There's a sort of movement to go off the grid in the U.S.A., these days with "unreliable" power and rising energy costs. For those of us not already off the grid.

At the end of the day, computers and networks don't make crops grow. And other in real life stuff that actually matters. And in many parts of this country, trash is still burned, not picked up.

This P3 tower makes loud sounds in the early morn. when I boot it.
Will use it as long as it lasts.

So, to respond to this fact about plants and crops. These grow on their own
by nature. No one can make them grow. However, we can enhance their
growth for our benefit. A spade or a tractor used in farming is also technology.
They on their own don't grow plants, trees etc., However, by plowing soil,
assisting harvest etc., these greatly enhance agriculture. Similarly, computers
don't grow foods. However, they are greatly used in agriculture, botany etc.,
these days. They help in farming, keeping track of things, logistics, food
distribution, PCs help in Engg., that make equip. for agricultural use etc.,
IT helps a lot in medicine also these days.

Agreed prep. is a vital topic. However, this is a linux forum and this
will go way off topic unless it involved linus. There is an off-topic forum
here for general chat and prepping can still be discused there for those
with that interest.

My grandpa had an Organic farm. He told me when I was real small that even
few generations ago, paper was not readily available and some wrote on
leaves(olai chuvadi) and stones even. The entire village had one main radio
that all used to gather and listen to at the end of the day. Broadcast was
just a few hours a day. After this, folks will discuss the news. No TV.
Also, there were just one or two chess sets for the village, few bought
newspapers, there was a small library sort off with one copy of major newspapers
that folks used to read. It was not regular if I recollect on weekdays, was
more regular on weekends. A lot of info. was passed by word of mouth. Not all
homes there had power, only a few rooms in my granpa's house had power. They
used a hand fan mostly to cool themselves when it was real hot in summer.
All this was ok and normal, I didn't reall miss electricity much then.
But everyone was very deeply happy and content. So, for me this is prep. is a part
of my early life. So, see how off topic this can get. However, I wanted to
share this here as it gives a glimpse at how life was without TV even.

This huge influx of tech in our lives does cause a huge vacuum in our lives,
we are cut off from the energy of nature and natural sorroundings. That is
why I go for walks a lot, write a lot with pens and ball pens. (The first
fountain pens I used didn't have reservoir, they had to be dipped in ink
after writing a few words.) I also paint and sketch a lot, landscapes, nature
fish a lot. Of late, I love color pencils and admire them a lot. My art helps
bring the countryside to the City. It is just amazing and I love it.

So, even tho I have worked in IT and have this thread, I have an offline
life that is even more bright, amazing, deep, gives great joy and satisfaction.
If I were to focus on just Linux and PCs all the time, I will be in hospital
quickly. :)

There were two offers for older laptops for me initially on freecycle. However,
later the owners decided to keep them for themselves and use them. I am
very happy with this decision they took.

The first one had a loose RAM and so was not booting, this was easily
fixed with my assistance over email. This was a Dell Latitude Cpi:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/24060/article.html

The second was an IBM A22m:
http://www.cnet.com/laptops/ibm-thin...7-5600305.html
the owner decided to keep this PC for her kids.

So, am glad that these PCs will be used again.

Also, speaking interms of prep. I asked a guy from Argentina
in the Puppy Linux IRC Channel, why didn't you buy a new PC,
this sounds so old. He said he is quiet poor. After the bailout in Argentina,
he mostly survived with just rice and hot sauce., that too small servings.
Sometimes, there was nothing to eat and he just went hungry.
Even professionals were dumpster diving there then.
I was really touched to hear all this. No wonder he appreciates older PCs.
He seemed pretty comfortable and knowledgable with linux.
So, if such things were to happen, Linux can be part of the solution as
opposed to being a burden as long as there is power.

2 examples of practical uses of Linux\IT in agriculture\food:

1. Free Ebook on Culinary Herbs:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21414...-h/21414-h.htm

2. Local advt. for Free Food to give away:
http://montreal.fr.craigslist.ca/zip/3740204836.html

3. Here is an extra: Tons of Recipes on the net. These help a lot with
cooking.

Linux\IT\Old PCs are great tools, knowing how to use them and using
them well will give great benefits.

A few comments on prepping. Since, this topic came up here in the form of off-grid
living etc., I just wanted to share some related points. Preppers are using PCs
and info. online to connect with other preppers, learn etc., So, again, Linux,
old PC, IT stuff is good for this.

There are fears of North Korean news these days. Also, suddenly sink holes
are forming:
http://englishrussia.com/2011/11/18/...isappear-soon/
Even Govts. can do little to prevent such stuff.

This world is not any person's permanent home. Sooner or later we all have to
leave this place. We can escape economic collapse, natural disasters etc.,
however disease and old age no one can escape. Understanding and preparing
for this is the ultimate in prep.

