|
Whilst I do like to use hardware until it fails I do think that using older PCs is not necessarily as frugal as it may originally seem. For example, a Pentium II will, according to Wikipedia, be rated at at least 16W whereas the Raspberry Pi mentioned earlier comes in at 3.5W. So, if you're using it as a server then the $45 Pi costs 1/4 of the price in electricity.
Then there's the fact that as a PSU gets older it becomes more likely to fail and a failing PSU is a fire risk if nothing else. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of using old PCs and if I've run some as web servers in the past, but I don't think doing so saves money and I don't think it's really the most practical solution. |
Quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi It does look quite promising, specially considering the low price. |
I certainly don't mean to say that people ought not to use old PCs, but things move so quickly that sometimes buying new kit is cheaper in the long run.
I remember reading an article suggesting that if somebody set a computer to break a code 5 years ago and the code still wasn't broken it would be quicker to start again on modern hardware (I don't recall the specific details). I know that's a different problem but it illustrates that it's worth putting some thought into things rather than just assuming that going on as things are is the best option. |
Quote:
|
40 uses for Rasberry pi:
http://pingbin.com/2012/12/30-cool-i...ry-pi-project/ This is another good learning from this thread. Another article on it: http://www.zdnet.com/we-thought-wed-...pi-7000009718/ Wonder if someone will find an use for this with an older PC :) |
Another similar product:
http://www.pcduino.com/ With time, more such products can be expected it appears. Also, in 3 years or so, all these will become old. So desktop PCs will mostly have sentimental value and lesser practical use with time. Very few wish to use a commodore or other similar PC anymore for practical purpose. As an aside, I was able to connect my old IBM Pentium 2 PC that I started this thread for to the net. Some related info. in this regard. It has Ethernet Controller: Realtek semiconductor co. ltd RTL-8139/8139c/8139c+ Had to choose the following driver and it worked: Realtek- RTL-8139 Fast Ethernet Driver |
I have three primary partitions on the hard drive of this PC. First is Linux swap, on the second I have a puppy linux quirky 1.4 full install, on the third partition it is a puppy frugal install. I always have to boot this PC with the Puppy CDROM installed in it. Otherwise it gives an A20 fail message. I tried installing Grub4legacy and Grub4dos, issue persists with both. Verified that both USB and PS2 Keyboards are enabled in the Bios. Tried both types of keyboards and still didn't help. Issue persists. Suggestions welcome.
Found this on A20 http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/A20.html Tried disabling Gateway A20 from Bios, didn't help either. I had win98 on this PC before, this issue didn't exist then. This error comesup even before Grub comes up. However, it is ok only if Linux is booted from live CD directly. Wow as per this site, it could either be the Keyboard, the Keyboard Controller or the motherboard issue. If it is a Mobo issue, then replacing the Mobo is the only option. Guess, I can just try to use this PC as long as it lasts now. Changing Mobo is not possible on this one. http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios...ess_errors.htm This PC also doesn't detect USB drives on startup, moreover since it is an older BIOS, appears it will not work with DVD read-write. Since the puppy OS is burned to CD, it needs a CD writer to be able to work and not just a CDROM(Tried before, these don't read home burned CDs). So, if the CD-Writer on this device fails, then I have to find another one of the same(this is very hard these days) or just forget this PC. So, guess I will have to use the CD-writer very carefully just for booting and not use it too much. I also have a CD lens cleaner that I can use with this device if needed. It helps to know all these limitations in advance. For now, given my present needs, I am able to use this PC as my primary PC. |
I still have a P II in the corner myself. Just bear in mind that the low amount of RAM probably excludes you from running X, or at least running X + anything else. Midori might work under X as a web browser. If you can get X to load in that amount of RAM. It's a slow CPU. And the RAM is probably the SIMM type which is at least 7x's slower than most things in the past ten years. Basically it'll be slow.
If you can avoid using X you can avoid the bottleneck of resources. Mine has USB ports, probably 1.1. I think the bios had evolved past the stage of only supporting a certain number of heads and sectors at that point. But you may still have those old limits that give few options as to which hard drives will work. Which will be IDE type drives, retroactively renamed to PATA circa 2006-ish. I'm probably in the get something much newer camp. Having got a 2.6GHz cpu laptop for FREE just last week. Which is actually better than my old laptop, sort of, the GPU on the old one makes it perform better, if the fan on that one still worked. |
X is ok. I have linux swap of 512MB that greatly helps once this PC boots fully.
