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A Linux Christmas Miracle (In Progress)
I love to work with old hardware, partly out of necessity (I live on Social Security Disability) but also because breathing new life into old hardware is a big part of the fun.
Well I was down to my junkiest, crappiest, oldest computer, a 500 mhz celeron processor, with 255 mb RAM. Yeah, I said 255; apparently it lost a megabyte somewhere.
Well, my neighbor threw out a computer last week, and he gave me his blessing to work with it. He said there was something wrong with the PCU... and indeed, there was more than that wrong with it, but for a discarded computer, it's pretty sweet! A Pentium 4 processor with 2.80 GHX, a gig of RAM, and even a 120 GB hard drive! According to the display when I booted Sidux, it has two P4 processors, but I think that probably indicates multithreading.
It seems to have a problem reading from IDE devices, but it'll read and even boot from a USB hard drive. It doesn't read IDE hard drives at all, but it reads from a DVD burner long enough to boot an INX disk, though not much else. The cool thing about INX is that you can load it to run entirely from RAM (It doesn't use an X server and it's only about 150 mbs.) so once I had it loaded, I was home free. I installed INX to the USB hard drive, then I installed kubuntu-desktop, and then I upgraded from Hardy to Intrepid.
There were some complications, so I thought it might be simpler to install a hard drive that already has Xubuntu installed from an older machine, and then reconfigure X like so:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Now I'm upgrading again from Hardy to intrepid, and next I'm going to install kubuntu-desktop.
I've been working on this for two days, almost nonstop, but when I've actually had it workign for a while, it's been pretty sweet. Can you imagine 2.8 ghz after 500 mhz? Oh, I'll be going to get a second GB of RAM from my brother today. KDE4 sure is awesome on this kind of computer! Yeah, I know, I used to hate KDE4...
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 Originally Posted by blackbelt_jones
...because breathing new life into old hardware is a big part of the fun.
Bang on target. I agree a hundred percent.
Originally Posted by blackbelt_jones
It seems to have a problem reading from IDE devices...
I suggest hooking up a PCI IDE card based on an ITE, JMicron or SiliconImage chip. Or maybe a PCI USB/1394/IDE/SATA/kitchen-sink combo card.
If the mobo can do PCIe, you could even go for something like these: (1) (2).
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You might, however, want to read this before taking the plunge.
Last edited by i845_; 12-16-2008 at 05:21 PM.
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Congrats!
It is always nice to get new toys to play with, isn't it?
Inability to read IDE suggest that controller is bad on the motherboard (or set wrong in the BIOS). In time when you have some extra money to spend, you may want to see if an IDE (or SATA) PCI controller is cheaper than a new mobo.
EDIT => i845 - you type fast... well seems you have two for a IDE controller 
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
-Mark Twain
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Can you imagine 2.8 ghz after 500 mhz?
mostly, I had the full 256mb with my celeron 366@458.
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I love to work with old hardware, ......... because breathing new life into old hardware is a big part of the fun
Me too!
Based on a several towers I inherited over the summer, I'd suggest carefully inspecting the capacitors on the motherboard for signs of bulging tops or leakage, and the caps in the psu for the same. My tally: out of four, one had failing caps on the motherboard (but still working, now has Absolute installed), two had generic psu's with bulging caps. The ones with the funky psu's both had dead cpu's, a Willamette P4 and a Prescott P4, Intel's least loved cpu's.
I've become a believer in quality psu's.
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I love the old beasts also. El cheapo power supplies have tossed me a few curves, too. Look at the things Dance Man said, and , Good luck with the new box.
And for a fleeting second...I was not sure if I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or, a butterfly dreaming I was a man....Lao-tzu
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One of the things I enjoy most about Linux is that it is so ridiculously optimised. Forget about running 2.8GHz after 500MHz, that's child's play on Linux (and most normal users probably won't notice the difference). Try running the Half-Life Dedicated Server (HLDS) on a P100 with only 32Mb RAM. That's not a challenge, it ACTUALLY WORKS!!! The laser-sight was ropey (couldn't calculate its location fast enough so skipped) but without X, the system ran perfectly and easily was able to cope with two people playing (not enough friends available to test it further).
My server at the moment is a Quad-Core Q6600 CPU with 4x2.4GHz execution cores and is ridiculously overpowered for its needs (hehe) but I can still transcode a movie (I buy DVDs and copy them so I can keep them portable for carrying them around), burn a DVD and make a phone call (it runs asterisk) and it still won't break into a sweat. I don't know how to put all this raw power into some form of production system - it's simply too powerful! (No, you cannot have it in exchange for something less powerful).
Still, there's something to be said for older hardware. The fact that Linux can operate on almost any platform is a true accolade for the coders that made it. It is wonderfully optimised to work on almost anything.
James
PS. Looking at a Sun UltraSPARC Netra T2 next...
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UseLinux.net
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perl -e 'use Math::Complex;$|=1;for$r(0..24){for$c (0..79){$C=cplx(($c/20.0)-3.0,-($r/12.0)+1.0);$Z= cplx(0,0);for($i=0;($i<80)&&(abs($Z)<2.0);$i++){$Z =$Z*$Z+$C;}print$i>=80?"*":" ";}print"\n";}'
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Originally Posted by Satanic Atheist
I don't know how to put all this raw power into some form of production system - it's simply too powerful!