On a lighter side, I hope this site atleast encourages a few here to do
Linux, Old PC, IT Sketches. Will be nice to see:
http://www.urbansketchers.org

Speaking of Prep. Look at Moldova pictures here:
http://englishrussia.com/2012/11/22/...e/#more-114316

Again, thanks to Linux and Old PC, this is link is brought here.
Prepp companies scare folks and then offer different products.
But no matter what they do, nothing comes close to natural prep. like
in the link above. Look at the poor Cubans who used to come by boat
to Miami. They had almost nothing but still made it. Too many prepp
products out there, how many are actually being used ?

Today is Sunday, forget IT, forget hardware/software, just enjoy those
pictures, the beauty, nature, scenary of Moldova. Find pleasure in
being lost for a few moments. :)

Wrong :tisk:

You still can install Debian/Ubuntu and many more on PowerPC hardware :)

http://mac.linux.be/

(But yes, web browsing will be painfully slow on low end Macs)

Thanks a lot for this info./link. Using a light web browser like Dillo or Midori will be easy
once Linux is running and this will greatly help with a good browsing speed\experience.

Few other interesting related stuff discussed here so far:

If you feel that your PC is demon posessed read this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/03...possessed_pcs/
Some solutions:
1. Save vital info. to a flash drive.
2. Wipe out the hard drive
3. Use Linux Live CD
4. If this doesn't help, then give PC away and tell the reason to the new owner.
5. If new owner also has same issues, then recycle it.

The push for new/better PC never ends. In the future they will be pushing the 64bit PC with upto
128Gb Ram. So the hardware keeps growing. It is good to see what they are pushing.
http://www.tech-forums.net/forums/f9...it-x64-171390/

Article saying desktop linux is dead:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/20799...m_is_dead.html
The move for DRM and more movies etc., never ends. I rarely watch movies.
Moreover, local libraries offer lots of movie DVDs for borrowing. However,
there is no time to be glued to screen. Better for me to use older PC
with very limited uptime.

Someone offered me a external USB cd burner on freecycle yesterday but I decided to
let others a shot at it first. I have this on other devices, also don't
feel like I am in for this sort of long commute. I am thankful for being
considered first tho.

More Comments on Prepping
There are so many eBooks on Gutenberg that can be used for prepping.
Just for growing vegetables etc., there are lots of eBooks.
Also, on other subjects like rural living etc.,
To read all these boooks alone will take two life spans I feel, so one
has to choose the most practical and vital aspects.
So, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, these books have been
written by people with lots of practical experience in those days.

One thing about the Prep crowd I feel is that they feel life is
permanent illussion. Even with best prepp efforts, max. a person
can survive for 20 years extra and 5 to 10 on average. I don't
have hard facts for this but this is just my opinion. If there is not a
good community to find suitable mates and no good long term support system,
then in one generation max. it will end.

Very nice article on how Hacker's Protect Themselves:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2333527.html
This is good to know. One tip I have to share is that don't keep your
PC connected all the time to net. Connect only if needed and briefly,
do stuff on net as fast as possible. If going on chat, or listening to radio etc.,
keep browsers closed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service

There is so much to learn about social networking services from above
site and it is huge. Does anyone here still use BBSes, if yes then for what ?

Apart from facebook, twitter, IRC and online forums, what other social
networking services do you use ? Does any of them not work with older PCs ?

Thank You.

If something doesn't work with older PCs, and linux I wish to be the first to admit it.
Facebook doesn't seem to work with light weight browsers. I have tried
Dillo, links2 and Lynx so far. However, I rarely use it, so this is not an issue
for me.

Even in Linux there are massive changes and fast developments. This weeks
distrowatch weekly is filled with massive news:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20130415

It is an interesting read for all interested in this thread.

Debain project has a new leader from the above newsletter. He is focused
on grid, cloud, peer to peer computing etc., This means we can expect
more older Debian OSes to slowly disappear. Grab them if interested.
I wish to be sincere here about my drawbacks. I share a lot here but as
long as my PC is working ok, I am not too concerned about other things.
In the longer run this is very poor approach from past experience.
However, there is a sea if not an ocean of info. here and there is no way
a small person can try and use all this.

Also, there are mention of new file systems in the above page that are
also very good to read and understand the future of file systems.

As an aside, local store is offering 32Gb flash drives on sale for 10 bucks !!
Even a few years ago, I got 2Gb flash drives for 35 bucks with taxes.
So, there is phenomenal growth in IT hardware and software. I don't
have real need for this, so will wait it out. At this rate, by Christmas of
2014, we can expect 64Gb flash drive for 10 bucks even. This low price
is to attract clients to store I feel, I hope their retail sales are not too bad.
The reason this is good news for old PCs with Linux is that even if the
hard drive crashes, use Live CD with this USB and it will work like a
hard drive that is good to go. Even if any parts fail in this old PC and it
can't be used again, removing this USB drive and using on
another old PC is very simple. :)

Some related interesting links for discussion here:
Red Paper Clip Story:
http://www.townhttp://www.townofkipl...perclip-story/
US Army Cyber Command
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_..._Cyber_Command

The first link is an amazing experience of someone who bartered a red
paper clip all the way upto a home in one year. This shows the power of
barter. If he can barter a paper clip, then with our knowledge of linux
we must be able to atleast barter a USB Cable or something slightly better.
There is a very vital lesson here.