For now, this PC is ok. However, if any vital component dies: PSU, Mobo or CD-Writer then this PC has to be recycled. With devices like the rasberry pi going so cheap, older PCs are going for 40 bucks even locally. So, will give it time and see. Besides I also have another desktop still. |
You could put linux on a usb stick and go down to goodwill or other places and try out some old computers. I know someone who got a 1.66GHz laptop with a malware infested windows for $100. And they probably paid too much for it. I ran the windows malware tool on it to make it windows bootable for them. It came with windows cdroms, but had no cdrom drive. My last laptop cost < $300 new, circa 2006. It's still on and next to my desktop acting as a wireless bridge. Although using the non-pc router(s) I have laying about would probably consume half the Watt's of power.
I was rigged up to do the goodwill route when my sister-in-law walked in with a laptop, and my brother asked her what she was going to do with that. She said that she was to wipe the HDD and throw it away. I said, I've got it, hand it over. One of her coworkers had passed it off on her since she's the tech person. Booted linux off a usb stick right off the bat with working wireless. Wiped the HDD and booted a 2nd usb card + reader so I could clone the usb stick's linux onto it's now clean HDD. All said and done and < 3 hours to have a native linux on it and configured specifically for that machine. It would have been done a lot faster, but I had just spent 8 hours driving there and that PNY usb stick is probably the slowest usb storage device I have ever witnessed. And the only 30GB HDD on that laptop made the transfer route a little less direct. Plus a couple half hour naps. If the raspberry pi had 1GB of ram and more USB ports, I'd probably get one. Having spent a couple weeks away from home running linux from a usb stick on a few machines with only 512MB of ram, I would much rather have 1GB of ram as a minimum since a lot of things almost require it now. Plus the things I would want to do on such a device that could be used as a personal computer cluster would require at least that much ram. So what if it takes twice as long to render a povray frame. With four units you could still finish the job in half the time. While still using < 1/2 the power of a normal desktop. We'll get there eventually I suppose. |
I verified to see that this PC actually has 150Mb ram approx. I haf 16Mb on my first pentium a long time ago and was focusing on that somehow. Puppy Linux is using just 50Mb or so of this RAM. I am quite happy with this PC now for what it does. Will see if I feel the same way a week and a month from now. To be sincere, I have other PCs but prefer not to throw older ones unless they can't be really used. Rasberry pi is best used as a kit which is a lot more expensive. However, in 3 years all these will also become old and drop further in price as newer similar come. Goodwill is a good idea also.
|
I am using a special browser called Links that is much simpler, faster but can type only so much on it. So adding this here, unless something seriously changes, I will use this old PC as my primary PC for now. There were a lot of challenges and disappointments in this path. However, I am happy and the end result was well worth it. Any further suggestions are greatly appreciated as usual and will assist my learning experience.
xchat still doesn't work on this, connects only to freenode. Same with attym. However, this is more of a distraction, so I will live without it for now. |
There were challenges but I am glad to get this PC working. I have better PCs if needed. Will keep an eye out for older PCs also. In a few years, the Rasberry Pi etc., will also be a lot cheaper.
I deleted a lot of unwanted startup processes. Now ram use is at 27Mb only, startup also seems faster. It will be a good idea to backup the puppy personal file as it has a lot of useful settings at this stage. Will not be good to have to do this all over again. |
There's links2 although I'm not sure if links isn't just a symlink to it. W3m and irssi for console level versions of browsers / irc. Even an xirssi if xchat doesn't want to play ball. A bit of a learning curve, but mostly functional.
Outside of the peripherals like an LPT1 port, or 1.44MB floppy drive, the old comps are disposable in my opinion. At least where I live since if you don't have it well protected, critters tend to move into their well constructed bird / mouse houses of metal. Or pretty much anywhere the cat can't get to them at. |
Will try irssi and see how it goes. It looks interesting. As an aside, I tried to get the latest audio/video drivers for this PC and they simply don't exist on the net. Not even the old ones. This was a limited edition Mobo with onboard sound and graphics card. No one cares for it anymore. This is all the more reason to collect all the needed software for your PC when it is still current, better to collect more than lesser. I am glad that I atleast tried this, another eye opener.
|
Tried irssi when trying to connect to server it says Temporary failure in name resolution.
|
Nicoedit is a lot better on this PC for sure. It doesn't capture CPU like abiword.
