# got 69 old pcs for 2



## Zammy-Sam (Aug 20, 2004)

Lucky me, huh? Got 69 486DX4 100mhz - Pentium 133mhz pcs with graphic cards, network cards and ram for 2. I am going to get a bunch of keyboards and 14inch crt screens for them and sell them at a price of 49. This offer goes to ppl living close to me so I can offer them a free delivery and setup. If further options are desired - such as internet connection or networking - I thought of charging a wage of 10 for every 15min.
Now, what I want to know is, which os would be the best for all these. I was thinking of a linux distribution that is for free and not wasting too much space. Any proposals which would be the best for these old systems and easiest to use?
Thanks!


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## nixgeek (Aug 20, 2004)

I use Slackware, but it's not for the faint of heart.  If you are new to Linux, don't bother...you'll wish they were Macs instead.   However, Slack is much cleaner than most of the commercial distros and pretty snappy.  Plus with slackpkg, you can keep the machines updated with packages from the slackware-current repository.

There's also Debian, though I would probably wait for Debian until "sarge" (the next release that will become stable) comes out in September.  It will include a much better installer than what existed before in Debian Linux.

You could also go FreeBSD.  I tried that briefly and was impressed not only with the installer but with how nice it ran on my older machine (PII-400).

As for easiest to install and use, any of the commercial Linux distros would do fine.  SuSE is pretty good, at least in the x86 world.  You could try Fedora, but it's pretty bloated and buggy from what I've heard.  Or give Mandrake 10 a shot.

Of course, 69 machines would make a nice Beowulf cluster...


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 20, 2004)

Howabout Windows ME?  To be truthful, if you install any kind of Linux on those boxes and offer your tech support skills, one of two situations is bound to arise:

1) The people completely stop using the computer, since Linux is foreign and difficult for a novice to understand.  Yes, it's getting better, and your clients may think they're getting the hang of it, but they'll get frustrated to the point of quitting completely soon.

2) You'll be bombarded with tech support calls three times an hour.  That's the nature of Linux: it likes to have a knowledgable UNIX user commanding it, not grandma down the street.

Windows ME has Windows Update for automatic updates... and it's Windows!  They can actually go out and purchase simple software for it!  Plus there's a wealth of Windows software all over the internet!

I know you're looking for low-cost, high-ROI solutions, and Linux is perfect since it's free, but think of the frustration and time wasted AFTER you've sold the computers and the customers want you to explain how to use Linux.  You can't teach someone Linux in any reasonable amount of time.  Plus, your customers will think you purposefully installed a foreign, difficult to learn OS on their computer so that they'd call you with tech support questions and you can charge them more.

Good luck, and let us know what you end up doing!


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## scruffy (Aug 20, 2004)

I'd suggest NetBSD - simple, clean, lightweight.  Depending on the capability of the computer, xfce might be the best desktop environment, for much the same reasons.


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## nixgeek (Aug 20, 2004)

ElDiabloConCaca said:
			
		

> Howabout Windows ME?  To be truthful, if you install any kind of Linux on those boxes and offer your tech support skills, one of two situations is bound to arise:
> 
> 1) The people completely stop using the computer, since Linux is foreign and difficult for a novice to understand.  Yes, it's getting better, and your clients may think they're getting the hang of it, but they'll get frustrated to the point of quitting completely soon.
> 
> ...



I would have to disagree with your assessment that Linux would be too difficult for average people to use.  Case in point:

I decided to test something out on my son and see how he would react to a computer that had Linux on it.  I even decided to use Slackware for the test and made sure everything was configured for him to just go and play.  The only thing I really needed to teach him was to click on the menu and select the dinosaur (Mozilla browser) to get to Noggin (which is his homepage).  He can do this all by himself.  Did I mention that my son is about to turn 3 in August 27th?

If you look at Gnome and KDE, you'll notice that most of the apps listed in their menus are subdivided by category: Internet, Games, Multimedia, etc.  Does that sound difficult to you??  I think it's pretty straightforward.  Both even go as far as to not just give the name of the app, but give a short description of what it does (like "Word Processor" next to KWord or AbiWord).    I have yet to see something like this in either the Mac OS or Windows (and Windows has a Start Menu).

