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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by clark@midwest.social to c/linux@lemmy.ml

I'm considering buying a secondhand Yoga Slim 7 with AMD/Ryzen 7 for 400 dollars. Is this a good deal? My parents advise against it because the laptop is old (3-4 years), so I'm not sure. I also don't know how well Linux (Fedora/KDE) runs on this particular model. It comes with 512/16GB. I need advice cause I need to make a decision in like 2 days.

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[-] Offbus@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo

^here’s a good place to look for compatibility and hardware support.

You said your parents believe it to be a poor choice because of the machine age. Do you mind me asking what you purchasing it primarily for?

[-] clark@midwest.social 8 points 2 months ago

I'm planning on using it as a personal computer and something I can use for college. So mainly writing text documents, web browsing, YouTube, but no gaming or video/image editing.

[-] Offbus@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

If you plan on using the device for school, it might be worth your effort to check with the school to see if your program of study will be accommodating, allows for, or otherwise specifies directly what os to use. Some institutions offer free or reduced cost licenses for what os is required. I know that there may be some coursework that can require a specific os for the applications you’ll be required to use. Test monitoring software is the first, and probably most extreme, example that comes to mind.

[-] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

I.e. Universities using Windows-only Software and you might have to get a Windows License anyways.

But when buying used Laptops, they are mostly always with a Windows license anyways.

You can extract the Windows Key with an App from the Microsoft Store.

[-] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

Imo, your biggest enemy here is going to be battery life. I bought a sale-priced Lenovo t14s and I always keep a battery back in my bag just in case.

With a low power profile, having Eclipse open, a web browser to view slides/ documents and Logseq for notes my battery lasts most of the day but if I forget to charge it, it's a pain to use pen and paper for notes.

An older laptop will have a degraded battery, and you really want maximum lifetime with multiple classes in a day.

this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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