main machine.
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I think an 11" laptop would probably be a better bet. Taking a quick look on Ebay, I am seeing things like Dell 3190s, 3180s and Lenovo Yoga 11e laptops for around $50 or so. I see some chromebooks with x86 processors for as little as $35, but I do not have much experience with installing Linux on chromebooks and so you may want to double-check how to do that before buying anything.
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Timberborn is awesome. I play on the stable release (non-experimental branch) through Proton experimental and it runs about as well as it did under Windows. I'm running Bazzite (Fedora) though so my system is much more up to date than Debian, but I bet one of the awesome nerds here could help you get it running on Debian.
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Old MacBook Airs have fans but they rarely come on. I got a 2013 for $70 last summer and use it everyday.
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there's the Thinkpad Mini 10 but like uhhh uhhhhhhhhhhh i wouldn't recommend it
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Anything sold after 2008 will do that. Before that too but you probably want 64 bit.
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The Asus EeePC 1000H that I bought back in 2009 is a 10 inch monitor netbook. 160 GB HDD because I didn't go with SSD, only came with 1 GB of RAM and cruicially was offered in both Windows XP and Linux flavor which was a bit niche at the time.
Its 32-bit single core (hyperthreading) atom processor is very slow at 1.6GHz, but it can still be used with antiX for my usecase.
If you manage to get hold of one of these old dinosaurs, I'd probably opt for an SSD solution, that's a pretty big bottleneck. -
If you can accept 11” the old intel macbook airs are what you’re asking for.
They’re in the free - $50 price range now.
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Ok I finally bit the bullet - Windows is blown away. I have not played Timberborn in over 2 months and having a windows machine on my network has always kinda made me feel like I had a spy in the house. Unfortunatly the wife works from home so there are still two windows machines I can't do anything about. My ASUS Vivobook i7 15" laptop is getting Debian but no GUI installed. I don't need a GUI to setup tailscale do I? Anyone know of a good settlement or city building game that is free and runs under Linux?
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Op didn't say what she wants to do. I maintain my server with my phone. If I really wanted to, I could also work on it efficidntly
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FYI, Timberborn plays just fine on Linux.
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The issue so far is that I bought the Windows version of Timberborn on Steam, so it won't install on my Linux box. Do you suppose since I own the Windows version, the makers of Timberborn would allow me to download the appropriate files for Linux? I thought I had gotten it working last night, but instead I was just streaming it from the windows box.
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You can enable Steam Play in your Linux steam client through the settings, and you should be able to install and run any Windows game you have in Steam
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As others have said, it'll work on Linux. Right click on the game in your library, go to Properties, then Compatibility. Tick the box to Force use of Steam Play, then pick a Proton version, like Proton Experimental. This will work for most games. Check out the Proton DB website to check for any exceptions or specific settings.
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If you bought it on Steam, you get it in every "version" (for each OS) that the game was released on. If there's a Linux runtime, then you'd have both the Windows version, and the Linux version.
Most games don't have a Linux runtime, and that's fine. All you need to do is go to "compatibility" in the game settings in Steam, and check the box. Then click the drop-down and select a Proton version (best bet for you is prob "experimental"), and most of the time that's all you need to do. Protondb.com will tell you if there's any tweaking needed, or if a specific version of Proton is called for.
This is exactly how the Steam Deck works.
Proton is actually incredible. I've found that I've often gotten better results with running the Windows version of a game with Proton than the actual Linux runtime.
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I have loaded the laptop i7 laptop up with Debian 12, next is Steam so I will try it there. The machine I was going to run it on would not complete a launch and just sat there with the fans going full blast and a black screen...
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the i7 was originally mean to be a my take away bridge over tailscale when I am away from home, and a programming machine (or perhaps a look up machine while I program on the i5 desktop)