I believe that if people are open to the experience, they will realize that it's not harder than using Windows or Mac OS.  Most commercial distros nowadays don't need to have people going into the command shell to get things done.  I believe that if Zammy is straightforward with his customers and gives them a quick rundown of where everything is, they will be just fine.  Believe you me, Windows nor Mac OS beat Linux in terms of usability.  I get calls from people using Windows, and even my father who has a G5 with Panther on it, asking for help with even the simplest things.

I understand that some people are used to things a certain way, but if you want that, get a new machine with Windows XP or a Mac with Panther.  These are older machines that would even struggle with Windows 98, let alone Windows ME (which is one of the worst versions of Windows out there).  I believe that most open-source operating systems would excel in this area since coders have been able to take advantage of these procs to the best of their abilities.

I am planning on giving my parents an old PII-233 with SuSE for Internet and word processing when my Dad is busy working on his G5.  Let's hope it will be as successful as my son's experience.


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## scruffy (Aug 21, 2004)

I'm not convinced that a P-133, much less a 486-100, would be able to run KDE or Gnome to any sort of satisfactory level.  They have just as much eye candy as Windows these days.

That's why I suggested xfce as a desktop environment - complete enough to be a full environment, but lightweight enough that it has a fighting chance of being usable on such old hardware.  IceWM is even more lightweight, but probably wouldn't be complete enough for most people.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 21, 2004)

How much is 2, anyway, in US Dollars?  What the heck is a "," anyway?!

Sorry, Zammy, I've been wondering where you're from for a while now...


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## chevy (Aug 21, 2004)

2 is 2 Euro, or $2.5

Zammy's profile says he is from Germany.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 21, 2004)

Oh, heh, I guess by now I should be a lot more familiar with the site's layout... thanks, Chevy.

Zammy: that is so cheap for so many PCs.  You sure there wasn't an amount of drugs involved in that deal as well?


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 22, 2004)

thanks for all replies. Guess I will take a closer look at FreeBSD. However, I should also make sure there is a german version of the os. I might end up with SUSE 6.x if the language will be a concern. Didn't consider WinME because of the price. I want to offer a working pc for less than 50 Euro (for my friend ElDiablo ) and it would be impossible to offer such a price with WinME installed. I think the buyers will mostly be old ppl that have no experience with computers and actually look for a cheap way to get online, print documents and watch the digital pics of their sons. I think a linux package should include all these applications and be stable enough. Don't know how I will be able to make the old ppl understand that crashes are a feature of ms windows. 
ElDiablo: I think the guy selling those was hoping for a lot more money. And he didn't offer any delivery. But right now, it seems the guy doesn't want me to pick them up. 4 days and yet no reply to my question when to pick them up.. Do I have any rights to insist on this auction and get the pcs for 2Euro? I don't want to give up on them..


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 22, 2004)

What site did you win the auction through?  You may want to contact the site owners and explain the situation.  I certainly would -- this may make me sound like an anal-retentive ass, but I insisted that the advertised price of "0.39 cents per pound" be honored for bananas at my grocery store once.  Some dummy put a decimal point AND a cent sign (instead of a dollar sign, or no decimal at all).  That's 39 one-hundredths of a cent.  39/100 cent.  About 1/3rd of a cent per pound.  They finally honored it after I really, really insisted that they give me their advertised price and I'll bet they double-check every sign they put out now because of that... anyways, the point is, if the auction ended on time, you have a right to the goods, or a complete refund.  I would press the site owners for the goods... good luck, and let us know what happens!


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 22, 2004)

the auction was on ebay. Actually I don't want the whole deal break in: I keep my money and he keeps the goods. I think, I will wait some time and give him an ultimatum to reply on my mails. If nothing happenes, I will contact ebay.de for this.
These are the auctions by the way:
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5114971265&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5114971853&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 26, 2004)

Ufff, just wanted to download FreeBSD for i386 and it was darn big. Actually the size is no problem for the download, but few of those discs in the old pcs don't have more than 400mb.
So, there is another restriction I didn't mention: it should have something like a kde but not use more than 100mb on the disc..  Any way to use FreeBSD then?
I got my hands on msdos 7.10 (didn't know there is such a version) and it's freeware. Now I started thinking: is ms windows 3.1 also freeware? Was searching anywhere to see, if it is still licenced but I didn't find anything. I still have a copy of it and I was wondering if I may install it on the computers. Any ideas? 
Windows 3.1 with Dos would be the best os for my taste. I am very familiar with this combination and could provide a much better support. And msdos took around 10mb on the disc and the 11 floppy discs of windows 3.1 won't waste so much space as well.


