Seeking suggestions Ideas what I could do with an old laptop?

I have an old laptop with somewhat older hardware. XP is still installed.

I would like to use it somehow, but I have no idea what. 🤔

What kind of ideas do you have? What would you use an old laptop for?

Just put it down. Now and then you can use these laptops with a small Linux system for some niche applications, office & some surfing.
However, it does not come close to the performance of a modern device.

You can e.g. Use to watch YouTube while you are working on the main PC.

Install Linux and learn linux.
Otherwise you could install a small web server and just try how something works (i.e. In the local network, not on the Internet)

If it has a CD / DVD drive, I would definitely keep it. There are still games and applications on CD-ROM that only exist. The day comes when XP computers become a rarity like Amiga or the C64.

I would install the Linux distribution Bodhi Linux on it. This is based on Ubuntu and even requires less system resources than Windows XP. Even if you use a desktop theme with transparency effects, only about 3% more system resources are required. Here is the download of the ISO: http://sourceforge.net/...o/download

After downloading, simply flash the ISO with this tool https://unetbootin.github.io/ onto an empty FAT32 formatted stick. Now you have a bootable stick. If you can't boot from USB, there's a solution for this too: The Plop Boot Manager. This is a boot CD that contains a USB boot loader. Here is the download: https://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpbt-5.0.15.zip Unzip the zip and then burn the plpbt.iso with this tool http://www.freeisoburner.com/ onto an empty CD.

Plug in the stick, insert the burned CD and switch on the computer. Now simply boot from the CD. After a short time, the Plop boot loader appears. Select USB there. Then the stick is booted.

After a while the desktop appears. Here is an explanatory video on how to install it:

After the installation there's a restart. Take out the stick and the CD. When the desktop appears, go to the terminal (Terminology, you can find this in the start menu) and enter the following commands and complete each time with Enter:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install gdebi -y
sudo apt install synaptic -y
sudo apt install smplayer -y

This updates the system and also installs the SMPlayer. It may be that a dialog appears where you have to set up the keyboard layout again. Simply select German there. Then restart. You can also do this via the terminal by entering sudo reboot.

The SMPlayer can also play what the VLC can do. It also contains a favorites function for stream URLs (ideal for Internet radio) and a YouTube browser. This means that YouTube videos can be played smoothly on old devices.

Bodhi Linux also includes the resource-saving Midori web browser.