I’m thinking about new hardware, and am wondering if what would work really well for me exists, (or could be easily made?)
Right now I have an older Thinkpad with an Intel I-5 CPU and otherwise decent specs that I use as a ‘travel machine’ when away from my desktop systems. It works but is not perfect…
However I’m starting down the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole, with a nice compact one that is a great travel board, and have also picked up a bigger add-on monitor, plus my discrete mouse, and by the time I shove all that in my pack it gets pretty hefty…
I’d love to have a ‘headless’ laptop with just the computer bits and lots of ports that I can plug in my own discrete keyboard, monitor and mouse, but still run off either battery or AC as available… Seems to me that not hauling the weight of a laptop keyboard and monitor that I don’t use would save a lot of load…
I’ve been finding lots of “mini-PC’s” but they all seem to be intended as desktop machines running off AC… Any pointers towards something like what I’m describing?
Ideal would be something with the same sort of flat rectangular form factor as a laptop base. I definitely prefer an AMD-64 compatible machine, preferably with a higher end CPU, and lots of RAM, and a big hard drive (or able to be upgraded) Obviously would be running on GNU/Linux, probably Debian…
I get older computers in for repair, laptops more and more. Some things are just not worth repairing or doing much with. Biggest issue is screens and keyboard as replacement can be too difficult to get at. Keyboard tend to have micro ribbon câbles and if you dont seat them correctly they dont work same with track pads. Laptop screen also take some difficulty opening and then closing the case without breaking the plastic tabs.
For a long period my own desktop machine had no keyboard or screen, a recycled repair that the client donated due to cost of repair quote. I just swapped out hid old disk for one of mine, removed the keyboard and screen and sat a monitor on top. Plus upgraded the memory.
Only issue is desk space as unless the monitor sat on the top of the laptop you wanted 2 times the size. I the end I made a wood box for the screen to sit on.
Being a workshop I used to get lots of bits in. Now I have a laptop i use.
The apple mini box Is superb running linux as a thought and over 5 years old without apple support they go very cheaply.
Glad it is not difficult @callpaul.eu - do you just take the screen and keyboard off and run it with the remote keyboard mouse and monitor, or do you need to do extra stuff to make it work? This sounds like a pretty ideal solution, as I can either ask around to see if anyone I know has a modern laptop w/ a dead screen, or possibly look on places like E-bay…
I’ve considered a Pi but my understanding is that they don’t have the same level of software availability / support as the AMD64 family of machines, and among other things I want to be able to run FreeCAD, slicers, and other modelling related stuff as well as the usual browser and office programs…
The other big advantage to me of a headless notebook seems that it already incorporates all the battery and power bits needed to be able to run either cordless or on AC… Not sure (but haven’t really looked) if there are Pi options that offer that, and equivalent power / speed to an AMD64 class machine…
And, it has CPU etc with low power consumption.
If you add a battery to a mini computer, you will not get low power consumption so you may be dissapointed with its battery life.
Another option is Linux tablet with removable keyboard
It came in first with a faulty keyboard, think she had dropped coffee on the box so some keys would not work, then came back later with broken screen open and close system which had jammed and when forced had cracked the screen.
Cost of replacement was around 30 euros for a keyboard, but needed the motherboard removal to get to it so external usb at 10 was first cheap fix. I just forced out old one and fitted tape over it. But the broken case made the screen replacement impossible and at 100 euros for the bits. It was getting cheaper to just buy new.
For me, I just used the bottom part of the laptop with external keyboard, mouse and screen.
Attention if you remove a screen you loose the Wi-Fi as for many (not all) the wires for wifi are around the screen I used ethernet connection but could have used a dongle except ran out of usb ports. Also no camera as they again are built in the screen casing.
I also removed the battery as I was old and plugged in all the time so removing the recharge system to cut electricity costs.
Silly idea in the end on my part as I had a tower and space I could have used instead. But great for demo in my workshop.
Thanks for that description @callpaul.eu, I just did a quick look on Fleabay and they had a lot of “for parts” I-7 laptops, at least some of which they said would boot but had bad screens and / or keyboards, and in the USD $2-300 range so it seems like a definite possibility… Seems like it might also be possible to save the wifi and maybe the camera if I wanted to pull the screen apart and just save the wiring (it could be taped to the base I’d imagine)…
At those prices go for it as a learning experiance nothing to loose except time and postal costs.
Your Wi-Fi câbles normally are used when the screen is upright and tape laying flat could be an issue. Bit like old tv ariels you had to move them around to get a signal. The caméras are cheaper and poor quality, not sure how many i see taped up because with windows users they are paranoid.