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## Viro (Aug 26, 2004)

Have a look at VectorLinux that is based off Slackware. Its pretty small and designed for older systems. You can give it a go.

If that doesn't suit you, have a look at Peanut Linux (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=peanut) or even Damn Small Linux (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall)

I disagree with saying that Linux is harder to use than Windows. The average Windows users is only interested in word processing, web browsing and email. Linux fills this requirement nicely and doesn't cost a bomb in doing so. All it needs is for someone to set it up and show them how to use it. In the long run, its actually better than Windows since you won't get complaints from people about how the computer is suddenly slowing down, or why certain apps keep crashing (which is going to be the case with Windows ME).

Linux on these machines is definitely the way to go. IMHO anyway.


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## Viro (Aug 26, 2004)

Just another thought, if you're feeling brave, you could even install Gentoo on these machines. Just make sure you use the GRP so that you don't have to compile everything from source. That way you get to control what gets loaded onto the system and you'll be sure that only what you need is installed.


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## chevy (Aug 26, 2004)

Zammy-Sam said:
			
		

> Lucky me, huh? Got 69 486DX4 100mhz - Pentium 133mhz pcs with graphic cards, network cards and ram for 2. I am going to get a bunch of keyboards and 14inch crt screens for them and sell them at a price of 49. This offer goes to ppl living close to me so I can offer them a free delivery and setup. If further options are desired - such as internet connection or networking - I thought of charging a wage of 10 for every 15min.
> Now, what I want to know is, which os would be the best for all these. I was thinking of a linux distribution that is for free and not wasting too much space. Any proposals which would be the best for these old systems and easiest to use?
> Thanks!



You should have been paid to take this trash back home !


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 27, 2004)

I don't think it's trash. They still work and they still do anything a pda does and perform even much faster when you use a suitable os such as msdos and windows 3.11. Why throw them away? And to be honest: I think it should be fun to revitalize those pcs. And I decided to use windows 3.11 if there is no licence on them anymore. Just installed windows 3.11 on my VPC and it runs soooo fine. And you have all important applications.
Another thing I will get from those guys: 100 isa network cards with up to 100mbit bnc power.  I wonder if the isa bus is fast enough for 100mbit 
Anyway, I will check Viros suggestions until I get a reply from microsoft on those licences for windows 3.11. Thanks, Viro!


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## Viro (Aug 27, 2004)

Well, the ISA bus is runs at 16 Mhz with a bus width of 16 bits. So in theory, you could get (16*16/8) 32 MB/s transfer rate via the ISA bus and that should be enough for a 100mbit network card. But I seem to remember the ISA bus having some other problems but I can't remember exactly what at the moment. Its been 6 years since I used an ISA device or had to bother with one.


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## nixgeek (Aug 28, 2004)

Zammy, if you decide to use Windows 3.x on those PCs, you might want to go over to the following site:

http://www.abzone.tk/ 

Click on the Calmira link.  This is a shell replacement (I believe) for Windows 3.x that give it a more modernish Windows look, such as desktop icons and the like.

Let us know how it turns out.


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 28, 2004)

Wow, amazing, nixgeek. I was sorta hoping there is such software to refresh the quite old design of windows 3.1.
Thanks a lot! I will pick up the computers on monday.. Can hardly wait.


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## Captain Code (Aug 31, 2004)

It'd be a good experiment to see how people would do on Linux without knowing anything about it.


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 31, 2004)

Since you started it: picked up 200 (!!!) computers, 40 working screens (>14''), network hubs bnc-twisted_pair 100mbit and a box full of cards like sounds cards, controler (even cached), network cards...
But after nixgeeks recommendation on Calmira, I really have to get msdos and windows 3.11 on those pcs. Tested it on my VirtualPC and it worked so fine. Looked really like winxp and ran very very very very much faster. Let's just pray microsoft doesn't still have windows 3.11 for workgroups licenced.


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## Viro (Aug 31, 2004)

You've picked them up? Using what? An 18 wheel truck? Those are a *lot* of computers.


