![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7156\/6833625007_cab0691fa2_z.jpg?resize=640%2C480\")
<\/a>It’s been a year since I got this HP Pavilion ZD8000 up and running. It was brought into work with a few other war weary computers like mutts brought into a dog pound. Either they would find a home or meet oblivion in a dumpster. The HP was a battered and well-used Windows machine that had a huge power brick that looked like a particularly savage dog chewed on it. I was going to pass it up, but it’s huge 17 inch screen and it’s specs I looked up online appealed to me. I took a chance and purchased a third party AC power adapter. When it arrived, it powered on and booted into Windows, but after a while, the fans would run like crazy and it would shut off with a disconcerting phut.<\/em><\/p>\nI cracked open the box and found a whole family of dust bunnies within. I cleaned it out and reseated the heat sink to the processor with some fresh thermal paste. I put it all back together and with a fresh install of a Linux operating system, it runs like a charm.<\/p>\n I’ve been using this laptop every day since then, and I love it. For $25 and some elbow grease I have learned a lot and, despite being from 2005, I wound up with a fairly powerful Linux machine. I’ve also fell completely in love with a few Linux distributions such as Mint<\/a> and Ubuntu.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m celebrating an anniversary of sorts this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[317,518],"tags":[2315,2316,2314,2311,2313,2312],"class_list":["post-8549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-joes-garage","tag-hp","tag-hp-pavilion-zd8000","tag-laptop","tag-linux","tag-mint","tag-ubuntu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-2dT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46385,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/11\/11\/a-minty-fresh-refresh\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":0},"title":"A Minty Fresh Refresh","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"November 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"How a 2012 Mac Mini dodged the landfill\u2014and Apple\u2019s planned obsolescence\u2014with Linux Mint.","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/old-mini-new-life.jpg?fit=800%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/old-mini-new-life.jpg?fit=800%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/old-mini-new-life.jpg?fit=800%2C686&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/old-mini-new-life.jpg?fit=800%2C686&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":16379,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2014\/05\/13\/yeah-but-is-it-a-real-mac\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":1},"title":"Yeah, but is it a real Mac?","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"May 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I built my first Hackintosh a little over a year ago, and I recently upgraded it to the latest operating system for Apple, but it's always been bothering me whether it was a real Mac. It is certainly speedy as far as surfing the internet, and it works excellently as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Screen-Shot-2014-05-12-at-8.15.33-PM.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Screen-Shot-2014-05-12-at-8.15.33-PM.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Screen-Shot-2014-05-12-at-8.15.33-PM.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11326,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/01\/14\/taking-it-for-a-spin\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":2},"title":"Taking it for a spin…","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It could be argued that building a CustoMac mini represents a false economy in that time is money and a lot of time and frustration could have been saved by just going to the Apple store and buying one of their products from their minimalist shelves. You walk away from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mono-speaker.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mono-speaker.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mono-speaker.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42623,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/03\/02\/caturday-108\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":3},"title":"Caturday","author":"Joe","date":"March 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Photos of felines in and around Philadelphia","rel":"","context":"In "Caturday"","block_context":{"text":"Caturday","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/feline-fridays\/caturday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dumpster Buddy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53554152311_70b6e66271_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53554152311_70b6e66271_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53554152311_70b6e66271_c.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53554152311_70b6e66271_c.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22492,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2017\/07\/18\/looking-south-stairway-to-heaven\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":4},"title":"Looking South – Stairway to Heaven","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"July 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Looking South"","block_context":{"text":"Looking South","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/looking-south\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Stairway.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Stairway.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Stairway.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10911,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2012\/12\/17\/get-a-hack\/","url_meta":{"origin":8549,"position":5},"title":"Get a Hack","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"December 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally took the plunge and built a Hackintosh. For those of you not in the know, a Hackintosh is an assemblage of PC components that will run the Mac operating system with the help of a few hacks and workarounds. The resulting machine may not be as physically appealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/MI-008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/MI-008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/MI-008.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"HP](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7028\/6832127089_9f27b24ac6_z.jpg?resize=640%2C480\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Ubuntu](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7012\/6833626693_7bc02c5210_z.jpg?resize=640%2C400\")
<\/a><\/p>\n