Second link, I am sure they are not just focusing on MS at Cyber Command.
This shows the power of knowing Linux in different organizations for
career also.

The third point is about Futureshock, this was a very famous old book.
All the massive change we are seeing is creating a lot of futureshock.
Most of this is coming from IT and electronics.
With linux and old PCs in IT, we can buffer the effects of this quite a bit.
The results of this are priceless.

I just returned home after a 5 hour trip, most of it on a train route I have never
taken before. Thanks, to freecycle, a very kind lady and her family,
I now have a Dell Insipirion 5100 that shutsdown after overheating. It appears
broken, a part of the case is missing, DVD ROM drive plastic cover comes
out when pulled. This is an amazing and perfect laptop to try many things.
They were adviced to recycle this laptop but gave it on freecycle and I am
very grateful for this. I also got some xmas Greeting Cards, 2KBs PS2,
3 Mouse (1 USB, 2 are PS2 and one is missing the ball and bottom cover)
Still glad to get all these.

On going to destination, I missed a stop as I didn't know how exactly
the train doors worked and was infront of a wrong door. Then, I
decided to walk back as the weather was wonderful and this was a good
decision, lots of small homes, clear sky view, very small shopping
plazas, almost no traffic, it was wonderful. The train journey was also
nice.

I will allow the laptop to dry a bit, try it and update later. The rain was
unexpected, there was a parade with police patrol and I didn't
wish to stop and cover the laptop. Had a raincoat in bag that could have
used. There are two comments to make, first is that when going to
pick something from someone on freecycle, always have extra bags.
These come in very handy. The recycling bags sold in stores for even
upto 5 bucks are very good for these but are usually a lot cheaper
at 2 to 3 bucks. The second is this, the items are free but consider the
time involved in picking it up and setting it up. Time is valuable also.
No point in asking for everything in freecycle, even if these are given,
one would be spread thin in terms of time trying pickup these items.
Keeping a list of needed items helps in this regard.

I look in on your thread on a regular basis. Just some tips.
Use 90% rubbing alcohol as cleaning solvent when needed (not on the screen though). Contact cleaner melts pc board material and plastic in some cases. Qtips are good to keep around also

I have a air compressor with a regulator to bring air pressure down to like 30psi. If no air compressor, a can of compressed air from the store will suffice.

Hopefully the overheating issue is just dirt and dust in the laptop. I would also invest in something like this. I already have one. Sounds like a thorough cleaning of that laptop is in order before you try to use it regular like.


Broken plastic can be fixed with JB Weld/2 part expoxy, a Qtip, and a steady hand. Like I showed you in fixing old gear on that busted IBM laptop corner near the power plug.

Be delicate and patient when working on laptops. PDF Service Manual for Dell 5100 and others. (Download)

Thanks for the tips. Here is an update on this laptop. After taking some rest,
I removed all the screws. It seems stuck in center, needs a special screw
driver that I don't have, this is below the memory module and so seems
stuck. Lots of dust in fan area, this was cleaned as best as possible by gently
sliding the plastic coverup as much as possible. Unable to remove the
memory module, will have to learn from youtube how to do this. (Youtube
is a challenge on older PCs, will have to figure this out.)

Then, I put all screws back, took some rest and tried to boot it. No display
on screen. Display is ok on external monitor tho. It has windows 2000.
DVD drive seems busted and it will not eject. Also, I didn't use it much,
just checked out a few basic things, didn't even start browser.
CPU temp. when I first noticed it was 60C, then it went to 65C, I ensured
that the vents are not being covered but still didn't help.
I just turned it off. For a first try this is ok.

Issues to resolve:
1. Try to open it well
2. Checkout why CPU temp is getting so high.
I might have to remove CPU fan and really clean the area well
or see if a new fan is needed.
3. Try to press eject button on DVD drive and see if it ejects.
4. Try to resolve the LCD display issue.

Possible Outcomes:
1. If above issues can be resolved, then it is ok to use as a laptop.
2. Otherwise, it is bad to even use as a desktop.
3. Can't remove parts safely with cover on, just Ram perhaps.
4. This gives a chance for a lot of creating thinking with this laptop.

Without opening this laptop, I checked again by just powering it up. DVD drive
ejects now, however it will not boot from puppy linux DVD, could here
DVD spin.

The main issue on this laptop is that the fan is not working at all. Since,
a lot of dust was found around this area before, it is believed that
there is more inside the
fan area that is blocking the fan severely. Laptop has to be fully opened
and this area needs to be cleaned very well. If this doesn't help, then a new
CPU fan is needed. Otherwise, the CPU may simply burn out with time.

This laptop below has same steps as mine, need to try them later:
http://danandsherree.com/2005/04/02/...nspiron-11.php

Using the instructions at site above, I was able to remove the fan unit
fully, clean it very carefully with water, then oiled it with some mineral oil.
After a few tries, it works ok now. However, old cement on cpu is fully
dry and new coating is needed. Will wait on this for now. Even after some
use, CPU temp is getting to 70C, but fan worked well and got the temp.
down. Display issue is solved, appears the LCD connection came loose
when it was dropped, plugging this back in carefully resolved this issue.
DVD ROM verified to be working. All in all, this is functional for now, most
observed issues seems to be from when laptop was dropped. It is
quite heavy to carry around tho. Tab key and N keys are missing on he KB.
Also, the KB bends upwards a bit, but this can be dealt with. CPU fan speed
is not detected by resident software, not desirable but can't be resolved.

