Let's discuss buying some new or refurbished laptops to replace our aging, dying, and irrelavent fleet.

[Cprossu]

Every time I have brought this up, I've been shot down.

I've lost count of the amount of people who have claimed that there's a possibility of getting new to us laptops donated, so I have not really pushed this. We've got some time off to think about things, and to update things around the lab.

We at this moment appear to have 2 celeron based Asus laptops (currently running Windows 8) I've had to rebuild a few times and 3 (one just went missing, we did have 4) old tired core i5 based Dell laptops (Running for some reason the 32bit version of Windows 7). Our lab's community laptop selection is now a joke.

I have zero incentive to put the effort needed into getting new software/OS on these machines or building a common image since I only have 5 machines to work with, it is split 2 and 3, and all of them are deemed to me as being unreliable.

I would like us to have a good dual boot of say Linux Mint (This can be argued) and Windows 10 (I suggest we include this for not only beginners, but software we need to run that is Windows only) on whatever we end up getting. That means if we are to pick a configuration, It would be best to get something that supports both Linux and Windows well.

I will face the facts, these machines are going to be destroyed through abuse and neglect and potentially lost through theft. I would like us to get something good yet something cheap.

To be honest I am thinking refurbished thinkpads since those are coming off of business lease all of the time. I would like us to get 8 for use, 2 as spare, 10 total.

Anyway, whatever they end up being, for our general hackerspace use and into the future I think they should have

4th gen+ Core i5 or i7 or a 2nd gen+ Ryzen 5 or 7

At least 8GB of ram (upgradable to at least 16GB)

A SSD (Even if we have to install them ourselves), 128GB or larger

A SD or MicroSD Card Slot

14"+ Screen with greater than 1366x768 native screen resolution

HDMI Out

A Windows 10 Pro license would be nice.

Have well built hinges and cases as to not fall apart or crack through general use and neglect

I think any integrated video adapter with those CPU solutions mentioned would work for our uses, so I am not too worried about that, other than avoiding certain problematic dual nvidia/intel solutions.

I don't know where the best place to get off lease thinkpads, or e-waste thinkpads, however for reference, new solutions that meet the criteria:

These are about $750 (without tax/shipping) each new, and would be way overkill for what we will need in the next few years:

https://www.newegg.com/black-lenovo-thinkpad-e495-20ne0001us-mainstream/p/1TS-000E-0DDH7

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1477737-REG/lenovo_20ne0001us_e495_ryzen7_8gb_256gb.html

Somewhere in the same ballpark as an example:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1549115-REG/lenovo_20rd005hus_thinkpad_e15_i5_10210u_8gb.html

The purpose of this is to discuss what we should do before I craft a proposal! It's time we made sure that we can support all the software we need to now in the future, and I know my way around Windows 10 enough to make it usable for us. It will also be nice to have a full Linux system with dev tools by just changing what boots at startup.

I would like everyone to weigh in on this if possible, especially if you have a connection to get refurbished laptops or think there's another way. We are not against doing extra work like doing data destruction, buying our own hard drives/ssd's, or paying for the machines. We however do want a fleet of laptops that are the same and we can make a image for.

[Jason Nevins]

My thoughts:

dualboot would be great, we'd probably want to set grub to autoboot into windows

Finding a way to have both OSs in kiosk mode so that user data is deleted on reboot would be a great way to keep them working

Thinkpads would be a great idea, out of warranty laptops are also usually a good price, at least the one-offs I usually buy from ebay sellers

If we get used commercial ones, they should already have a win10pro license in the bios, even if it comes without a drive

I think qty 8+2 may be overkill based on the usage I've seen, but some people that have done or want to do classes that would require laptops should chime in.

Lenovo does refurbs, they won't be as cheap as off-lease ones but still have a 1yr warranty, ~$550-700 each: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/laptops/lenovo/ideapad-flex-series/Lenovo-ideapad-FLEX-5-1570/p/81CA000YUS
Also this less durable lenovo for $380 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-ideapad-15-6-laptop-amd-ryzen-3-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-platinum-gray-imr/6398120.p?skuId=6398120

From my understanding, the company that brings us junk for tear apart night sells off-lease hardware, whoever has been communicating with them should check if they could meet our needs.

I think this is a pretty low-priority issue with the whole *gestures at world* thing going on. I don't see a need for new lab laptops until we start doing classes and people feel comfortable going out again (will be a while for me personally) but it seems like it'd be a nice change once things get back to normal.

I'm interested to see what others think about this.

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[Cprossu]

Just wanted to note, I'm 100% against ideapads or less durable laptops. The ideapads I got personally cannot even survive my parents who are both really careful with their computer stuff. The hinges are complete garbage and the screen supports on both cracked on both (different models too) in less than a year.

It was brought up in slack that we might want to get cheap laptops and budget for new ones every year since you can get base models really cheap.

