Restoring my old VAIO UX380N

Jan 25 2019 - Back in 2013 or so, I worked for a small engineering company located near where I lived. After working as the “IT/Facility Maintenance Intern” for a few months, I was allowed to take any old technology they didn’t want from there. Here I was with many a SCSI array, a Cisco router and this new-to-me Sony VAIO Handheld… So of course today, I did what any interested tinkerer would do and ripped it open to update the wifi card and add a new SSD. The drive I grabbed fit the old proprietary ZIF connector on the system, thankfully. The old drive was removed before I left.

Jan 27th 2019 - After finding the settings in the BIOS for allowing boot from SSD, I went and found a flash drive for installing something incredibly light, as the UX380N only has a single core with no hyperthreading and 1GB of RAM.

Jan 27 2019 - After installing Xubuntu as a replacement OS for the terribly-resource-intensive Windows Vista that this was certified for, I have a working little handheld that is completely compatible with its docking station. Any external device works. Tested monitors, mouse, keyboard, my offline RAID box and 1080p HDMI output.

Now I’m more or less at a loss as to what to do with this little guy, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it in the future before I move.

Jan 30 2021 - Sold