Ancient outdated custom gentoo install (set up by my dead partner). Not done with, but laptop exploded (Thinkpad T410), SSD fine. Get "new" T410, or?

[dwawlyn]

[
I just posted this to the gentoo forums

Gentoo Forums :: View topic - Ancient outdated custom install, dead Thinkpad T410, SSD ok

Not sure when/if I'll get an answer there,
and not sure if anyone here is likely to know any helpful details on this...

But I figured I should just go ahead and post a copy here anyway,
just in case someone might have some surprisingly useful tip I wouldn't expect...
]

I have an ancient out-of-date custom gentoo install,
set up by my dead partner,
which had a bunch of custom tools running
(
which I was not done reverse-engineering and transferring
-- I was specifically avoiding updating in order not to break anything before I was done
).

I say it had everything running
because the laptop hardware just failed non-fixably
(like, not just like RAM replacement or whatever).

However, the SSD is fine.

Could I just get a "new" Thinkpad T410?
(
"new" meaning refurbished or been lost in a stockroom for a decade or something
-- yup, I checked and they're apparently around for sale for like 400 bucks or less?
)
(Although it was specifically a German Thinkpad T410, which I expect would be at least significantly harder to get here...)

I'm asking here because I really don't know:
How specific might the gentoo install be to the specific hardware it was running on?
(I do have an old dump of lshw if that might be important... ?)

-- like, I expect it might well be a stupid question and the answer might be like:
"Of course it won't be that picky!"
but I just don't know if there might be something important I don't know...
(
Like, I appreciate the cool things about gentoo,
but with the hardware I have now,
it's just not physically practically possible for me to compile that much,
so I really couldn't do enough hands-on work with it to really properly learn how it works anyway,
so I don't know enough to know what questions are stupid.
)

(
... and yes, I am planning to do the obvious check of just plugging the SSD in to my other computer and seeing if it can boot there,
but I only have one working computer right now,
and it has a bunch of kinda fragile custom stuff I reallllly depend on
-- most prominently an old ergodox with a heavily custom layout,
and I'm kinda paranoid about powering it off and on again right now cuz, well, I'm a tiny bit paranoid about the old microcontroller on it being maybe wonky...

So I'm just trying to do all the question-posting-etc that requires me to be able to type normally
(including the research on an emergency plan to handle it if the ergodox does fail)
before I do anything to risk disturbing it...
)

 

[arochester]

Do you need another computer?

Do you need Gentoo?

There is no such thing as a German Thinkpad. There is only a Thinkpad with a German keyboard. Keyboards in one language can be swapped for another language. This is quite easy with a Thinkpad.

Or, is there some stuff that your partner had that you want to save?

You can take out the SDD and put it in an external enclosure - e.g. from eBay. You can then plug it into your existing computer and navigate to "Home".

You can copy off the relevant bit to your computer and dump the rest.

 

[kc1di]

I would plug in the old SSD and use another system to recover my important file say to a usb stick Then install a freindlier Linux distro say Mint or other on a new refurbish thinkpad. I would most likely go for a newer T400 series I use a couple of refurbished T450's here they work great with Linux. JMHO.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I have an ancient out-of-date custom gentoo install,
set up by my dead partner,
which had a bunch of custom tools running

Just came here to say, I'm sorry for your loss!! I hope you get a solution that you can work with here.

 

[dwawlyn]

You can take out the SDD and put it in an external enclosure. You can then plug it into your existing computer and navigate to "Home".

Yup, I'm already doing that
(
btw, I just posted another question about a mystifying problem I ran into while I had the drive mounted:

https://www.linux.org/threads/external-usb-harddrive-that-used-to-be-bootdrive-in-other-computer-while-mounted-files-from-drive-were-open-by-firefox-for-no-apparent-reason.46009/

)

And yes,
I technically didn't lose any information when it exploded,
since the SSD is fine,
but my ability to actually access and search it using all the organization/tools/sessions/workspaces/muscle-memory/etc I'm used to is currently all messed up...

And like, since I don't have it running anymore now,
I can't just do which bluh and stuff on it either,
so I have to much more laboriously and awkwardly use find and grep for stuff that would be trivial if I still had it running...

