Accidental Success: Revived 2008 Toshiba with Devuan 6 & AI (Non-Tech)

SS · Today 10:06:31

Hello

I am a home user with zero technical background. When Windows 10 support ended, I asked an AI for a Linux recommendation to save my 15-year-old laptop. It suggested Devuan 6 Excalibur. At the time, I didn't even know what "Init Freedom" meant—I just wanted a computer that worked.

I chatted to others who said it will be a "difficult". They told me get something "modern" with a slick GUI like Ubuntu with Gnome as will be way easier to set up.

But after a 4-day "crash course" using AI as my private tutor, I’ve built a system that seems to work nicely.

The Hardware:
Model: Toshiba Satellite A300-1BZ (2008)
RAM: 4GB / SSD: Crucial MX300
WiFi: Intel Ultimate N 6300 (Replacement)
OS: Devuan 6 Excalibur (XFCE)

The AI-Guided Journey (4 Days of "Hard Mode"):
Since I didn't know what terminal was and was thinking oh no do I have to use this thing??! I decided to try it anyway and used AI to bridge the gap.

In just a few days, I learned to use chmod for permissions, top for process monitoring, and pstree to understand the system flow.

We implemented:
*WiFI Fixes: I discovered the intel-microcode was being blacklisted by default. Removing the intel-microcode-blacklist.conf was essential for CPU stability. Used modprobe configs to stop Intel WiFi dropouts, I had to write scripts to keep USB ports "UP" so my Bluetooth stayed connected. Kept getting errors as well solved by custom scripts to rc.local to handle "kernel 110 timeouts". Had to create coexistence scripts and disable "11n" for wifi

*Audio: Replaced Blueman with bluetoothctl commands for crystal-clear audio (With blueman it kept asking for a pin when pairing to google home speakers. Bluetoothctl after some setup resolved that).

*Printing: Set up my Epson ET-2850 via a manual IPP connection and a "ping" script to ensure it wakes up on the 2.4GHz band.

*Modern Sync & Storage: Confirmed the Filen .deb works perfectly for 2-way cloud syncing.

*The "Safety Net" Launchers: I created XFCE launcher buttons for updates: (apt update/upgrade/ full upgrade), Flatpak updates, system cleanups, and SSD health checks (using smartctl). The update and clean up scripts include y/n prompts for review and a warning to run a Timeshift backup before any major changes (I didn't know what timeshift or system backups were but I do now!)

*Safety: Firewall set up (never knew what that was); firefox is firejailed and Vpn.ac gui client works (I tested it for dns leaks and kill switch - vpn.ac guys were very helpful)

*SSD Trim: Configured Anacron to handle SSD TRIM every two weeks (AI noticed Devuan didn't auto-trim the full drive initially).

The Result:

Efficiency: I have ~1.6GB of RAM free while streaming music with extra firefox tabs open and LibreOffice open.
Pstree showed only 1 active process during the stream. I kept asking AI if that was correct... couldn't believe it.

Speed: My Bluetooth connects faster and clearer than it ever did on Windows. My printer connects in 30 seconds from start up. No printing problems at all now. Never was that fast on windows and always had connection issues time to time.

Control: I went from being annoyed by forced Windows updates and unfixable crashes to having a system where every action is a script I can read and control (of course AI helps)

Conclusion:
I might have stumbled into Devuan by accident, but I’m staying on purpose. I didn’t need to be super technical to build a professional-grade, disaster-proof system—I just needed a curious mind and AI help. I finally feel like I actually own my computer instead of just being a passenger in it and learned something.
To the developers: thank you for keeping this "obsolete" hardware out of the landfill. It’s blazing fast.

This report maybe of use or not...sharing just incase

Last edited by SS (Today 10:42:39)

Duke Nukem · Today 10:28:22

Well done. That is quite something for someone "with zero technical background". I've been using Linux for 20 years and Devuan for 10, but I had never even come across pstree - Linux has many, many, different ways of doing things.

Camtaf · Today 10:35:43

Welcome to freedom for you & your computer....

SS · Today 11:14:22

Thank you.
Re pstree,....the AI agent suggested to run that and share it so it could analyse the flow. Then would suggest a fix for an issue, i would try it, (after I would ask for pros/cons to ensure safe), then re share the pstree output for verification. After doing that cycling got into the flow. I'll confess I nearly gave up as ended up in rabbit holes. Got there in the end

greenjeans · Today 17:44:02

I discovered the intel-microcode was being blacklisted by default. Removing the intel-microcode-blacklist.conf was essential for CPU stability

Pretty sure that's not how that works, I believe it's there to stop the microcode from trying to update itself on every boot. But I could be wrong.

https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comment … acklisted/

https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/li … config#L42

This is with the blacklist.conf file still in place:

root@devuan:/home/jack# dmesg | grep "microcode updated early to"
[    3.943872] microcode: microcode updated early to new patch_level=0x05000119

You can see it's been applied in early stage boot despite the blacklist file.

Don't believe everything AI tells you.

Can anyone confirm?

Essentially it's baked into initramfs alongside the other firmware, when you install new firmware the system runs update-initramfs and gens a new initrd.img, so the code is there and gets applied early in boot. The blacklist just stops subsequent attempts to update.

At least that's my understanding of it.

Last edited by greenjeans (Today 17:55:35)

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#1 Today 10:06:31

Accidental Success: Revived 2008 Toshiba with Devuan 6 & AI (Non-Tech)

#2 Today 10:28:22

Re: Accidental Success: Revived 2008 Toshiba with Devuan 6 & AI (Non-Tech)

#3 Today 10:35:43

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#4 Today 11:14:22

Re: Accidental Success: Revived 2008 Toshiba with Devuan 6 & AI (Non-Tech)

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Re: Accidental Success: Revived 2008 Toshiba with Devuan 6 & AI (Non-Tech)

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