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## Zammy-Sam (Aug 31, 2004)

Actually the truck I rent had a ca. 20m^3 "trunk". We were allowed to load up to 3 tons and that was kinda enough. We had to fill it up till the roof and make few layers of screens, which I didn't like, but there was no choice. However, loading all those computers, screens and other tools took us (4 ppl) 3 hours and unloading was done within 2 hours. And today I feel like I was running a marathon..


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## Zammy-Sam (Sep 7, 2004)

Current situation:
105 pcs were checked and tested over the weekend. I made a list of cpu, ram, bus system, connections, drives such as floppy/hdd/cdrom, power supply, fans, graphic card and remainings. 80 pcs are left for the next weekend. By now I have many Pentium MMX 166Mhz systems with pci graphic cards, 128mb EDO mem, floppy and CDrom. Only 3 of the 105 pcs didn't boot up but most of the systems didn't have a harddrive. The weakest system I had by now: 486DX-S (didn't know there is such an add like "-S" which has nothing to do with SX) 33Mhz. However, a lot of these systems were cooled passive and all power supplies were renewed and they are VERY silent. Eventhough I was in the garage and it was very silent, I couldn't say if the systems were already on or not. Had to touch the backside of the power supply to feel the breeze. Altogether I am very satisfied by now. I have around 150 FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) ISA cards, many CDroms up to 24x, some fancy SCSI drives (harddisk, CDrom, PCMCIA-drive, DLT-drive) and a bunch of SCSI cables and controlers.
Still I didn't find out, whether windows 3.11 is freeware now or still licenced.. Any ideas?

EDIT: Added pics from the unloading. First: half done; last: all done


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## Viro (Sep 7, 2004)

I doubt Win3.11 is freeware. You could try contacting the MS HQ of your region to find out. But I seriously doubt MS, the company widely known to be monopolistic and generally evil (ok, not evil, but quite ruthless) will make Win 3.11 freeware.


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## Zammy-Sam (Sep 7, 2004)

I already sent an email asking, whether I can install ms windows 3.11 on those old systems and sell the systems without charging the buyer for the software. I also doubt it is free, but when I heard ms dos 7.10 is free, I thought ms windows 3.11 could also..


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## Randman (Sep 7, 2004)

Geez, that's a lot of beige plastic. Sounds interesting. I hope you're documenting this with pictures. Have one done by Oktoberfest and I'll order one, since I'll close to your stick.


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## Zammy-Sam (Sep 7, 2004)

Yeah, I have many pics not only on all that "beige plastic", but also on a bunch of pissed_off_faces. 
Randman, the "master node" will be reserved for you. The fastest by now was a Pentium2 350Mhz with 256mb of ram and AGP!  
Btw, while I was opening those 105 cases, I saw about 105 possible ways, how to close a big tower or midi case. Sometimes it was very frustrating and the weakened force of my fist didn't help either. But now I can say I am some sort of graduated pc-case_opener. Any outlook for such kind of graduation?


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## Randman (Sep 7, 2004)

Now if you can get them to be smaller than the iMac.


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## Zammy-Sam (Sep 7, 2004)

Let me see if I can take one of those Pentium boxes - read *5*86 - and *G*round it. I would call it "iMade G5" 
Acceptable, Rand?


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## Randman (Sep 7, 2004)

Etch in PowerBook G5 and goiverson will gotogermany to get one.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

Short notice on the current status:
Bought many many 2gb harddiscs, ISA soundcards, Edo memory, new DIN keyboards and serial mice, powersupply cable for pc and screen. I started installing these things in 20 pcs by now. The thing is that those P90s cause me some troubles. Decided on installing SUSE 7 on all the pcs. Runs quite fine with most of them but what to do with systems that do no understand CD-Roms over IDE such as a bunch of the P90 ones? Have no idea if this is a BIOS-update-thing or if I need to do the trick with a soundcard including an IDE port..
Anyone thoughts on that? As long as the BIOS doesn't find the CD-Rom (the CD-Roms are all fine) I can't install anything usefull. 
Btw, does anyone know about a linux version that is running on the CD? I heard you don't need to install it on your disc but simply boot from the CD. That would save me 90mins for installing SUSE on each system.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

Ahhh, I should also add the current financial status: almost 200Euro were paied for the transportation to my parents garage and 300Euro for all the parts that I bought on ebay. That makes almost 500Euro ($610). Selling 10 of those I finished by now should cover my expenses without considering the working time. That would be 49Euro for a Pentium system up to 166mhz, up to 128mb of ram, 2gb hdd, CDRom, soundcard, SUSE preinstalled and adjusted, ethernet card, 14''-15'' screen, brandnew keyboard and mouse (3 buttons no wheel). 
So, what do you guys think of it? Should be a great deal for the students in their very small rooms and no money and even need for a big pc.
They can do web browsing, chat, listen to CDs and mp3s, write their manuscripts..