Use that power to fold for JL!!
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
-Mark Twain
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Originally Posted by trilarian
Excellent idea!
So what I have now is a computer that seems to work really great, but without IDE devices. The hard drive is external, and all data enters either by the internet or flashdrive (or by me, typing) I can use the slower computer to do things like transfer data from a DVD to the flash drive, or plug the external hard drive into it for a direct data transfer. Not as inconvenient as paying for a decent computer, no?
Would I have been able to do this without Linux? It's possible, but it would have been a lot less likely without live CDs. I've had a great time
The thing about me is I break stuff. I bought a keyboard for my PDA, and no kidding-- I broke it while trying to get it out of the package! I started out with a 600 dollar computer and I broke that after a couple of years, and during that time, near everything on that computer had to be replaced, including the MOBO, so it was probably a grand at the end. The problem with an expensive computer is that if it keeps braking down, it compels you to invest more money. That's why I'm pleased to report that my last four computers cost me an average of 32.50 each! When they break down, I can decide whether to have them repaired based on the merits of the case, and not on how much I've already invested.
I did spend a lot of money -- almost 400 dollars-- on a high quality LCD monitor, including almost a hundred on a four year, ironclad, even-if you-drop-it-from-a-truck service contract. A good monitor can make almost any computer look good.
My next move is going to be to try to get the original 120 GB hard drive working with this computer. I'm considering opensuse, because for some reason, Kubuntu doesn't have some of the best new features in place with KDE 4.1.3, but opensuse does. (The filterbar for Konqueror, YAY!) On the other hand, Kubuntu has all those easy to get deb packages. Maybe Debian is the solution, but now that I'm a KDE4 fan, that would mean using experimental repos. Hmmmm.
After I get this set up, I'm going to allow myself to purchase one component. It could be a new DVDburner, or a video card so I can play games on this machine, or a nice big hard drive. A PCI controller might be nice, but I'm looking for something that would be useful on my next computer if (when) this one finally breaks down.
Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 12-17-2008 at 02:58 PM.
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A PCI card Sata controller would have longer legs. Wouldn't get that 120G working now, but a nice new large Sata drive would take care of that, and there will always be another older computer along for the 120G.
IDE hard drives are increasingly rarer and more expensive, particularly for laptops.
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I really hate KDE4... so much so that I will keep my old OpenSuSE 11.0 system around for a very long time. I don't like the look, I don't like the feel, dolphin is a kludge compared to konqueror as a file manager. I just can't seem to get KDE4 to adapt to MY way of working the way I am now.
Otherwise, as was noted before, get a PCI IDE or SATA adapter card. Better yet, does the board have SATA on it already? If so, see if you can get a SATA drive and test from there. They are getting pretty cheap now. Just an idea.
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
Vanpooling now...
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Originally posted by DanceMan:
IDE hard drives are increasingly rarer and more expensive, particularly for laptops.
I was in Dubai recently and suspected that the hard drive in my laptop was failing (I was correct) and that it needed replacing rapidly. I went into one computer shop and they said "You can't get 160GB drives for laptops anymore - they don't make them" and proceeded to start offering me other stuff! I couldn't believe it! I walked out, went next door and not not only got the drive (160GB as I asked for) but also a caddy (they tried to sell me an all-in-one edition but to do the backup it had to be separate) and a mouse for under £50.
I couldn't believe the hard sell tactics some people use to push the latest and greatest when some people simply do not want that. At least in IT it used to be that you went (tentatively) into a computer shop, asked for what you want and got it because you knew what you were after.
James
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UseLinux.net
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perl -e 'use Math::Complex;$|=1;for$r(0..24){for$c (0..79){$C=cplx(($c/20.0)-3.0,-($r/12.0)+1.0);$Z= cplx(0,0);for($i=0;($i<80)&&(abs($Z)<2.0);$i++){$Z =$Z*$Z+$C;}print$i>=80?"*":" ";}print"\n";}'
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You can get a 250G IDE laptop drive here for $100Cdn, but all the IDE drives cost more, and they're becoming rare among the sale items. The writing is on the wall for IDE.
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i run everything from a siliconimage pci card...all of my ide ports went out. Everything seems to run about the same speed too. Maybe one day I will build a new computer.
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I would fold for JL but I want to keep the machine running cool (and idle) and not waste shed-loads of electricity by constantly burning up the processor. Other than that, it's absolutely fantastic for transcoding movies (50+fps) and compiling code! Current record is the entire stock Debian kernel in under 8 minutes!
James
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UseLinux.net
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perl -e 'use Math::Complex;$|=1;for$r(0..24){for$c (0..79){$C=cplx(($c/20.0)-3.0,-($r/12.0)+1.0);$Z= cplx(0,0);for($i=0;($i<80)&&(abs($Z)<2.0);$i++){$Z =$Z*$Z+$C;}print$i>=80?"*":" ";}print"\n";}'
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