---

I would plug in the old SSD and use another system to recover my important file say to a usb stick

(As above, already doing.)

Then install a freindlier Linux distro say Mint

I've been using opensuse tumbleweed for a while,
and that's what I'm writing this from, on my other, still working laptop (a Thinkpad E525).

I am intending to buy the most ridiculously overpowered desktop-replacement laptop I can (either the latest System76 Bonobo or the Tuxedo Stellaris17-gen5)
because I've been using ten-year-old laptops all my life and I'm sick and tired of it,
(can't do a desktop - I had one once, then had to move countries by plane and shipping it ahead was a headache, then had to move again and ended up having to leave it behind entirely),
but that is a separate issue to this unfortunately still special weird old system I had running on the now-dead T410,
and which it would really be better if I could still keep using for a while.

---

...
Actually, it just occurred to me that my usage-pattern is probably surprising and new to most people:
I made heavy use of barrier between the two computers (before the other exploded)
so in a lot of ways the side computer functioned as a dual monitor,
and I also made heavy use of ssh and sshfs
(sshfs is actually REALLY cool! I have some shell scripts (fish) to automatically do stuff with it...)
so a lot of the time I could just pop open a file from my side computer in the editor of my main computer as though it was local,
and I also have a lot of stuff with symlinks out of dropbox to keep all the configs I wanted automatically sync'd...

So yeah, I can and do and prefer using two computers at once
-- in some ways it's even better than dual monitors,
since when one starts chugging with something you can switch to the other to work,
and if one has a problem you can generally use the other to fix it.

As a matter of fact, I would recommend that anyone think about seriously giving it a try,
dual wielding like that.
(Miyamoto Musashi!)

---

Just came here to say, I'm sorry for your loss!! I hope you get a solution that you can work with here.

Thank you, I really do appreciate you saying that
(... although a part of me just started thinking like "oh god, I hope I don't get more people saying stuff like that to me, because I start choking up and crying every time I see it...")

 

[Brickwizard]

because the laptop hardware just failed non-fixably

In what way? What happened to cause it?
you don't tell us how ancient your gentoo installation is, is it a 32 bit build? if its old it may be an amd 64 bit build, but this won't work if you are trying to piggyback it to an ARM machine,
there are several differences in any laptop which will be peculiar to a given area/country, notably the keypad, but also the quality of the CPU, the amount and speed of the ram, the wi-fi card, the rest of the machine is fairly standard across the world.

 

[dwawlyn]

In what way? What happened to cause it?

I don't actually know! At first I thought it was just the RAM,
and at first indeed I was able to boot it from a live-usb (MX-Linux)
and at least get to the grub screen for that and start running a memory test
(although it would mysteriously reboot itself before it could finish),
but by the time I got the RAM replaced,
even the power light had stopped coming on when I pressed the button.

The guy at the shop I went to for the RAM figured something
(or likely several somethings)
was deeply pervasively wrong/fried with the motherboard...
(and he seemed knowledgeable... well, at least more than me...)
(But it did have some insane uptime just from me, and I have no idea how it was used before I got it.)

you don't tell us how ancient your gentoo installation is, is it a 32 bit build?

Oh wow no, it's 64 bit!
(Fun fact, I actually ended up getting one of the last 32-bit laptops in like 2007 when I didn't know any better, and I was stuck with that for ages...)

I forget exactly how old it was, but not that old!
(
And as an example of why having it running is strongly preferable to just having the SSD,
I can't just do lsb_release or whatever to find the answer to a question like that that should be simple and quick and easy.
)

---

there are several differences in any laptop which will be peculiar to a given area/country, notably the keypad, but also the quality of the CPU, the amount and speed of the ram, the wi-fi card, the rest of the machine is fairly standard across the world.

... Like I said, I do happen to have an old complete dump of its lshw output from back when it was still running...?

Also, noting that contrasts with @arochester's thought that:

There is no such thing as a German Thinkpad. There is only a Thinkpad with a German keyboard. Keyboards in one language can be swapped for another language. This is quite easy with a Thinkpad.