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## chevy (Nov 7, 2004)

Your price is so low that it is not worth it. A "minimal" PC sells for $350 today, no Linux installed. So you should be able to sell yours at around $150 to $200.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

Well, 164 x 49Euro makes a pretty good price for me: 8000Euro ($10000). Let's take 500Euro expenses and 3000Euro for the working time: remains 4500Euro which could be a sweet powerbook with a nice cinema screen.


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## Viro (Nov 7, 2004)

try Knoppix for a bootable Live CD. You can also check out UbuntuLinux since they have a Live CD for Linux, but Knoppix has been around longer and so 'should' be more mature and stable.

that said, I've never had any problems with Ubuntu.


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## Viro (Nov 7, 2004)

Oh yeah, and dude you can jack up your price a little. Something like 69.99.


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## rbb (Nov 7, 2004)

A couple of options.  When you sell the PC's, figure out how much it would cost to buy Windows ME/XP/9x what whatever, and install/configure it.  Then do the same for Linux.  Then when you sell them, say this:  x for a plain jane PC, y for a PC with Windows, and z for PC with Linux.

Personally, I have done similar with FreeBSD as the OS, then Blackbox as the wm.  I just disabled all the consoles except one, then enabled ssh.  Then in blackbox, just enable only the necessary commands in the menu.  Then when they say they have a problem, but can still connect to the internet, I can ssh in and work.  I set them up so that they can add users and what not.  Its not hard to do, you just need to look at what you want/need, and find the best way to do it.


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## scruffy (Nov 7, 2004)

Have you tried installing Linux on one PC, then moving the hard drive over to another PC that doesn't see its CD-ROM?  Of course, that doesn't make the CD drive useful to the buyer, but it at least gets an OS onto the thing...


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

Viro said:
			
		

> try Knoppix for a bootable Live CD. You can also check out UbuntuLinux since they have a Live CD for Linux, but Knoppix has been around longer and so 'should' be more mature and stable.
> 
> that said, I've never had any problems with Ubuntu.


Ahhhhh, Knoppix it was. Thanks Viro. Did you ever test it or how is Ubuntu? Do you think it makes sense to use it? How is the performance? And how can you play back audio CDs?


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

rbb said:
			
		

> A couple of options.  When you sell the PC's, figure out how much it would cost to buy Windows ME/XP/9x what whatever, and install/configure it.  Then do the same for Linux.  Then when you sell them, say this:  x for a plain jane PC, y for a PC with Windows, and z for PC with Linux.
> 
> Personally, I have done similar with FreeBSD as the OS, then Blackbox as the wm.  I just disabled all the consoles except one, then enabled ssh.  Then in blackbox, just enable only the necessary commands in the menu.  Then when they say they have a problem, but can still connect to the internet, I can ssh in and work.  I set them up so that they can add users and what not.  Its not hard to do, you just need to look at what you want/need, and find the best way to do it.


I was thinking of win95b and even installed it on those hopeless cases where SUSE simply didn't want to install properly (mostly LILO boot-probs). Win95 runs pretty fine on those pcs but it's not free and I won't give anyone a copy of my CD. I don't know if it makes sense to add another maybe 49Euro just for the OS. Actually I wasn't planing to provide any kind of software-support for those pcs. I know how ppl will keep you busy with every little question. So, I will give them a working system and what ever they want to install, they can do afterwards and on their own. 
My target group are the students in my university. They have ethernet broadband connections in every dormitory and the whole university runs unix/linux and SUSE is very favoured.
But you are right. I am sure there will be some ppl more interested to other os. Hope I will find some convincing words in that moment.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 7, 2004)

scruffy said:
			
		

> Have you tried installing Linux on one PC, then moving the hard drive over to another PC that doesn't see its CD-ROM?  Of course, that doesn't make the CD drive useful to the buyer, but it at least gets an OS onto the thing...


