ASUS Eeepc 1201n

I got this thing at a thrift shop for $6.99, no charger, no anything. there's definitely a not-insignificant risk of it being completely busted, but it looks like it's in pretty good condition!! I got an online giftcard for my birthday, so I used that to buy a charger for it later ($13.58--yeah, twice the price of the actual machine!!)
I love that it's called an Eeepc. The designers were like "yeah, i think it needs more e's" and you know what? yeah, i think they were right.
I'm not great at computer stuff and i'm very disorganized, so expect haphazard presentation and cluelessness ahead!!

EDIT 2022-04-24: yeah this is a money pit. So far I have spent $51.93 not including tax, +13.58 for the charger, which was covered by a gift card, and not including the flash drive i used for the linux installation or the mouse, which i got for free.

• it has 2x2gb ddr2 ram--the brands do not match, and manufacturer states that it has 2 or 3gb ram, so i think the previous owner added some
• despite its tiny size, it has a DEDICATED GRAPHICS CARD??? (i think the term is actually 'discrete' but i like saying dedicated)
• OH YEAH here are the specs, according to liliputing:
  • display: 12.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixels
  • CPU: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N330 dual core
  • graphics & chipset: NVIDIA ION (GeForce 9400M)
  • OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (for now >:D)
  • memory: 3GB DDR2 -- has been upgraded to 4! :D
  • storage: 320GB HDD (have yet to confirm this)
  • connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFI, Bluetooth, Ethernet
  • I/O: HDMI, VGA, 3 USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot, mic, headphones
  • webcam: 0.3MP
  • touchpad: Supports multitouch gestures (i've heard that the touchpad is Not good, but i prefer a mouse anyway so idrc)
  • battery: 6 cells, 8 hours
  • color: Black
  • dimensions: 11.7″ x 8.2″ x 1.3″
  • weight: 3.1 pounds
• the battery life is...not good. so my dream of using it a lot is probably unrealistic T_T but we shall see!!

• get charger (still in the mail!!)
• get new hard drive (not a fan of working with someone else's old hard drive tbh)
• install SOMETHING: probably Pop!_OS (is that overkill? idk...), definitely not Win7 (which it originally shipped with!)
• tweak things to my heart's content! i know flaMEdFury made a pop!_os setup guide, and i think Sadness did too....will consult those when the time comes!!
  EDIT 2022-04-23: pop!_os gave me no end of trouble and frustration. i eventually settle on a debian-based distro called antiX, which i'm happy with so far!!
• go live in the woods EDIT: haha idk how this got here...but what if...?
• copy all my html projects/files onto it so i can use it as like an ultraportable thingy!! (and install syncthing for funsies & convenience)

I'm always excited to peek under the hood of a computer, and after doing a little bit of research, it seems as though this laptop is old enough that me_cleaner can remove a lot of intel me from it!!

So what is Intel ME?
from the me_cleaner project's GitHub page:

"Intel ME is a co-processor integrated in all post-2006 Intel boards, which is the base hardware for many Intel features like Intel AMT, Intel Boot Guard, Intel PAVP and many others. To provide such features, it requires full access to the system, including memory (through DMA) and network access (transparent to the user). Unlike many other firmware components, the Intel ME firmware can't be neither [sic] disabled nor reimplemented, as it is tightly integrated in the boot process and it is signed. This poses an issue both to the free firmware implementations like coreboot, which are forced to rely on a proprietary, obscure and always-on blob, and to the privacy-aware users, who are reasonably worried about such firmware, running on the lowest privilege ring on x86."

(image taken from Wikipedia: Article/ File)

UPDATE: 2022-04-23
The charger arrived yesterday!! After charging it for a bit, I tried booting it up to make sure it worked ok. Booted into Win7 just fine!! Except I couldn't actually get into it because there was still an account for the previous owner (someone named Shelley). Shortly after I received the charger, I decided to go on a trip to microcenter (a computer parts store) to get a few other supplies:

• 256GB SSD -- I opened up the computer and found it used a 160GB HDD -- no way am I gonna boot from a HDD if I have the option of an SSD!! ($29.99)
• canned air -- this thing was FULL of dust so i cleaned it out a bit ($5.99 -- $1 more for 2oz more air, ez buy)
• the second-cheapest external hard drive enclosure they had (on sale for $8.96 -- it was a $3 more to get used USB 3 instead of new USB 2) -- to initialize the SSD and take a peek at the contents of the old HDD (is that ethical? probably not. sorry. there wasn't much of note on it though)
• clearance purchases unrelated to the project at hand:
  • 2x 16gb USB 2.0 flash drives: they were on sale ($3.49ea) so i picked up a couple -- you can never have too many flash drives!!
  • 4-in-1 pocket screwdriver: 2x philips & 2x flathead of different sizes -- you never know when an extra screwdriver could come in handy!! ($1.96)
  • a mousepad: 12.6"x10.63": the one i'm using right now is ~3/4 the size and a bit worn, so i went ahead and picked this up ($3.96)

before going to microcenter, i took the pc apart to check what it used for storage and took note of two things: 1. it used a HDD. 2. it was FULL of dust. Makes me sneeze just THINKING about it. As I mentioned above, I also discovered a few days prior that it had already been upgraded by its previous owner (Shelley, I presume?) to 4GB of RAM from its original 2GB. However, only the RAM was accessible through the panel on the bottom. That's right -- to replace the hard drive, the WHOLE THING has to come apart! Don't get me wrong, i love taking apart computers -- my fingers start to twitch when i havent held a screwdriver for too long -- but for convenience's sake, i like it when laptops have quick-access panels on the bottom. my current main laptop has a panel on the bottom through which i can access RAM and the hard drive. ez!
talk about walkthru vids, cleaning, trip, installation

After getting everything set up on the hardware side of things, i went about getting a linux distro set up. initially, i tried installing pop!_os. i had prepared a live flash drive (i use rufus to make disk images) earlier that week in anticipation of installing it (assuming the pc was in working condition, very happy that it is!!). i fumbled around with that for an embarrassingly long time, but couldn't get it to work quite right (or rather, it WAS working, more or less, but in my clumsy attempts to fix a problem with the screen resolution, i made quite a hash of things). I eventually gave up and went to bed. Today, I decided to try a different distro. I wanted something lightweight, so I went with antiX, a debian-based distro that focuses on compatibility with older machines, so it is necessarily lightweight by design. I haven't gotten a whole lot of time to use it today, but I like how customizable it is. There is a bit of lag at times, but it's much better than what I was experiencing with pop!_os (5+ second lag, incorrect screen resolution, plus i barely met the minimum hardware requirements).