Now, the real issues are the cement for the CPU and to try to get to boot
it with Linux. Will see how it is set to boot in the setup and then try to set
it to boot from DVD if possible. Also, will be good to try Slitaz Linux
low ram version on this first if puppy is not working. Fan needs to be
observed more to see if there is a loose connection, if not why is it not
working sometimes. Also, need to watch youtube videos on installing
memory modules in this laptop. Lastly, still not sure where exactly the
hard drive is, need to learn this also. All in all, I am really glad that I decided
to get this laptop, it has been worth it so far, just for the learning experience.
Will also be good to learn, how to remove, replace laptop LCD screen
as these get cracked sometimes. However, this can also be reserved for
future.

I saw pictures on net, on how to remove memory module, but it seems
really stuck on this laptop, will not mess with it. Saw pictures on net
also of where laptop harddrives are. LCD screen change learning reserved
for later.

No Linux OS boots from DVD on this laptop. However, puppy quirky 1.4
booted easily from USB key on it. This is another very good progress.

On return from collecting this laptop yesterday, I saw a lot of ads
downtown for older laptops starting from Pentium 4. I checked with a
friend and he said, everything is more expensive these days, not all
parents are rich, laptop is needed for Univ./School these days, hence
the demand for older laptops. This makes sense and I am very glad this
demand exists. Lesser chance for laptops to be thrown in trash.

Back to my used laptop,
, apart from the journey time of 5 hours, I spent another 8 hours on this
laptop. However, it is a rewarding experience. Next time, for similar issues,
I hope to be faster. This is a lesson learned for life. Replace of hard drive,
memory and LCD display on laptop will still be learning experiences for me.

I am a bit tired, and appears I need a break from PCs itself. So, if I am absent
you will know why.

As usual, thanks for reading this thread and keep your comments coming.
All comments are appreciated and present me a learning experience.

Didn't wish to share this here before as it was unsure. But now that this
has happened am ok with sharing this.

I got FIVE VERY OLD LAPTOPS FOR FREE thanks to freecycle.
Also, got a number of drives like Syquest, Jaz etc., and some media.

This person worked in IT and is moving. Hence, the decision to give all this
way. This person is very nice, warm, friendly and helpful. This person in the
past offered a lot of IT stuff to a local company that sells PCs and then
recycles the older ones for free. However, after seeing my freecycle post
this person decided to offer them to me. I have to make one or more trips again to get more stuff.

So basically, use this as an example and try to connect with folks who
work in IT, even used IT stores, IT recyclers, local IT vendors just chat
warmly, make friends with them, see what they do with old unwanted
stuff. Dumpster diving in these stores is also good. If it works, then
why waste it ?

Note: Please don't ask me for free stuff. I will not mail them etc., Look
in your area locally, these tips are more than sufficient. I follow them
and they work well.

Here is info. on one company FREE recycling service for reference:
http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marke...-services.html

I have re-applied what you refer to as cement. Artic Silver.



My 7 page thread from 2008 on it.

Maybe use cd disk instead of a dvd disk in that drive. Lazer Lens may be dirty also. I don't know if I mentioned I keep this around to clean dvdrw and cdrw drives.

After I posted. I saw a thread on here just started about lens cleaning.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...cs-4175458682/

Thanks for your tips again.
The official name is: THERMAL PASTE, the more of Arctic ice one buys, the more
the savings. Will be nice if I can find a half used tube or so on Freecycle
perhaps. Atleast worth a try.

I have the CD cleaner somewhere. However, the DVDrom works ok with a
windows DVD. So I feel it is working ok but just not working with Linux DVDs
Strange but will have to figure this out.

Last night I realized two of these PCs are really old and don't have an
RJ45 socket for wired net connection. They have just dialup modems.
But still good to use them just as such, more for text reading, like a
super heavy, glowing text reader :))

I was offered a desktop PC recently by one of my contacts and wanted to
know why I was considered again. He said I was fast to collect it and polite.

He used to give them to nonprofits before. However, these days he has
the following issues with them as they want:
1. Free delivery and no gas money even
2. No Receipts for tax deduction
3. Full free installation of OS and programs
4. Full Support for lifetime of these PCs

So he has stopped giving these to them.

Here is my personality/approach in this regard when collecting items
from freecycle or just about anyone else:
1. Be friendly, humble and polite
2. Listen more and smile
3. Reflect and comment briefly on what they say
4. Eventho it is a free item, try to treat it as a barter and give
something in return they might like and use(I give my mini
abstract ptg.)
5. Even if enroute if I ask someone directions and they are helpful,
in the future, I will give one of these mini abstract ptgs., to them also.
6. Avoid being negative or condescending etc., in any ways. Karma is
there, what goes around, comes aroung.
7. Try to assist them, make it convenient for them etc., as much
as possible.
8. If you find useful info., they will appreciate even in future, email it to them.

