I have a Surface pro 5 and will soon have a SP 7 that is surplus to my needs.
Send A PM and we’ll figure out how to get one to you.
Mike B.
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You guys got me hyped up to install Linux on my first gen Thinkpad Yoga! The thing is an absolute tank in terms of build quality and the form factors give you the best of the laptop/tablet worlds (tent mode is the shit for laying in bed and watching stuff lol). A quick chat with Claude 4.5 (my LLM of choice) reveals that Linux has many good ways of handling the waycom digitizer and even the accelerometer for rotating the display when folding the screen over.
Thanks y’all for the inspiration for a new (and free) thing to mess with!
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I have chrome installed and that was the piece i was missing! i am on vacation this week and really thought of changing my main pc to linux! I am on surface with linux right now and very happy! This all may not have happened without this topic!
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I am only using Linux and in particular Debian Sid. Alway been using Thinkpad X series and the laptop I am writing for right now is a X1 Carbon. I always find out a way to have things running. S0metimes you have to tinker a bit more and find workarounds. If I can be of any help DM me.
Speaking of Linux and fun things, I highly recommend checking out a Steam Deck! It’s both the best handheld gaming device ever made AND a powerful Linux computer with long battery life. Ergonomics and battery life are still unmatched, and Valve released all the CAD files to the community for making stuff and partnered with iFixIt to make the entire thing user repairable.
Valve (the company that owns Steam) has made a translation layer called Proton which allows Linux to play Windows PC games, and does it extremely well. The same Proton can be used to run windows applications in Linux, which gives you another option other than WINE and Bottles. For instance I use an app called Port Proton and when I want to run a windows app or a game without official Proton support, I just right click → open with Port Proton, and it starts working (in my limited experience).
10/10 recommend having a portable Linux PC that can play games like Cyberpunk and emulate up to and including the Switch at 2x normal resolution (so it’s already better than the Switch 2 lol). And if that’s not your jam, you can still check out SteamOS, Proton, and everything else on your computer of choice 
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Yesterday during a stop at the surplus proptery store at the local large university, I came across a pile of NUCs and NUC-like machines. Some were crappy little boxes which were formerly video conferencing nodes (which frankly would be more than adequate for a sender). Those were $5 each.
I also found in the pile of real NUCs some gems. For example, I picked up a pair of these (NUC7 i7 processor, 256Gb of SSD and 16Gb of RAM). $40 each with power supply.
I’ll load these up to play around with, though the more I think about it those cheap crappy boxes seem better suited to living in/on a LR4 beam or MPR&P gantry.
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Honestly, that i7 is a bit much CPU for a gcode sender, although doing the entire CAD/CAM on a screen hooked to the side of a LowRiders beam does sound weird in just the right way to be fun.
Depending on the iGPU this thing could however make for some pretty nice emulator hooked to a TV.
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Lucky, around here, everyone i go to has clothes, but nothing worth while!
I thought I’d revive an old laptop by putting Linux on it.
Turns out it’s too far gone. To be fair it is from about 2001.
That Nuc is a super find.
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yea, lot of distros are going 64bit only now.
I still remember my first trip to the Goodwill in Seattle when i had just gotten out of the Army, OH MY! I loved that place. (I needed a phone, yeah, a house phone, I am old) and they had PALLETS. I needed a hair dryer, pallets again. I spent soooo much time there.
I have yet to find anything like it in Michigan! It is soooo sad!
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I know of a bunch of great thrift and surplus locations around the state of Colorado.
The big universities have decent surplus stores, and the affluent areas’ thrift stores are flush with good stuff. Yes, it’s really sad that we throw so much good stuff away.
I’m going to head back to look again at the NUC pile sometime early this week.
Both of the NUC7 i7s I bought are sweet little machines.
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We have both a University of Wisconsin surplus store/auction site, and a State of Wisconsin Surplus auction. I image Michigan probably has a state-wide auction site as well.
Looks like there are several - at MSU, Michigan State, and Central Michigan University (but I’m getting security warnings on those links), as well as state-wide MiBid.
Im using an all in one from a WI university surplus sale. I planned to put linux on it, but it has windows and im just using a browser to watch jellyfin movies while working in the shop or load the klipper page or some reference docs online. Loading linux would take time… Eventually it will get done.
I have been watching msu for years. Nothing great there.
This evening I threw a spare NVMe drive into one of the NUC7 i7 machines and loaded Linux Mint Debian Edition (the full desktop) on it to play around with. I’ve been meaning to checkout LMDE for a while now. The live installer is zippy fast, though it should be on that hardware.
The twin to that machine is going to get Bluefin on it to play with, after our own @jeffeb3 brought it to my attention via these forums.
I plan to go back and dig through the pile of machines some more. The holidays are coming up, and aside that I’m still plucking away at my plan to.build a LowRider into a travel case that is luggage sized.
The good surplus find luck continued today, both of these NUC7s have the optional carrier and cables installed so they can get both an NVMe drive and a 2.5" SATA SSD. I think I have a couple spares of those, these would also make a nice little mini home lab setup.
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Hmmm…
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Hahaha I was looking at those last night too, it’s only a 4 hour drive for me 