(
And I can agree that swapping the keyboard seems like it would be pretty easy
-- cuz for some weird reason that I'm sure used to make some sort of sense as a technical limitation back then,
only one of the RAM sticks was accessible from the back panel of the laptop,
and I had to take the keyboard off to access the other RAM stick from the other side!
)

But yeah, I wouldn't think that a "new" Thinkpad T410 would be different in any significant way,
but I was thinking I should ask beforehand in case somebody pointed out some sort of specific potential "gotcha" I wouldn't've thought to check for...

 

[kc1di]

Open Suse will do you well.

 

[Brickwizard]

d I was able to boot it from a live-usb (MX-Linux)
and at least get to the grub screen for that and start running a memory test
(although it would mysteriously reboot itself before it could finish),

Either power supply problem or CPU overheating would be my first thoughts,
just be aware that with some of the very latest kit it is likely that you could run into driver problems [it takes up to a year for the boys and girls who back engineer Linux drivers to compleat the work,] I would always go for a re-furb 2 to 5 yr old machine

 

[camtaf]

OK, so you have an intact system on your SSD, you could just plug it into another machine, & in all likelihood it will boot up fine; I've done this many times.

You could access your files by mounting it, by attaching it via USB, this could be either an external case, or a cheap cable; I do this all the time.

Next machine, I suggest, would be about 6 months old, otherwise you may run into driver problems; not insurmountable, but a nuisance.

 

[z7vl7abxc]

And like, since I don't have it running anymore now,
I can't just do which bluh and stuff on it either,

have you thought of or tried chrooting into the gentoo disk: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Chroot

 

[dwawlyn]

Either power supply problem or CPU overheating would be my first thoughts,

Yup, exactly. Hence the thought that like
"
Even if this is fixable, it would be a long expensive task to try to track it down, with a very high chance of failure in the end anyway...
... wait, what if I could just put the SSD in a "new" T410?
"

---

just be aware that with some of the very latest kit it is likely that you could run into driver problems [it takes up to a year for the boys and girls who back engineer Linux drivers to compleat the work,] I would always go for a re-furb 2 to 5 yr old machine

You mean in regards to this?:

I am intending to buy the most ridiculously overpowered desktop-replacement laptop I can (either the latest System76 Bonobo or the Tuxedo Stellaris17-gen5)
because I've been using ten-year-old laptops all my life and I'm sick and tired of it,
(can't do a desktop - I had one once, then had to move countries by plane and shipping it ahead was a headache, then had to move again and ended up having to leave it behind entirely),
but that is a separate issue to this unfortunately still special weird old system I had running on the now-dead T410,
and which it would really be better if I could still keep using for a while.

Yeah, that's why I'm looking at System76 or Tuxedo!
Support a company that actually gives a damn about supporting me back in what I need to do with linux!
...
(
I would normally be giving a few more links and stuff to explain context better
(
like with the sshfs stuff -- I would normally have linked to something like this vid
and maybe given some cheatsheet tips I personally had to figure out for using it,
since it's so cool and useful
)
but with all my active workspaces etc all messed up and currently inaccesible,
there's a lot of stuff that I used to have at my fingertips that's currently squirreled away...
)

But yeah, if what I meant wasn't recognizable from the names

"Bonobo (latest, ie bonw15) by System76":

System76 - Linux Laptops, Desktops, and Servers

System76 computers empower the world's curious and capable makers of tomorrow

system76.com

Bonobo WS (bonw15) - System76 Technical Documentation

tech-docs.system76.com

"Stellaris 17 gen5 by Tuxedo":

Stellaris 17 - Gen5: 17'' 240 Hz 16:10 + Intel Core i9-13900HX + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 + Cherry MX mechanical keyboard + 99 Wh battery + max. 64 GB DDR5-5600-MHz RAM - TUXEDO Stellaris 17 - Gen5 - TUXEDO Computers

Stellaris 17 - Gen5: 17'' 240 Hz 16:10 + Intel Core i9-13900HX + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 + Cherry MX mechanical keyboard + 99 Wh battery + max. 64 GB DDR5-5600-MHz RAM

www.tuxedocomputers.com

---

(
But if you mean in regards to getting the old gentoo install booting again from the SSD,
then yeah, that'd just be a refurbed T410 specifically...