Here is a tip I just got. If you buy a product, soon after coming home,
scan the receipt in a scanner or take a digital picture of it.
Store all these in a separate folder. This way, even if you have issues
with your item and the original receipt fades, you can still take a printout
of the scanned image. Quite a few receipts tend to fade these days I find,
also, this tip helps to keep the receipts organized.

This helps having to trash old IT stuff with issues what are still in warranty
where the receipt has faded.

Here is an idea to build a train from an old PC:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3414.html

DOLLAR + STORE IT ACCESSORIES DEALS
For the fast few months, $ stores locally have been carying card readers,
USB HUBS
Mini Mouse
Mouse Pad
CD/DVD Media etc.,

It is very advisable to take a look at these stores atleast once every 3 months
as new products can be expected. If you see anything good, grab a few
more of these, as sometimes products are discontinued. The reason
these IT products at $+ stores are better than freecycle is that in
freecycle, one has to request this product, wait for a response, arrange
convenient time, then pick up the item. Time is money and all the tasks
said above will take a lot of time, specially if the pickup is far. So, compared
to all this, it is more economical to grab the item in $+ store if available.
If you find an good IT product in $ stores, please share here. This will be
a good learning experience for all.

On a different note, Futureshop offers exchange program for older IT stuff
more info. on it at: futureshop,ca They give discount upto 50 bucks or so
for old items. If you know someone who uses this service often or plans
to use it, connect with them and see if something can be worked out if
the items they are offering interests you.

Don't miss the free/barter columns in craigslist and kijiji. I see more TV,
furniture deals on kijiji locally but one never knows. Even if it is not
possible to see it on a daily basis, have a glance atleast once a week,
feel its flow and try to get a few items, even if small for a practise. Then
take it from there.

If you read Levy's book you will find that the true definition of "hacker" is one who is an artisan able to create and mould systems to do their bidding. Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and, to an extent, Bill Gates are hackers.
Of course with such intellect and skill comes curiosity (which breeds more skill of course) and that can lead to trouble when curiosity comes up against the false barriers of law. People like Jon Johannsen (DVD John) also hack so that they can legitimately do something that existing technology prevents due to corporate greed.

It should have 8 MB ram. Not that it makes a world of difference...

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=2590


Edit: my wife has a Palm Zire 72 that doubles as a smaller camera and mp3 player than
the IBM Lenovo Ideapad I bought her. You can use bluetooth on those palms with linux.

That machine outdoes my "netbook" in some regards. I've been using a Toshiba 460CDT for the last while- I've been documenting my experiments here. Right now I'm running DSL 4.1 on it, and it does great, DSL actually runs really snappy on it. I have an ethernet card working with it, so I do have some network capability as well.
If you want to keep using it, great! Experiment with the super lightweight distros. If you want something to use more often (sounds like your machine is in pretty poor phyiscal shape) go with the raspberry pi.

With all due respect, these posts look like spam. They're not related to GNU/Linux in any way, much less related to the thread title.

Henceforth, I will be sharing anything remotely related to
Linux and Old PCs or offtopic in my Blog here. Please be sure to check it out.

Yesterday, I got a TV tuner card and 2 USB-Soundcards for free from a freecycle
contact. These are quite old and unfortunately there are no drivers for these.
The good thing about the USB sound cards are these can even be used
on a laptop with USB port on it. Never even knew these existed. The TV tuner card
card doesn't have a remote, also it will not work without a digital converter box
I was adviced. There are no brand names or logos on these items. Will try
these on my old PC in the future and share here how it goes. I really
hope to find some sort of linux drivers for these in the future.

More Limitations of this older PC observed.

XTPAINT
Using xtpaint software, I tried to do a digital art yesterday. There is a very nice
feature called the smudge function that is almost like an eraser but much
lighter and slowly allows to mix paints. It has a standard feature of the puppy
linux I have and worked in all other PCs. However, it doesn't work on this one.
No wonder such old PCs are not suitable for Schools these days.

ONLINE BANKING
For online banking, purchases and otehr similar financial transactions, this PC
is very slow and too insecure. So, it can't be trusted for these tasks
completely.

NET RADIO
There is a software in this called the stream tuner. It is old, so has the older
shoutcast web-site, none of those stations load. Only Xiph stations load.
Moreover, adding stations manuallyhas not worked so far. Listening to
international stations is interesting, due to limitations mentioned above,
I only get Russia, European and American radio stations on this radio.
However, those that comeup work quite well.

Puppy Linux has an option to Lock Screen from the desktop by clicking on the
lock icon. This feature has to be setup with a password. This entire feature
doesn't work on this old desktop, making it less secure in yet another aspect.

This desktop was freezing often recently. All personal files were transferred to
a single directory. This issue seems to have disappeared after this. Will
monitor this further.

Streamtuner was found to use a lot of CPU and Memory resources. So, I am
learning to grab the Netradio URLs from streamtuner and use them in
PupRadio. Pupradio is a lot more efficient for net radio.

