> it can't even run most up-to-date Linux distros due to its lack of x86_64 support
My Eee is successfully chugging along with 32bit Debian. Firefox is too heavyweight to do much but lag, but mpv works well enough to stream video. But I mostly use it when I'm running behind on a book and basically need a typewriter that can run pandoc, and fewer distractions.
No, it's a PS/2 50Z, which comes with a 10MHz 286. It was my first computer, second hand from my dad. When I got it, I saved up and bought the 386SX/Now!, a 25Mhz 386SX that fits into a 286 slot.
> Selling it in 1996 for a few bucks was probably the worst mistake I did in my computer life.
Why do you say that? They are great machines (mine has lasted forever) but finding parts was hard even when they were new due to the microchannel architecture.
So the interesting thing about that is there is now a dedicated team of enthusiasts porting and cloning cards on MCA[1]. Still not cheap... but at least you can get a sound card now.
Everything still works great, except the original monitor died many years ago. I hope to replace it one day, but $200 for a used 12" monitor is more than I want to spend right now (I have a tractor I am restoring that takes precedence).
So basically you use it with no web or modern apps. That’d be an interesting use case for something such as Haiku OS.
I tried it on my PC. There is obviously not enough available software to be a real daily driver but it struck me as an OS that would be very enjoyable with low connectivity needs like typewriter and mail.
I loved how coherent it felt : the UI, the base software and even the filesystem. If I understood correctly, the filesystem is a representation of all your data and « files » can have arbitrary metadata and you can do pretty much everything from the file manager. It’s like your whole filesystem is a nosql database and apps are ok with that. Your contacts are « files » in a folder, your mails are « files » in a folder etc …
I never touched BeOS back in the day and I can totally see how this paradigm could have worked well in the 90s with low connectivity. Being able to write a mail « file » without internet, drag and dropping it onto a floppy drive and then on another computer, sending it over the Internet and everything with the file manager. It felt amazingly coherent.
Unfortunately this paradigm ceases to be useful when you need interoperability with other computers that aren’t compatible with BeOS/Haiku filesystem which means statistically _any_ computer.
But on your typewriter machine, that could be interesting.
> So basically you use it with no web or modern apps.
I use it with a lot of modern things, actually. And across the 'net.
My books are built with a pandoc/lua scripting system, and not an ancient version. I use the latest features. I also synchronise the sources via git, and the built bundles via an SSH pipeline to my beta readers.
I also already mentioned mpv - I use it to stream music, because I tend to listen whilst writing. Often the one song on repeat for three hours, but I do.
How long ago did you try it out? Haiku is daily driver-ready for a lot of people, especially now that FireFox has been ported (under the name of iceweasel).
They're removing new kernel versions, but existing packages will continue [0]. As the Linux kernel team stopped official support back in 2012, it makes sense.
But as I have an existing install... It should just keep grinding on for a bit longer yet.
My Eee is successfully chugging along with 32bit Debian. Firefox is too heavyweight to do much but lag, but mpv works well enough to stream video. But I mostly use it when I'm running behind on a book and basically need a typewriter that can run pandoc, and fewer distractions.