... which is a little painful to have to drop a few hundred bucks on when I'm saving up for my first actual fancy new computer,
but thinking it out, realistically, I have enough extra saved up already that it wouldn't actually affect anything...
)

---

You could access your files by mounting it, by attaching it via USB, this could be either an external case, or a cheap cable; I do this all the time.

Again, yup, already doing that
(
well, you just posted in my other thread about the weirdness with that harddrive and firefox

https://www.linux.org/threads/external-usb-harddrive-that-used-to-be-bootdrive-in-other-computer-while-mounted-files-from-drive-were-open-by-firefox-for-no-apparent-reason.46009/

so I guess you know that now.
)

---

OK, so you have an intact system on your SSD, you could just plug it into another machine, & in all likelihood it will boot up fine; I've done this many times.

Yeah, I know it's stupid that I'm putting that off when it might just work perfectly,
but I'm still nervous about it and trying to get as much else done first as I can before I risk it (for the reasons I said at the end of my initial post).

---

Next machine, I suggest, would be about 6 months old, otherwise you may run into driver problems; not insurmountable, but a nuisance.

Again, I'm guessing you mean about the "actual fancy new computer" thing? So yeah, the Tuxedo/System76 thing: Driver problems, not an issue!

---

have you thought of or tried chrooting into the gentoo disk: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Chroot

... [smacked myself in the forehead]
oh wow, thanks! I totally forgot about chroot!
(
I haven't touched that since I broke my old kubuntu install on this computer, before I moved to opensuse!
I remember I got really confused by opensuse at first back then when I understood so much less about how to use btrfs subvolumes...
I wrote a script to mount (and unmount) everything all in order,
and then finlly figured out it was completely unnecessary cuz opensuse uses the default subvol feature anyway
(kubuntu didn't, so I had no idea it could be that easy).
)

... And I could even chroot into the backup that I rsync -aAX'd from the boot SSD of the dead computer onto a different external harddrive (right?)
(one that is actually a data storage drive rather than a boot drive).

... although, I have two such data storage drives
(both 2TB and (I think?) spinning rust)
one formatted to btrfs, one to ext4.
|
And since the gentoo install I think didn't even have btrfs support installed,
maybe I should copy it onto the ext4 data storage drive first, and do the chroot on that...

(Still not really a true solution to the "Miyamoto Musashi missing his second sword" problem, but still, thank you so much for pointing that out!)

 

[dwawlyn]

@z7vl7abxc
... although that being said,
I really need to first figure out that bizarre and mystifying interaction between the mounted was-bootdrive and the running firefox

https://www.linux.org/threads/external-usb-harddrive-that-used-to-be-bootdrive-in-other-computer-while-mounted-files-from-drive-were-open-by-firefox-for-no-apparent-reason.46009/

But why the heck would the running firefox automatically open stuff from the was-bootdrive just because it's mounted?
And why would it open stuff in such a way that firefox started freezing and lagging,
and suspending all tabs didn't fix it?

 

[z7vl7abxc]

i did see that thread and understand wanting to know the why, but that could be hard to come by if it is a one-off event. if it happens multiple times then i would get being a bit more concerned.

 

[dwawlyn]

i did see that thread and understand wanting to know the why, but that could be hard to come by if it is a one-off event. if it happens multiple times then i would get being a bit more concerned.

You'll see response to you in that thread,
but for any theoreticall future person looking for it:
link

I figured it out and wrote the tutorial my past self needed
(although I dunno if any future people in a position like my past self will ever find it).

It was important,
an unknown-unknown I needed to learn,
and definitely not a one-off thing
(it really didn't feel like it made sense for it to be a one-off thing, hence why I was quite sure I needed to track it down).

 

[z7vl7abxc]

i am glad you were able to get that sorted and hope that means you can collect the info from the disk or use it to boot a new/refurbished system like you were hoping.