I spoke with a contact today who has a few clients using a Pentium Pro
200 mmx PC as a NAT server. The P1 and older PCs are more limiting
as they don't have network port, USB ports, DVD Rom etc.,

A great thing about these older laptops and PCs in bad shape is the security issue. They look so bad that no one wants them, even for free. So a lot less chance that they will be stolen.
There are ways to mend them with superglue etc., However, unless it is vital, I prefer to leave them as such. The more new, the more attractive the laptop the higher the chance it will be stolen. I have been using my older PC often, this one is a P3 tower from 2001. The laptops are more of a
learning experience, I prefer desktops for regular use. In three years the pi will be used, in six years or so we will see them on freecycle I feel. Also, other similar cheaper, better devices are expected in the future.

Linux for Poverty.
Amazing project. Interesting to see the big turnover of
PCs here and the fact that approx. 50% are not usable for students.
Also, I haven't considered the fact that a CRT monitor can topple over and
be a physical hazard before. Comments at the end are also very interesting:
http://linuxlock.blogspot.ca/2010/06...minus-one.html
Best part is that they also use linux. Hope such projects expand to other
places also slowly.

For my part, I have to admit that my old PC is working so good, that I have
grown complacent with learning more in this regard and focusing on other
things in life specially as the weather is getting better to be outdoors.

Edited to add:
This related blog is also quite interesting:
http://linuxlock.blogspot.ca/
They seem to prefer SolusOS which needs 4G hard drive space at the minimum.
I don't see the need for such big a hard drive space for entire PC, now just for the OS.
If this is what the nonprofits are offering, then most of the older PCs will be recycled.
I am like a dinosaur and will be lucky if I find 100 folks or so who use such old PCs in North America.
Infact, the number may even be as low as 15 to 20.

I just tried to play a CD on this P3 tower. The good thing about this is it has
two optical drives, so I can use the first CDrom drive for linux live cd and the
second for a music CD. This is yet another good thing about older PCs.
If you come across a spare optical drive, install it in your older PC, then
you can use these to do various tasks. The CD I loaded is a piano solo from
the dollar store. It took well over 5 minutes to load and was very slow to start,
however, it is playing it now and is very relaxing. Need to explore this feature
more. The software for this is pMusic and is a part of puppy linux OS.

Edit: Wow, I am glad that I decided to play it safe and look at process info.
when the CD was playing. Almost all memory was being used and
CPU usage at 100% when the CD was playing. Appears this is too much
effort for this old PC. Best to rip the CD\DVD and then play it from file.
Don't want this PC crashing.

To rip this audio CD it took almost an hour on this P3 tower.
Also, the file is quite big in mp3 format.
Next time if I have to do this, will try using the ogg format,
these are smaller in size. However, it is playing quite well for now
and this is pleasing to listen, old PC zen. :)

I feel I will benefit from buying a 16 or 32G USB flash drive to use with this
PC. This will be more peaceful as I can have a variety of audio etc., to listen
on this. Will reserve this for the future.

On a different note, I have to use a USB hub with this PC as there are only
two USB ports on this one. The end of this is heavy and due to its
weight, specially when other devices are attached, seems to be damaging
the wire slowly and create loose contact. I got this from dollar plus store
for 2 bucks. Will have to try duct tape on it in the future to hold it secure
to see if this helps. Another project for the future.

Edit: Even if I learn a new software or a hardware feature on this PC once
a week or once a month, it will still be a good learning experience in a year.
I don't have to be at this all the time.

On the hardware note, the PSU fan is making noise. It will be wise to
clean and oil it down the road to avoid future issues.

My uptime has slowly increased after I started using this old PC.
All my learning, browsing no matter how demanding for the day is done in
about an hour to an hour and a half. However, when used as a media center
this PC got an uptime of even ten hours recently listening to mp3s
and also streaming radio.

Today, I had a very sad experience, this PC stopped working when I tried to
rip a CD. It stressed me so much that I overate and went to sleep. I reminded
myself later that all this is an exercise for fun and I can always use a better
PC if needed. So, I booted this PC fresh and tried to rip the CD to ogg format
and now it seems to be working. So the lesson learned is that for hard
tasks, best to reboot PC after some rest and use it for the hard task first
before trying out anything else on it. Will see how it finishes the rip, the
size of the ogg files and if they play on this PC later.

Wow, it ripped the CD very well in about 25 minutes for the ogg format !!
Quite impressed. However, the file sizes are still larger than expected.
Perhaps by setting lower values for the bitrate etc., I could have reduced
then further. Still it is too much to store on this small flash drive.

If use a 16G USB drive, I can covert this PC into an excellent media center.
Last week, they were on sale for 10 bucks each. A friend adviced me to grab
3 of them atleast and I decided not to. This week I see a real need for one of
them, however they cost 13 bucks a piece now. Will reflect on this more, for
now I have the last 100 Mb or so free on my 2Gb USB drive. If this PC
crashes and anything happens to the data on the drive, it will be a
horrible disaster. This will be one another good reason to get a 16Gb
USB drive and backup everything on this USB into that one.
Not backing data is one of the worst things one can do with an older
unreliable PC but I am guilty of it now.

