I apologize this is going to be a bit vague as I can’t really provide specifics at the moment, but I’ll try to do my best with what I know off the top of my head.

I recently picked up an old Dell Optiplex desktop from 2013 and refurbished it (new paste, switched out an HDD for an ssd etc) with the intent to sell it for a profit. It has no GPU, just using integrated graphics but I figured it’d be a great machine for basic web browsing and such. I figured I’d do an OEM install of Mint, but the only problem is the gui will not properly display after booting without nomodeset in the grub config. I don’t feel like that’s an ideal form for it to be in when I sell it to someone.

I’ve tried a couple different things to fix it, I made sure all the proper drivers are installed, tried i915 flags, I’m ashamed to admit it but I was turning to chatgpt for quick support and it seems to think that ivy bridge chips just don’t play nice with up to date kernels. It suggested I downgrade to mint 21.2 so I can use a 5.15 kernel which would hypothetically work. I’m out of ideas so I might give it a try I’m not super knowledgeable, but I figured I’d turn to real people before going forward with that, I’d much prefer selling something running the current release.

The CPU is a Intel i5 3470. I can provide more precise specs and information that’s helpful later when I can check. But for now I’m open to ideas if you’ve got em.

  • Redkey@programming.dev
    5·
    1 day ago

    I think it depends a lot on context.

    Wiping the dust off an old, low-spec ex-office PC, getting it barely functional, throwing a couple of RGB lights in it and trying to pass it off as a competent gaming rig for a high price would be completely unethical, I agree. But salvaging an old PC, actually refurbishing it into something useful for light day-to-day use, and selling it as such with a small markup to cover parts and labour seems completely fine to me.

    You and I may have the skills needed to take a worn-out old PC and breathe new life into it easily, but not everyone who’d be happy with a modest secondhand system can do that.

    As it happens, until just a few years ago I was running my high-end games on what started as a secondhand commodity PC with an i5-3470, without complaint.