Model: A205-S5000
PartNum: PSAE3U-07Y023 (check it out, came out this year)


I have an old Toshiba laptop that I wanted to re-purpose, and now I figured it as good as any; I’m back from a nice trip, so I have plenty of new patience to burn trying to make an old electronic device useful again. As flows the sands of time on this episode of… (lol)

It started life, behind the 8-ball as they say. It was a Vista era machine, so it had all the bells and whistles of an era gone wrong. It serves a long life as a laptop companion and did the job as well as it was ever going to, so hats to you for making it this long, you should have died long ago.

Enters Linux, the bringer of life to old and new electronics; the rejuvenating programming that re-invigorates, stimulates, and otherwise re-purposes and gives usefulness again. It’s well known that Linux has extended the life of many of laptops and electronics, even “jail-breaking” them beyond what they were designed for. However, I can’t remember the last time I went through it all, I think only once to say I’ve done it if memory serves correctly. I’ve been digging into my old Satellite laptop more, so I want to make it as functional as possible for me. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft Vista isn’t cutting it in 2023. XD

Reading the Ubuntu Desktop setup, I saw it recommended a 16GB thumb drive, to which I have, and now the ISO is being written by Win32diskimager, as is tradition, and I wait patiently.

More about the laptop being worked on. It’s from an era long ago.
Operating System C1 2 • Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit version) Processor and Chipset3 • Intel® Celeron® Processor 540 o 1.86GHz, 1MB L2, 533MHz FSB • Mobile Intel® GL960 Express Chipset Memory4 • Configured with 2048MB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM (both memory slots may be occupied). Maximum capacity 2048MB Hard Disk Drive5 • 120GB (5400 RPM); Serial ATA hard disk drive [ link to full PDF ]

Starting was easy enough after I changed the boot sequence on the laptop. I did start foolishly and didn’t format the C drive, so I hope that is part of the setup. If not, I can format and start again.

We have life, only about an hour in; now these may read a little like the old stereo instructions but here it goes. A cool note, Ubuntu knows that battery is this thing is shot beyond repair, that is cool to see. I heard the Ubuntu chime and shortly after, I get the options for a fresh install after format, fantastic. After some quick setup login info, user, pass and such, installation has begun 409pm. 4:43 I stepped away and came back to my laptop off. Powering on and took out the thumb drive to stop a re-install. Great news reader, all went well after all.

I need an Ubuntu Single Sign-on Account and then it looks like Im ready. Success! 4:57pm, we are ready to go… oh wait, there are updates available. D’Oh!

As it stands, I am excited how it’s going, looks like Linux is giving legs to another device successfully. A couple of repeats of passwords and it says it wouldn’t do that, but final restart here I come.

It’s 5:19pm and I am looking at a laptop running Ubuntu with no issues. How great is that? It’s a little slower than I’d like, but I will fine-tune that later, but all-in-all the laptop is setup. Now to get other stuff running with desktop with it. My point is to map the SDcard reader that I had to take out when I did the upgrade, until I can get that resolved with a new reader.

Works perfectly, like how I intended. Installed Ubuntu OS on my 2007 era laptop and it’s running like a champ. I can take pictures with my Nikon and easily get them from my laptop without any extra adapters. There is a neat microUSB to USB dongle that is like $13.00 and it’d basically do the same thing, but it’s not even close to as cool.

Summary:
Will it work? Yes, yes it does and does a great job too, especially for only having 2GB RAM. Fantastic job to Linux for making a simple-to-follow installer and software able to be used in virtually all ages of technology. Making use of my laptop of the early 00’s electronics is fun and feels good. Proof that hauling around old electronics is for a reason, and here is a good example. ~JD #maker4life