For now, I will enjoy listening to wonderful vocal music by a sweet
talented lady on this PC. I got this CD on the kerb a few months ago,
decided to grab it before the garbage collectors took it.

4GB is a lot when you're talking about ancient P1s and even P2s, but once you get into the P3 era 4GB for the OS isnt that bad.

There will be 1000s, if not 10,000+ of those old systems still in use. Yeah, some of them will even be runnign old win98 installs, and some will have 2k/XP or even BSD/linux.

Running a liveCD requires more resources than an install. You'd have a better result if you installed rather than using a liveCD....

Dont use USB on those old machines if you have any choice in the matter. USB sucks CPU cycles, its not that much of an issue with newer, faster machines but on old ones..ycuk. USB 1.0/1.1 will also be very slow.

Things may have changed, but last I checked MP3 decoding used less resources than ogg vorbis. BTW, using MP3 CBR (constant bit rate) uses less CPU than VBR (variable bit rate) and bigger files use less CPU tha smaller files. 320K CBR MP3 probably the best choice for older machines, aside from space issues. Flac is by far the best of the lossless codecs, the others use much more CPU for decoding.

Who will be using these older PCs in North America and for what reason ? Even
a P4 gives far better performance and is so cheap. Infact, folks are even
starting to give P4s without hard drive for free slowly here.

There is no hard drive on this PC, so have to use a Live CD with USB.

I will try Flac format next time. Thanks a lot for all this info.

Edit: I found this thread with win 98 users on older PCs. The main reasons are for special multimedia
software(audio, scanning) and nostalgia purposes.
http://blog.oldversion.com/why-use-windows-98/

A lot of CNC machine users also seem to be using win 3.1 PCs. This is
quite interesting to know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control
This means for sure there are a lot of older PCs in use for specific purposes
this I agree.

However, for routine use as a regular PC with Linux, still I feel that the number
of older PC users is quite limited. With all the malware around and lack of
support, it would be hard to use the net with older unsupported versions
of Windows like 3.1, 98 etc.,.

This talk of Win 3.1 reminds me that I want a copy of Win 3.11 and Microsoft Bob for playing with in VMs.

I did push this PC to the extreme by adding too many files to the USB drive.
It started to freeze very badly even after reboot. Luckily it didn't crash and
allowed me to delete some big audio files I burned. So, it is working ok for
now again it appears.

There has to be at least 200 million personal computers in north america. Even if only 0.1% of them were old pentium 1-3 systems, thats still 200,000 computers. ;)

Theres still lots of pentium pro, P1, P2 and P3 systems running in odd places, like some IT places. I know of at least 3 here that have old boxes hooked up to the network. At least one of them calls them 'mystery' boxes (whats that box do? I dont know, but if we turn it off the network stops....). Besides CNC there are other industrial/manufacturing places that have systems controlled by old ISA cards. While it was possible to get ISA slots with P4s, they are super rare and were very expensive to buy, so they tend to have older systems as well.

I know of a few people running firewalls on old pentium systems.

Lots of 'legacy gaming' systems around as well.

Early P4s are actually pretty slow, and can in many cases be slower than pentium 3s with lower clockspeeds.

No problem. Flac will use more CPU than MP3, proably about the same or a bit lower than ogg vorbis.

*edit-

Most of those very old systems had no network card installed, so they arent on the net. I wouldnt use an unsuported Win9X or win3.X system on the net at all, but offline it doesnt matter.

Thanks for all the above info. again.

How can a PC be used as a firewall if it is offline ?

Retrogaming seems to be big and this is understandable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrogaming

I knew folks also who liked them but they used emulators.
Retrogaming older PCs server a special purpose and so are
expected to be offline. Nevertheless, they will still be in use, agreed.

EDIT: I wonder what those companies using machines will do, if those old PCs go down or their parts fail ?
I hope they have upgrade plans in place. Even if one uses a PC very carefully, with time, fan, hard drive,
floppy drive etc., will fail. Parts have failed on this older PC that I am using even.

You cant use a computer for a internet firewall if its offline (though it is possible to use one as an internal firewall on a network wthout net access).

BTW, the older systems I know off being used for firewals tend to use smoothwall or a similar linux/BSD distro.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?dis...ion=smoothwall

Retrogaming can work on an emulator, but there are sometimes troubles, like sound or video being bad/unable to work with the game. Its easiest to get a 1990something 'PC' game going with win9X/DOS because thats what the games were designed to work with. Many people remember what they would loved to have had at some point in the past, but could never afford at the time. AWE 64s used to be several hundred dollars, now you can get then 2nd hand for $10-20. Similar situation with video cards, RAM, CPUs.....its not hard to build a whole retrogaming system with 'top of the line' 1990soemthing parts for less than the cost of a modern CPU.

The companies using ISA control cards will just have to find the parts somewhere. Its not just limited to older systems, you can even get i3/i5/i7 DDR3 LGA 1155 Q77 chipset boards with an ISA slot!

http://www.adek.com/ATX-motherboards.html

I havent checked the pricing, but from previous experience I'd guess that board is going to be $500+ US.

