rtcvb32: Mhmm... With no games or OS or anything listed, i'd suggest a refurbished Chromebook and replace the BIOS and put Linux on it, then game on that. At $50-$100 it's a steal!
timppu: Wow, is that really a thing? Link please?
Newegg Refurbished Chromebooks Lowest i tend to see is $49, and as high as $200.
timppu: Do Chromebooks have proper mass storage (ie. SSD), or do they use some 64-128GB SD cards like some of those cheapest Windows laptops around, which also cost under 200€ or so?
Most chromebooks will have 8Gb-16Gb SSD internal storage, which is basically a thumbdrive. Most that i see have an SD slot, which i'm using a 64Gb sized decently priced for media and other storage.
timppu: What CPU do they tend to have? I presume you can't run e.g. Windows games on them, using WINE in Linux? Or do they really have x86 compatible CPUs? (After all, the guy was asking about running GOG games on the device...)
From what i'm seeing, most of them are x86 compatible 64bit processors, though your mileage will vary. It will probably be dual core 2.6 Ghz machine, and 4Gb ram.
I've gotten it to boot with a Win7 USB stick, but it wouldn't recognize the USB ports to put a keyboard/mouse on. (
Same problem with my newer machine). Linux boots just fine once you get the BIOS replaced (
or do the legacy boot allowing a temporary Bios). I'm finding Slax (
recompress to lzo) and Linux Mint both work VERY well on the system.
Installing WINE will work, as i have a couple Win-only apps i run. The bigger problem is accessing the BIOS to change settings like virtualization, which I've had bad luck with so can't run Virtualbox or other VM types. (
I might put back on the stock BIOS and see if i can't make changes in the BIOS before changing it out again, but it's such a pain)
timppu: If there are not too many buts, I might actually try that, for a cheapo Linux PC... Not too interested in running ChromeOS, no privacy nor control I guess.
I don't trust ChromeOS either, plus unless they put the apk/android support you're stuck only with the browser and default extensions. You can actually install Crouton which is a Ubuntu installer that adds a full linux OS on top of ChromeOS, but you need to manually activate it. Still there's no risk to bricking your system. You just gotta remember certain key commands to access it, and be in developer mode.
But i wholeheartedly agree, it's much better than the OLPC project which they pushed back 10 years ago, as a basic system it's more than sufficient, as it's basically just a cheaply made laptop.
Some downsides might be getting the sound to work, and i've had the sound stutter if you do something wrong until you restart the app. And there's no internal clock BIOS battery, so when it boots up you'll probably have the wrong date/time at startup (
Though in mint it syncs the time so that goes away quickly). And as mentioned the VM thing.
Upsides, you'll get about 4-6 hours of battery life on a charge. Compare that to 2 hours i remember getting on other full featured laptops.