[juneau-lug] Re: FAA Computers

  • From: "James Zuelow" <jamesz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 11:17:20 -0800


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Crites" <bdk@xxxxxxx>

> I opened one box and found it was a 386sx 16mhz no upper memory, has
> floppies and 40mb hdd. It was a PowerFlex.
>
Need to figure out what to do with that one.

> A majority (~4-5) of the boxes are ibm 5x86's (486) w/ floopies, hdds,
> nics, etc. I didn't have time to bust them all the way open to check
> the size of the hdd. All the boxes have monitors. No keyboards or mice
> w/ them. I figure we can get those from surplus.

Those IBM 5x86 boxes might be useful for firewalls, etc. but probably
not an office workstation.  You could set them up as X terminals, with a
more powerful server running the X server and OpenOffice.  We'd have to
practice setting that up first.  I'm guessing 14" monitors?

At surplus yesterday I saw quite a few P120's for ~$20-30, and 200MHz
Pentium Pro boxes for ~$40-50.  So we have to be careful about getting
computers dumped on us that just don't make sense to use for day to day
operations.  I wouldn't use anything slower than a 200MHz machine for a
standalone office desktop, and even that is pushing it with the latest
KDE.  (I finally ditched KDE 2.2 for Gnome 1.4 on my PII 333 - KDE was
just too slow.)  However the X terminal idea is something I haven't done
and I don't fully understand how to do it, although I know the expertise
is available here in SE.

A project would be to set up a PII or PIII server with X and OpenOffice
and a couple of the 5x86 boxes as dumb terminals, one 5x86 as a print
server, and then test the heck out of it.  Sounds like a fun weekend!  I
will volunteer my rec room for any weekend after May 5th.  I hope it
works out, as it will give us a use for the machines.

>I wonder if the State
> would be willing to 'donate' their surplus to us to assist in
community
> support efforts? An interesting idea.

Maybe, maybe not. Probably not - remember we don't have an official
organization.  It might be easier to have a local non-profit get stuff
from State Surplus directly, and then go in and help them get it set up.
The advantage of doing it that way is that the State knows exactly who
is getting the computers, and we don't have to find storage space for
stuff that we can't use.

Any interest in the X-terminal setup project?  Anyone else think of an
idea for these machines?  Should we just hang on to them to use as print
servers/firewall?  Sean, what exactly is the FAA expecting us to do with
these machines.  Did we promise to give them away to a non-profit?

Cheers,

James



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