I can do main work on this via Nicoedit and use Abiword whenever needed specially. Nicoedit can also be used to read Gutenberg eBooks on this PC when I feel like it. Xchat issue was solved on this PC. I had an older version with bugs in it. Got a better version and it works fine now. This thread also got me interested in using linux from the command line. This can be learned slowly and with time will be profitable as lesser system resources will be needed. More Basic Related info.: Kernel: Linux 2.6.31.14 (i586) PCI Devices Host bridge Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5597 [SiS5582] ISA bridge Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS85C503/5513 IDE interface Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] USB Controller Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller Ethernet controller Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ Multimedia audio controller Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] Serial controller Rockwell International HCF 56k Data/Fax Modem VGA compatible controller Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5597/5598/6326 VGA Questions: 1. How can I make Links browser the default in Puppy Linux (using Puppy Quirky 1.4) ? 2. Sound Problem This PC plays streaming music, net radio ok. However, it doesn't play sound files. I tried both mp3 and ogg vorbis. How can I get drivers for the sound card below: Multimedia audio controller Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] 3. Playing Video Files This PC doesn't play video files. I tried to do a Video upgrade, it tried to get this file from ibiblio but failed saying link broken. It also said that I have the needed drivers, but getting this may help improve performance: Mesa-5.6.2-W5.pet I tried to look on the net for this but all links are old and don't exist. VGA compatible controller Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5597/5598/6326 VGA Display Resolution 1024x768 pixels Vendor The X.Org Foundation Version 1.3.0 I was able to do 2 and 3 above with Win 98. I found install disks for this. However, Win98 has no support and being on net with it is real insecure. Hence, I prefer to use Linux for this. Thanks. |
I'm sorry this isn't related to your problems but your mention of the command line. Are you aware of mpd, which allows you to use the mouse in the terminal?
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-...operation.html Also, I find screen is good for carrying out more than one task at a time in the same terminal: http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html I did get video working in the terminal using mplayer through the framebuffer but unfortunately I forgot where I saw the tutorial and now only have it partially working. |
Quote:
This old PC from 1999 is presently my main PC and it fully satisfies my computing needs. For the present, I feel I have enough computing power to last my life time and perhaps even more. I am glad I decided to learn more about older PCs. Due to mp3 player, eReader and tablet PC use, I am able to reduce greatly desktop PC use. This will further increase the lifespan of the desktop PCs that I have. The eReader if charged weekly will allow the battery to last for 10 years. mp3 player batteries last a few years atleast. The earlier ones I got even take rechargeable batteries. So, all this greatly helps minimize my PC use and increase their lifespan. This PC is unable to handle youtube and crashes soon after I click on a video to view. |
Main problem with that PC: only 32 MB RAM. That's horribly small. The 333 MHz could be somehow lived with, but a desktop on 32MB, that's really too little for a desktop. The thing is, you will be swapping like hell, and that will make the machine freeze to death. If you could get your hands on more RAM (128MB+), things would change a bit.
|
Smallest thing i know of: TinyCore Linux. marginal Kernel, uClibc to begin with. I would try netsurf as browser, not even midori. Only one program at a time. Otherwise empty desktop, maybe a tiny launcher, better just an OpenBox context menu for the desktop and nothing more.
|
Actually I recollect lated that I have 150Mb Ram on this one. I had 32Mb initially but then added another 128M later back then. I feel that the issues I am experiencing has something to do with the A20 fail which is failure of access to high memory. I even opened and cleaned inside carefully to remove dust etc., Even cleaned inside CPU. Nothing helped. I am unable to even see weekend sales flyers on this thing. I will use it the way it is as long as it lasts. Will also try to learn from this as much as possible. It appears that desktops are dying anyways. I learned about icecast yesterday. Due to this thread, I also started using CD player in my stereo more, I examined my life to see other places where I am wasting stuff myself and be creative where possible.
