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I put an SSD in a MacBook pro late 2009 and I love it! I installed Windows 10 and Ubuntu 22.04. I tried compiling my website with a php/apache and a mariadb co

I put an SSD in a MacBook pro late 2009 and I love it! I installed Windows 10 and Ubuntu 22.04. I tried compiling my website with a php/apache and a mariadb containers in docker. I thought that maybe Vite would take forever to compile but no it ran almost the same as my current PC. I was really amazed at how well it all still runs. The main lag I noticed is when you move from page to page the Vite server takes up to a second to deliver the JS, although it is a bit faster when you move back to the same pages. Sublime Text latest version is smooth as butter. In Windows 10 I'm able to play Guild Wars, emulators like DuckStation and SameBoy. The GeForce 9400M is still pretty capable. Tomb Raider Anniversary. I have never replaced the battery! I did a battery full charge and store the laptop at 50% charge, at first it was 2-3times a year and in recent years I even forgot and charged it only once a year. It still shows ~90% full charge capacity. With just browsing and casual use including YouTube the battery runs for at least a couple hours! When I first booted up this old MacBook, it was an old version of macOS. It looked so dated that it felt like the laptop was good for the bin. I needed a laptop as I move into a co-loc arrangement, something to keep busy until I can set up a new desk etc and I'm really stoked how well it still runs and how usable it is. The funniest part of all that is ... wait for it... I OPENED the MacBook Pro and upgraded the RAM and the HDD. HHAHAHAHAHAHAAH. It's gotta be the joke of the century. Someday it will be. With that said for this late 2009 MacBook Pro these are the main downsides : - the screen is probably the main downside : all the colours look off unless you are totally facing, which means bad posture, and the brighter colours tend to be washed out so you can't really do any decent UX work as all the subtle gradients and color tones are out the window - stuck with USB 2 - VSCode is pretty usable but you can hear the fans revving up, CPU usage constantly up and down anywhere from 10 to 90% peaks When I revived the laptop I did in this order: First I installed Ubuntu 22.04 from a USB key, this worked right out of the bat, I told the installer to just erase the disk. It worked like a charm. Later I realized I wanted Windows for games. This MBP models apparently won't let you install Windows from a USB key - something to do with the baked in BIOS? I really couldn't bother burning a DVD, fortunately I had an old OG copy of Windows 7 Home Edition Upgrade. I booted the DVD and installed Windows 7, using a generic activation key. Then I inserted a USB key with the Windows 10 ISO which I had prepared earlier, and started the upgrade from within Windows 7. This time I used a key I bought online. The activation didn't work as planned, I called the Microsoft call center, and I just told the person I bought an OEM key etc and they activated it. So at this point I could simply hold the Alt key while booting to select the drive and it was dual booting perfectly fine. However I ran into one limitation : I was not able to `mount` the Windows NTFS partition from within Ubuntu. It seems this could be baked in the custom Apple BIOS? The Ubuntu partition somehow can not see the "bootcamp" partition. I installed reFIT thinking that it would solve the issue but it didn't change anything, just gave me a boot menu that is uglier and doesn't give me any functionality. I wish I didn't install reFIT but it's not a big deal it just shows me an icon for Ubuntu and Windows - honestly the builtin menu on the MBP looks nicer and I believe you could also customize the original boot menu's icons (but I am not sure I would have been able to do this after nuking the macOS partition). I'm really thrilled with how well it has been running for me the last couple weeks. Been playing a ton of Guild Wars on it. There's such a satisfaction from making an old hardware not just usable, but actually really useful. And I love that being so old, I don't have to worry about scratching it - even if mine still looks like mint.

tempoponet 3y ago
I also put an SSD in my 2009 MBP - in 2011! It was $500 for a 256gb drive and it was worth every penny. Even though that drive is slow and expensive by today's standards, I don't know if it ever really bottlenecked the system. The 8gb ram ultimately couldn't keep up with hungry chrome tabs and electron apps of the mid 2010's.
- AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
  Yep the 8GB RAM is definitely a limit. I haven't done much coding on it yet tbh, for the light use I make of docker (php/apache/mariadb/vueJS) the RAM seems just ok. And it wouldnt run games that require more RAM anyway. (ps: for VSCode I did what was suggested online and turned off a bunch of extensions I don't really need). In my case I had a left over 240 GB Samsung SSD from my last PC build. Replaced it with a 1TB nvme. So it was nice to also use a left over SSD. :) Since then I read I could put a 1TB in it if I wanted - but that seems overkill as it's going to be more of a backup laptop. What makes the experience so nice is in Ubuntu it would also show a nice popup for the media keys like volume up/down and brightness.
drewzero1 3y ago
Lucky on the battery.. ours started swelling after about 7-8 years of heavy use, and made the trackpad click by itself. I think I also had to replace the display cable and one of the ram slots stopped working. Other than that it was a solid computer for about 10 years until we replaced it with a 2012 model, still in use.
- AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
  I wasn't luck with my iPod Nano 3rd Gen however. Recently took it out of the box and I had the same issue with the battery swelling. The battery pushed on the screen causing a dark spot. It is apparently a common issue with iPods. I will order a replacement battery and fingers crossed I can also revive this little guy. While it was connected with the cable it worked great. And there is an app called Flooza or something that's kinda like a light iTunes that let you manage everything on it. I didn't make a heavy use of the MBP so there's that. Took it to India though! It survived a night long trip from Delhi to Dharamshala. There was such insane potholes and the bus was shaking so much, and the laptop was in my baggage at the underside of the bus. I thought it was done for :P I guess it's a nice thing about old hardware is they have a story.

tempoponet 3y ago

I also put an SSD in my 2009 MBP - in 2011! It was $500 for a 256gb drive and it was worth every penny. Even though that drive is slow and expensive by today's standards, I don't know if it ever really bottlenecked the system. The 8gb ram ultimately couldn't keep up with hungry chrome tabs and electron apps of the mid 2010's.

AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
Yep the 8GB RAM is definitely a limit. I haven't done much coding on it yet tbh, for the light use I make of docker (php/apache/mariadb/vueJS) the RAM seems just ok. And it wouldnt run games that require more RAM anyway. (ps: for VSCode I did what was suggested online and turned off a bunch of extensions I don't really need). In my case I had a left over 240 GB Samsung SSD from my last PC build. Replaced it with a 1TB nvme. So it was nice to also use a left over SSD. :) Since then I read I could put a 1TB in it if I wanted - but that seems overkill as it's going to be more of a backup laptop. What makes the experience so nice is in Ubuntu it would also show a nice popup for the media keys like volume up/down and brightness.

drewzero1 3y ago

Lucky on the battery.. ours started swelling after about 7-8 years of heavy use, and made the trackpad click by itself. I think I also had to replace the display cable and one of the ram slots stopped working. Other than that it was a solid computer for about 10 years until we replaced it with a 2012 model, still in use.

AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
I wasn't luck with my iPod Nano 3rd Gen however. Recently took it out of the box and I had the same issue with the battery swelling. The battery pushed on the screen causing a dark spot. It is apparently a common issue with iPods. I will order a replacement battery and fingers crossed I can also revive this little guy. While it was connected with the cable it worked great. And there is an app called Flooza or something that's kinda like a light iTunes that let you manage everything on it. I didn't make a heavy use of the MBP so there's that. Took it to India though! It survived a night long trip from Delhi to Dharamshala. There was such insane potholes and the bus was shaking so much, and the laptop was in my baggage at the underside of the bus. I thought it was done for :P I guess it's a nice thing about old hardware is they have a story.