Wow, this explains a lot indeed then. Feels good to have things that were
unaffordable in the long term past atleast today for sure.

Just CDROM drives alone costed like 200 bucks + tax when they were new.
No one cares for them today.

By the way, I went to dollar store again today. The number of IT items there
is constantly decreasing, wonder why ? Will be nice to see some old OSes
at the $ store someday :)

Someone offered 5 big boxes of old IT parts on freecycle yesterday. I was considered
for it initially. I thought I could pick and choose what I wanted.
However, they wanted that entire set gone ASAP to make space. So, I was
declined for the present. This is understandable.

I need some special parts and was adviced that I will be considered for these
in the future, this is quite good enough.

Abandonware is also very interesting and exciting. Freedos is a good example
in this regard. So folks into this would also love to use an older PC.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware

not sure if discussing abandonware downloads is allowed here, but i do know where to find a copy.

You can download 3.11 from MS TechNet legally with a subscription.

Sadly neither Windows 3.11 nor even Bob are abandonware. You can get the former direct from MS with a Technet subscription but I admit I'm not sure about the latter.
A colleague did once obtain Windows for Workgroups for me but I sadly couldn't get hold of DOS to run it on and it didn't run on FreeDOS.
One day I'll buy an old copy of DOS and give it a go.

@rvijay: please note forums outside of the "General forum" are meant for technical questions only. Even after cleaning up your (repeated!) excessive amount of posts, what you have posted about and the way you did that does not relate to your original question. Please confine such posts to your personal LQ web log.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

Thanks a lot for moving this thread to the General Forum. You are an awesome mod unSpawn. :)

For those interested in this thread, here is a summary of what happened. This thread solved my technical needs. However, there are still a lot of interesting things about older PCs, I was learning these slowly and others were also sharing here. So, I didn't close this thread. However,
this path didn't suite a technical forum. I had no idea that a thread can be moved to another more appropriate forum. After I was advised of this, I reflected on this for a few days and then requested this thread to be moved to the General Forum. This request was processed almost immediately. So, this thread is open again now.

For my part, I have learned all that is there to learn about older PCs and even a lot more. Also, for the tasks that I am doing currently,
I need to use a more recent browser and hence a more recent PC (from 2006 or so). So, for now I have nothing else new to share here.

However, if you have any info. regarding old PCs, questions or even regarding windows software for older PCs, please feel free to share here.

Thanks in advance and enjoy. :)

I am still using a more recent PC(2006 one).

Here is an interesting link on 10 popular older PCs. For me these are quite old, however recently someone using one such PC was even
online amazingly. These are interesting to know:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/10-most...ory.htm#page=1

Hoping this will get some discussions started here. The most vital thing I have learned from this thread is that sooner or later, all things have to be recycled, nothing is forever.

I always liked that formfactor from computers back in the 80's: One single unit with the keyboard built in that hooked to the TV. Obviously TV screen resolution was a major limiting factor, but these systems were so much more aesthetically pleasing than the beige boxes that followed. I wonder if there's a market for that sort of thing now that HDTV is common? I know a few companies have tried (e.g., the guys who bought the Commodore trademarks).

These days, I even saw net enabled TV advertised. Not sure how it works. So, don't think connecting older PC to TV will be easy. But then again, there is someone somewhere who always manages to do the impossible.

When I bought a new tv a couple years ago, I made sure it had a VGA input. I don't know how long it will be before anything I own has HDMI outputs.

It is easy with the right hardware.

Lots of older nVidia and ATI/AMD video cards have composite video (1 channel), s-video, and/or component video (3 channels) as well as VGA/DVI.

Every TV I have ever seen has one or more of the inputs listed above.

*edit- I was forgetting the really old CRT TVs from the late 70s and earlier. Many of them have none of the inputs listed on them, just an antenna in. However, I believe that its still possible to get them going, you'll just need a VCR.

Soemtimes just having a VGA input can lead to disappointment. The TV here is a 1920x1080 resolution model, has a VGA input, but VGA is limited to 1024x768....

As an aside, I never liked the 'keyboard built in with the main system' setups. I never found them more appealing than the box + sperate keyboard myself, and I disliked the drawbacks (cant move the keyboard as easily, etc..).

#! :D.

I am back to using my old PC again in peace. Listened to some
podcasts yesterday, listening to net radio now.

Eventually, would like to use the old PC to display photos and pictures. I can
sketch these.

One another thing I learned from this thread is that technology changes
every 3 to 5 years, there is no turning the clock back. This change is good
for the economy, job market etc.,

Every LQ member gets a free personal blog (My LQ -> My Blog). This type of post rather belongs there instead of the fora.

Request to Mods to change topic of this thread to: Anything about old PCs, their uses, related OSes and their users.
Since this thread is no longer in the technical forum and in the general forum, this topic change will benefit everyone involved.
Thanks in advance for your understanding and consideration.

Done. Next time please use the report button to request such changes. Also please pay attention to what my fellow forum moderator wrote about your LQ web log. To clarify: rants and monologues (that which doesn't necessarily invite meaningful discussion) should be better off in your LQ web log.