This thread encouraged me to try a dosa Mod. Dosa is like a pancake, folks like it perfect usually. I tried making it with non traditional ingredients and it came out ok. Variety is interesting. |
Tiny core was already tried on this and doesn't boot, it comes to a blank screen and hangs. Same with DSL, also tried tiny core plus.
Presently, out of every three start attempts, it is giving the A20 failure twice and is also not playing streaming radio that it did just yesterday. So will monitor and learn more from it. Also, I have some pet parrots and one watches me when I work on my PC sometimes. I started using commandline yesterday for sometime and she tried to bite me a little. Appears she also likes graphics and didn't want the command line. |
Quote:
Quote:
Maybe you lend her a tablet while you do your's. |
This PC does a memtest everytime I start it, it passes but then it keeps on repeating it itself, no way to stop this permanently and it is annoying. I just hit the ESC key for it to stop.
A lot of the issues on this PC will be solved by having a boot floppy and installing grub to it. This was a standard feature in older PCs. This older PC still has a floppy drive. Unfortunately, I threw away 20 floppy drives I had with case a few months ago in an effort to declutter. Now I deeply regret this. I will check with folks I know to see if anyone has an old floppy disk lying around. This PC was not free, I paid $1000 or so for it back then. It still works good for many basic tasks, so I will continue to use it as long as it is practical to do so. |
Quote:
it's cursory at best and only really detects the size of the ram, not how well it performs. |
There may be an option in the BIOS to disable the RAM check, most PCs I've owned have had it.
|
I was referring to a program named "memtest86+" that is available as a package for several linux distributions. Installing that package will usually cause a distro like e.g. Debian to add a GRUB boot entry (or even multiple entries) so you can boot into the memtest instead of Linux. The thing will then start and perform a real in-depth memory test. It will perform all kinds of tests which take more and more time but you can easily stop the test after a few runs if you've seen enough.
|
Memtest was installed for puppy Linux, it didn't help, issue still exists.
|
I decided to go to the Puppy Linux Forum and seek assistance there for the issues on this PC, since it is their OS, they maybe able to give more specific assistance:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=688700 |
Not much help on Puppy Linux forum for this PC as it is so old I guess. Are tehre any special groups or forums online for folks who old Pentium 1 PCs or so approx ? Most retros are into 8-bit computing, that is far too old. Not many folks had those PCs and I can see how they are compared to the Pentium 1s.
I had the UltimatebootCD 3.2 stored away from those times, this helped me install something called GAG, it installs half to bios or cmos and the other half to hard drive. This is able to start the grub. However, the installed Puppy doesn't load. I spent two hours on this yesterday and my eyes got real tired.I am spending too much time on this, must keep old PCs interest as a hobby and not a practical pursuit. My parrot doesn't like command line but she is ok with me using pen and paper, so I will use this more. On a different note, this old PC, encouraged me search around my apartment. I discovered an older PS2 keyboard that is working very well with this PC. I also have a PS2 mouse that I mostly will start using in the future. |
To add, I am unable to see local sales flyers on this PC. Maybe this is a good thing, I will have to walk to the stores directly which is good exercise or not see them at all, which is good as I will not be tempoted to buy a new PC or other new stuff.
Most of the newer PCs offer better graphics, web-sites are loaded with more eye candy. This becomes quite evident when one uses an older PC with Linux on it. |
Regarding the sound issues on this PC, I googled and found some related info.:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=39263 And this also: http://askubuntu.com/questions/87887...o-card-drivers Right drivers were not included for linux due to licensing issues. I will keep this info. for now. Will learn more about it later. So apparently, I am not the only one facing this issue and better drivers are needed for this. |
Also found this info. on the SIS video drivers:
http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsispart1.shtml No wonder there are issues with this also in playing video files. Also, x crashes for several other distros. On a different note: Top 10 uses for older PCs. It is a good idea to get all the software mentioned in this link and practise using them at convenience: http://geekyprojects.com/old-compute...computer-uses/ FreeDOS also seems to be doing good and is a good try on older PCs: http://zelmanov.ptep-online.com/freedos.html Apart from games and utilities, there are also windows like software for it now. |
Net didn't work on this PC for a while. Rebooting modem, replugging ethernet cable resolved the issue.
