My IBM ThinkPad R52 completed six years.

I am not sure whether the title is a good one for blog entry. But I just wanted to write about my laptop which served me for more than 6 years and still alive and kicking.

Ever since I started using computers, it was my dream to own one. But during school days it did not materialize because I was not earning and also my father could not afford it. I was desperate to get one when I was in college but could not. I got job on campus and after finishing my course I joined the company and within an year I bought my first computer and it was IBM ThinkPad R52. Now it is owned by Lenovo.

Exactly on July 7th, 2005 I bought this machine on which I am typing now. I paid a very high price for the configuration below at that time. At times I feel bad that I paid around Rs. 65K for this configuration.

As you could see it was just having 256 MB RAM. Midway in 2006, I added 512MB more RAM when I was in U.S.A.

Initially it came with WinXP Pro loaded but with 256 MB RAM, the OS was running too slow. The response was not great. In college days I used Debian so I straight away installed an early version of Debian on that and configured Enlightenment window manager. The response was really great. I never looked back to Windows. Now it runs Debian Squeeze (aka 6.0) along with Enlightenment DR17 as window manager.

I use this laptop for all my computer works no matter what, developing software, watching movies, browsing, manipulating video files and editing images, you name it.

This laptop travelled several times to U.S.A and inside India. I carried this on local bus, train, flight and also on ship to Lakshdweep. I admire the ThinkPad build quality from IBM. I only had one issue with LCD couple of times. Once in warranty, other when it was out of warranty.

I hope this lovely piece of device will keep on serving me. No matter what may come, I will not be selling this. This may end up as an antique. I don’t know but I love it a lot.