An old netbook on Haiku
It is truly amazing how much old technology can be used for modern tasks. I would've never guessed (or I'd probably would) that old technology like this laptop can still be used in 2026. This feels as responsive as ever, like the early 2010s never left. Whenever this feeling comes to me these days, I am reminded to never lose track of it. Computers like this are becomming more and more rare, the tactile compact and complete keyboard that this laptop has. For those wondering, the little machine I'm writing this on is an "emachines" netbook, with an intel Atom N270, a 10.1" LED LCD a whopping 1 GB of ram. The reason I know those specs is not because I've researched this laptop thouroughly, but because there is a sticker on the right-hand side of the keyboard below the arrow-keys that prominently states its specifications as if they were anything to be proud of even in 2011. Indidentally it's also got a sticker stating that it's designed for windows xp, which is the OS it had installed when I got it. The touchpad is by far the WORST touchpad I've ever had the displeasure in using, it's even worse than all the weird mouses I've used during my life. I'm not sure if this is going to make a whole lot of sense, but it feels worse than what trackpoints used to feel like to me before I trained myself in using them. It's either to sensitive, or it doesn't catch my touch at all. The acceleration of it is weird, I think I spent like 10 minutes in the OS' GUI input config app to see if it could be improved, it could but it's still bad. Then I'm looking at the section directly above the screen, and it says in a sorta coprorate "let's by colourful!" kinda style:
"WEBCAM OPTIMIZED
for low-light video chatting"
For whatever "bad" this laptop might have, there are some qualities to it that you won't really find on modern computers. The keyboard is nice, in roughly the same manner of nice that modern thinkpads are (honestly, I think modern thinkpads feel pretty nice to use). The size is something rarely seen in modern laptops, and when you find it there are always caveats. Either the keyboard is shit, or it's a chromebook that lacks many essential keys (I really like keyboard-shortcuts), or they're very expensive and nice, or they don't have Nordic-ISO, or they don't have a full keyboard, or they or they or they... This one has it all. A swappable battery, ports out the whazoo, a thickness I'm actually comfortable withh, a surprisngly (though low-res) screen considering it's a cheap netbook, and so on. It's even got the menu/left-click button that most modern keyboards don't have! (I sometimes like to map dmenu that that button and keep win-key for everything else). The only things I don't really like about it is the touchpad (which is livable if I use keyboard shortcuts) and the hardware. Though for the last part, the current OS is really helping.
I'm using HaikuOS on this, 32-bit edition. It runs freakishly fast. I'll be running processes in the browser that I know for a fact the computer can't really handle, and the browser will go on strike (I don't allow my browser to unionise, but they do anyways) and appear to suffer. Not that the desktop minds, I'll be able to move around all of the windows in the OS with no problem, even initiate the opening of other applications while the browser is on strike, and continue working in windows that aren't struggling. This feels like black magic on a fucking intel atom. Like, that shouldn't be possible. The computer has yet to crash even once when I didn't do something directly to cause it (be careful with the terminal kids). This is honestly a very nice experience, and since my blog doesn't take up that many resources it's very good for that specifically. HaikuOS is also kinda pretty. You should try it out, and maybe get a cheap old netbook for 30£/€/$, it's worth it for a distraction free writng-device.
This was written in the terminal with vim+vifm.