The web is getting more demanding, with older browsers one is unable to see certain sites. Guess these needs will increase more with time and are a consideration in using older PCs. I tried to get the correct ALSA drivers and configure. Got the following error: # ./configure checking for gcc... no checking for cc... no checking for cl.exe... no configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH See `config.log' for more details. # Link for the driver is as follows: ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/drive...0.22.1.tar.bz2 |
Also, for X, drivers are suggested here:
http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsispart4.shtml However, The version of X that I have on my system as per below is not in the above link. So not sure how to proceed here. # X -version X Window System Version 1.3.0 Release Date: 19 April 2007 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 1.3 Build Operating System: UNKNOWN Current Operating System: Linux puppypc 2.6.31.14 #1 SMP Mon Oct 25 23:28:59 GMT-8 2010 i586 Build Date: 13 September 2010 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Module Loader present # |
Since, I felt that most of my issues were specific to puppy linux, not getting much support on their forum, I went to their chat channel on freenode on irc yesterday. It was fairly quiet there and I got some good support.
#eject -x 8 solved the loud cdrom issue when playing music files. It was verified that I have correct sound card and drivers, however, the software for playing media was for a more recent CPU. So, I tried Puppy 4.3 as suggested and it worked well for mp3 files, however it doesn't have ethernet card modules. Hence, I tried to get Gxine and its dependent library xine-lib into quirky. This failed as two files that dependencies for xine-lib were not available. Knowing all this is a good educational experience indeed. Also, puppy support users chatted freely about other things also in general that was quite enjoyable. Lastly, I got no support to remove proxy as no one was sure how to do this. So, I was assited to disable the firewall but it didn't help. After much thought and searching the net, I found few steps but they all didn't help. Finally, I decided to make a new pupsave file and this resolved the issue. So, I have two pupfiles to start from, one when I need to use net radio this is smaller and the other when I don't. I was adviced that Puppy Quirky 1.4 was sort of like a trial distro and things on it were experimental, atleast some things, hence perhaps the poor support in these areas. This is understandable and OK as it got to be a learning experience, it is not a paid service where fast, good results are expected. Lastly, I can download and listen to music etc., on my mp3 player. Learning to use proxy and firewall better, helps to use older PC as router etc., with Puppy Linux. I spent several hours on this and had to reboot many times, the end result is not worth it, however the learning experience was quite valuable. |
I went to salvation army store to see old IT stuff they had. They had food processor, juicer etc., but no PC, these were in storage due to renovations. They had a bunch of floppy disks, some were twisted but they wanted 7bucks for it all. I decided to skip it. I will go there again in a few weeks to see what they have.
I accepted one fact today, electronics is growing fast and the old will mostly be thrown, can't save them all. I can only do my little. Accepting this gives peace. |
A lot of thrift stores here won't even take PCs as a matter of policy. To be fair, many of them probably don't have staff skilled enough to determine what's worth keeping on the shelves or how much to charge for it.
|
From my post that did not show up at Murga Forums. They have a spam filter which I guess did not like my Urls. Just did this since you said
Quote:
Quote:
http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/...-old-gear.html http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/...indows-95.html http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/...on-compaq.html Like I said. I sold them. The oldest thing I have anymore in a bag is a small netbook circa http://tinypic.com/useralbum.php?ua=...1Bbb5mUQ%3D%3D That is P66Hz ,12MB of ram, Battery still hulds a charge and everything works that used to have Windows 95 and is a dialup Netbook. I install Blue Flops since it has a 2.6 kernek in the hopes of procuring a 16bit etherent or wireless pcmcia card in my area but decided it could become a antique an d go to a collector eventually instead/ My Oldest working one now is a IBM A22m Laptop I used to run Puppy Dingto on. A P1000hz ,512MB ram,Floppy,DVDROM . But it runs AntiX 12 on it now. Battery is good and it runs a wireless G pcmcia 32bit cardbus. I have another IBM A22M that works, (kinda) Pentium 500hz, 256MB of ram, Bad Battery, Screen lights up white but works OK with external CRT. I run a Lighthouse 32 bit that I am not sure is available or not plus supported anymore. Whew, :) , Long post for a Friday. Have you checked out http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=65544 Happy Trails and Good Luck Since I posted last Friday. I picked up a Netgear MA401 Wireless B PCMCIA 16bit Card Bus for that netbook in Pictures. Funny part is. My wireless and everyone else's is WPA encrypted. This 16 bit wireless card is not wpa capable as far as i know. I used Kill Disk on the 2 (50MB/10MB) drives that showed on the floppy disk. Blueflops might have another go at it but I don't hold out much hope for wpa less card and dialup 16bit modem card (which I also have) is not a option either. Still makes a nice working antique on the shelf though. |