I want to let you all know that if we did that, I certainly would not support them. I would not want to put in the effort IT wise to build new system images every year nor would I want to be put in the position to repair and cobble together lots of broken machines just to keep them going. That would easily eat up any 'fun time' I could have myself at Heatsync. I kind of want to keep it to Thinkpad if Lenovo, Elitebook if HP, or Latitude if Dell.... Unless of course it comes via donation. My goal is to limit the amount of support I input here, not increase it.

Also I am not sure deleting everyone's files is the right thing to do every reboot. In practice at our lab it's not unrealistic for new apps and drivers to be installed on these, or for someone to grab a specific laptop they have installed their dev toolchain on for _whatever weird thing they are working on_ . Yes it adds support hassle, but we can also easily provide clonezilla loaded usb boot thumb drives and wipe em to our own image if that time comes. Keeping these things 'corporate clean' I think goes against the usability of the machines and also means we have to update the images every single time anyone wants something new and ensures headaches when people have to reinstall their dev environment and possibly lose their data if the OS crashes. I'd like to see what people use in practice and adapt. Considering how long we've had the other laptops going, I do not think that it will be a big issue at all. Nice for IT, not so nice for users if they are put in a pickle or we haven't provided what they need.

[Rick Blake]

I've used Dell Latitude laptops at work for 14 years, and have observed no mechanical issues. Hinges, keyboards, cases all fine, though I'm sure some of the 3500+ in use at any time must have had a problem, but I never even heard of it. 

Recent Latitudes can be cheap. Most of the time the drives are taken out, as my work machines I know are decommissioned with drives removed. That's not universal though. 

Dual boot is attractive. But the specs don't need to be much. 8GB RAM really is enough for all but serious dev or design work, and we don't need to provide exceptional machines, do we? 128G storage should be enough, because these are used by 'itinerant' users, who should have no expectation of storage space, unless we're building a cloud for that, which would be separate project and has not risks than I think need be taken. 

In Latitudes the model tells you what gen CPU, size of display, and gen of design. And I'll dig up the name of the work reseller, though they will probably be overpriced.

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[Ron Watkins]

I have a small footprint desktop I can donate if the lab could use it. It's in great shape, but had an OS crash so no working OS at this time.

Ron

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Ron Watkins, AI7AK
602.743.5272

[Cprossu]

No worries @ Ron. This thread is to discuss us getting a fleet of community laptops, all the same.We're okay on desktops for the moment. (Though to be our desktops are getting long in the tooth, they are still very much workable.)

The Laptops make classes and such possible and are a real big part of our community outreach, and they are older and in much worse shape than our Desktop units- Thus they are my primary concern to get updated while the lab is down.

[Rick Blake]

Not the one I helped you with I hope.. Did it not register?

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[Ron Watkins]

No, this is a small PC my wife use to use. We ended up getting her a Surface Pro instead, and have just had this one on a shelf doing nothing.

Also, has the lab looked at the following reseller? http://www.pcliquidations.com/

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[Rick Blake]

Thinking about this, I'm wondering if we could install some RFID tag alarm, as inventory control. 

I looked up my old machines. 7470, 7480, 7490, 8-16 ram, 256 hd, i7 now but most i5. Probably not in our price range used, but this is something to think about

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[Ron Watkins]

While im thinking about it, are there anyone out there who can support setting up a business network?

I need someone who can provide setup/configuration design/implementation.

Ron

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[Cprossu]

Thank you for that website, Ron! There are a couple of machines listed there of proper quantity. We would have to order some memory and other stuff, but looks like a good potential solution.

https://www.pcliquidations.com/p113913-lenovo-thinkpad-t460s-14

An order of 10 of these (Grade B) without an OS is $4,100 and with Windows 10 Pro is $4,600

Getting 10 8GB DDR4 modules would be right around $320

So if we can get 10 Windows 10 Pro licenses for less than $500, it would be worth looking into. That comes to (without shipping+taxes) right under $5,000 for all 10 machines. Not too bad. I am going to look at other options on that website. (Kept getting excited on that website then noticing "Only 1 left! Only 2 left! etc)

As far as asset control, I really haven't thought about it. I mean I guess if it gets stolen, then the machine and the asset control device would get stolen too. Would be neat however to do some kind of tracking so we could locate physical devices inside the lab I suppose.

[Stephanie Conner]

Run my husband is able to do that you can call him at 480-231-5778 let him know Stephanie gave you his number

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[Stephanie Conner]

Ron, sorry.  Talk to text is awful

[Cprossu]

Able to do what specifically? (Need context!)

[Ron Watkins]

Thanks, I sent him a text to see if he had time later this afternoon to discuss.

Ron

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[Ron Watkins]

I still have not heard back from your husband.

Ron

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[Cprossu]

Please do not use this thread to discuss private matters. Take it to a private message or Email.

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