Hehe, I was thinking of this too. But I can't sell the ppl the CD-Rom as a cupholder only. 
But I did something else. Since I fell in love with yast2 (SUSE installer), I temporary added 32mb to those systems, that only had 32mb before. Yast2 requires at least 64mb and I really hate this non-graphical installer..


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## Viro (Nov 8, 2004)

Zammy-Sam said:
			
		

> Ahhhhh, Knoppix it was. Thanks Viro. Did you ever test it or how is Ubuntu? Do you think it makes sense to use it? How is the performance? And how can you play back audio CDs?



Ubuntu is a great distro and is a snap to set up. All the normal media apps like CD playing, etc are installed by default. The only thing lacking is a DVD player, but since your machines only have CD-ROMs, that shouldn't matter too much.

With 32 MB of RAM, I still think PeanutLinux or DamnSmall Linux is a good idea since they come with lightweight window managers (IceWM, I think). Most distros these days come with either KDE or GNOME. These aren't the most efficient window managers around.


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## DanTekGeek (Nov 8, 2004)

id reccomend simplyMEPIS if the machines can handle it. or, just keep them all for youself and make a beowulf cluster.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 9, 2004)

DanTekGeek said:
			
		

> id reccomend simplyMEPIS if the machines can handle it. or, just keep them all for youself and make a beowulf cluster.


.. and get the performance of a P4 2ghz? 
Actually I have a lot of FDDI cards to build such a cluster, but I rather sell them and get myself a nice powerbook.


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## scruffy (Nov 9, 2004)

For a nice compromise between being a full scale graphical desktop, and being something lightweight that would be usable on an old system, you might want to check out xfce http://www.xfce.org

It's got a very nice file manager (actually I like it better than the kde and gnome ones), something that the really minimal environments like icewm lack.  I don't know if it's included as an option with suse, but it's pretty well supported, so it should be available in lots of distros.

It's for sure available by default in NetBSD - another good, free, and generally lightweight OS.  If you're familiar with the layout of boot scripts and the like in OS X, you might actually find another BSD unix to be easier to set up than a Linux.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 9, 2004)

Wow, so many options. Thanks scruffy! Xfce looks really nice. I will see how it feels on those systems.
Now that I have few system done, I will try out some of the proposed os here. But if Ubuntu or Knoppix will prove powerful and useful, it might be the easiest option. Those installations kill a lot of time..


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 15, 2004)

Tested Knoppix this weekend and I got pretty frustrated. Worked fine with my Pentium4 and even looked really nice. But it didn't work on any of the old systems (tested 5). Got some filesystem error after the ide ports were scanned and it has nothing to do with the CD (burned on 3 different CD-R media to avoid any compatibility probs).. 
Ubuntu is next


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 15, 2004)

Aren't there any image files for xfce? Wasn't able to find any..


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## Viro (Nov 15, 2004)

Go for Ubuntu. I've tried it out on my Powerbook, and I *love* it. In fact, the only things it lacks at the moment are 3D acceleration, sleep and wireless. All of these are mainly due to nVidia and Broadcom not releasing the specs to their hardware. Everything else works beautifully.

I might even hold off (even miss?) a Tiger upgrade because of Ubuntu.

Despite all the praise, I say approach it with caution since it uses GNOME. While nice and very professional, GNOME isn't known to be the best performer.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 15, 2004)

I would be more than happy if it would simply load. Performance is something I don't care for those old systems


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## scruffy (Nov 16, 2004)

There is a netbsd livecd that uses xfce as its desktop environment by default.

There's also a Linux distro called phlak (professional hacker's linux assault kit) that uses xfce as its default desktop.  Not really a very mainstream distro, but you might try it out...


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 16, 2004)

I found one distro called SAM-liveCD. Sounds very promising, huh? 
Thanks for the info, scruffy.


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## scruffy (Nov 16, 2004)

actually, I was looking at Linux livecds today for another project, and there is a morphix image - something like morphix-light-gui - that uses xfce4, and has a number of standard apps (mail, web, editing, word processing, ftp) chosen to be functional with a minimum of graphic fussiness.  It's relatively small, only about 200MB as compared to a full 650MB cd image.

I don't recall the details, but it was pretty easy to find from the main page http://www.morphix.org

Incidentally, the phlak cd is based on morphix, it turns out.


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## Zammy-Sam (Nov 17, 2004)

Thanks, scruffy! Will have few livecds to test during the weekend.


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