Quote:
Here at this store, books, cds, viny records, VHS etc., got to be so much that they couldn't even handle the influx of these. So, they gave them away at 10 for 5 bucks. Still there is quite a bit. In the future 10 or 15 years down the road, eWaste is expected to increase exponentially. Then they might have to get an IT expert, atleast as a volunteer. Books were sorted and shelved here by retired senios at this store, they enjoyed doing it and did thison a volunteer basis. |
Quote:
Yes, I did wonder why your post appeared empty in the Puppy forum. So far I focused more on desktops only, your post tells me the need to focus on laptops also. More of these can be expected also down the road. Personally, I feel I have enough computing power to last me a life time. However, it helps to keep an eye open. Maybe I can assist someone else who needs this assistance. |
I also wish to add, that I have dumpster dived before. However, these days the trash to treasures ratio is very low locally. It mostly, just cardboard boxes etc., So, one has get more creative and specific like networking directly with folks who upgrade often and/or wish to declutter etc.,
Thanks again all for the outstanding support here. Based on the recent posts I will watch videos of Atari PC, opening a laptop and installs of Deli Linux on older PC etc., on youtube in the future. |
My older PC seems far powerful compared to this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVwfDA4watU This quite old machine also seems to work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVZrL4k1los This is also interesting to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...0q3IS5Tyk&NR=1 :) |
Helpful Videos regarding Deli Linux Install.
http://delicate-linux.net/video/0.1/...a2-Install.mp4 http://delicate-linux.net/video/0.1/...ha2-Update.mp4 http://delicate-linux.net/video/0.1/...alpha2-GUI.mp4 |
25 Amazing facts about old computers, the more we understand them, the better we can use them:
http://oldcomputers.net/25-random-things.html |
I went to salvation army stores again to return a bunch of old clothes. They let me have 23 floppy disks for $2.99, one is damaged, original pack had 25. Still a good deal. They also had a few keyboards on sale (PS2) for 3 bucks. This is not a bad idea but I have enough already. Also saw a mouse and wheel for gaming. Will go there again sometime and see.
Also vintage computing is gaining ground. Please check the last item in this page: http://www.bankrate.com/lite/smart-s...nvestment.aspx Now I recollect that I had bought an Electric typewriter for 300 bucks or so in 1993 or so, it had a floppy disk drive, word processing and spread sheet software. I am almost sure cartridges for this were stopped a long time ago. I gave this up in 1994 when I had to move. It worked quite good and was a pleasure to use. The one thing about real old PCs is that they don't have ethernet card and USB ports (eg., my old i386, Pentium 1 etc.,) So, they will good for mostly offline work today. Hooking them online will probably cost more than they are worth now. On a different note, I went thru Deli Linux Setup, it is not recognizing my mouse, hope this issue can be resolved. |
The pi is basically like a netbook without a KB and mouse. Certainly makes me wonder why it took sooo long before these were made. For now tho, I am happier with my older PC and will not be interested in anything else unless it was a magnificient deal.
|
I had a rule before, no audio, video or pictures on my PC.(I used other devices such as cd player, DVD player etc., for entertainment) Text files only mainly. This rule greatly helped reduce my uptime. As a result, this PC was used only to write brief messages online and get some files. So, no wonder this old PC still has a lot of time left on it. I will begin to follow this rule again. Then uptime daily will vary from 3 hrs to 1hr per day. On somedays, I will not even boot this PC. This will help avoid eye candy online and focus on real life more while saving power, increasing lifespan of IT equipment etc.,
Here is an interesting list of Floppy based Operating Systems. Big contrast compared to the bloatware of today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...rating_systems |
I think at this point in time the bundled software included in most distros is too bloated for a 586-class processor. If you still wanted to use it, I'd try putting OpenBSD on it. Otherwise, I'd turn it into a packet filter/firewall or just recycle it.
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:30 AM. |