larry wrote:
Ahh.... but we elite can build one for our computer illiterate granny that needs a machine to read her email. We're not just geeks, we're geeks who are the only link to technology for the rest of our family.Two examples:
How many people, out of say, the entire staff of the Mansfield Library, could take an old workstation, and make it useful by getting DSL running on it?
How many people, out of our elite group of 20 or so users [ncolug] could take an old workstation, and make it useful by getting DSL running on it?
David Rakestraw wrote:
Everyone knows "old workstation hardware can be recycled into useable web
servers, firewalls and routers", but I'm saying if someone only has one old pc
at home or work it is still usable as a GUI workstation using certain linux
distos that are designed to do so (like Damn Small Linux).
For example, it uses Firefox, CUPS, SMBclient, vncviewer, rdesktop, sylpheed
email client and has pdf and MSWord readers. It uses fluxbox window manager by
default.
The literature on the website says it is designed to run on as little as a
486DX and 16MB of RAM. Anything older than that is probably a fire hazard.
(Not picking on you, Larry, just making sure everyone understand my perspective.)
---------- Original Message ----------- From: larry <larry@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:37:41 -0500 Subject: [ncolug] Re: to further the misconception
Which translates to,
"old workstation hardware can be recycled into useable web servers, firewalls and routers" -
which we all knew.
(Not picking on you, David. Just trying to keep perspective...)
David Rakestraw wrote:
I had a freak lightning strike (in early Jan.) that took out my Mikrotik
router. All of the network cards and the processor.
I didn't have any usable spares lying around so I donated my four year old
workstation to rebuild the router. We use the Mikrotik IDE flash card and that
was undamaged so all I had to do was remove my hard drives and put in the
flash card and a few inexpensive NICs. It took all of 15 minutes and we were
up and going.
Anyways, what I have been using to administer all my Networks since that time
is DSL (Damn Small Linux) and a PIII 600 with 128MB RAM. For several weeks
I used the CDROM boot and then decided to use the built in install to convert
it to a very small Debian testing box. It is extremely fast.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
It uses the 2.4 kernel because it is smaller and more nimble, but that means it has better support for old hardware too.
I don't know how well it would work on a "486DX with 16MB RAM", but it would be interesting to see.
-- David Rakestraw DavidRakestraw-at-ashland-ohio.com Technical Services Division City of Ashland, Ohio 419.281.five.one.six.two Our mission: To promote the highest quality of life for our community by providing leadership, service and opportunity.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Henry Ford
---------- Original Message ----------- From: "Mr. Knisely" To: ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 12:50:09 -0500 Subject: [ncolug] to further the misconception
To stir the pot of people saying, "I want to run Linux because I have this old computer..."
See this article: http://www.linux.com/print.pl?sid=06/02/13/1854251
For me, this idea is definitely true. Linux makes old computers, that I would any other way toss, into useful contributing members of my network.
I've got an old PII as my firewall (Smoothwall). It works VERY well, and I'm now learning about the traffic shaping capabilitys of it so I'm sure I'll like it even more soon.
I have a PIII 650 as my web server. Yes, it's overkill... I was happily running it on a Celeron 300 before.
My old FTP server was running on a P-90 for a long time. The only reason I changed is because my 200GB HDD wasn't recognized and wouldn't run optimally even if it were seen. (Yes, I'm aware of that... ;o)
Now, I DO feel that it is wrong to say, as a blanket statement, that an old computer with Linux on it is useful. Recently, I was at a friend's house and he wanted me to "put Linux on it." Well, I looked at his old 233 with 64MB or memory and laughed a little to myself. I tossed in Knoppix and booted it to a command line. Once it got up to the command line I said to him, there you go. He said, "That's not useful to me... where's my browser." I brought up links and said, "Surf away!" Again, he questioned the usefulness of it. I then explained to him how that was incredibly useful to me and explained to him the difference between Linux and Gnome/KDE. He bought a new XP system from BestBuy and we dual-booted Ubuntu. He is very happy with it.
I now have his old computer in my basement and I can't wait to turn it into an Asterisk box. Useful with Linux? YOU BET IT IS!
Mike K.
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-- A lot of people who have kids should have had dogs instead.
Dev
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Mike K.
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