What to do with an old machine.
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From: Neil Sluman on 4 Jan 2008 15:38 On Jan 4, 8:00 pm, Paul Sherwin <bo...(a)bogus.com> wrote: > > BTW, there aren't many network cards that *don't* work with Linux, so > maybe you should investigate this issue a bit more. A driver is available so it can be made to work. Just doesn't work out of the box with the version of Ubuntu I had when I got it. It's just a hassle downloading and installing when you need to reboot to a different OS to do so.
From: Martin Gregorie on 5 Jan 2008 08:23 Neil Sluman wrote: > On Jan 4, 6:33 pm, Chris Whelan <cawhe...(a)prejudicentlworld.com> > wrote: >> Neil Sluman wrote: >>> I recently resurrected an old machine. A K6-2 running at 300MHz. >>> Seems I might as well install Linux on it. > I have a very similar box - 300 MHz K6, 384 MB RAM, 2 x 6.4 GB drive (Award BIOS won't handle disks over 6.4 GB), 3COM NIC. I run Fedora Core 1 on it (for some reason all 2.6 -based versions fail to install). I agree that its painfully slow with Gnome. I'd suggest you try one of the major distros because they include all the software you're likely to need, e.g. Apache web server, Samba (provides file and printer sharing for Windows), databases and of course a full set of development tools. Configure the box as a server - don't install Gnome, KDE and X and use the text-only Linux console or talk to it over your LAN with ssh. Put PuTTY on your windows box and use that to login via ssh. If you go the ssh route way you don't even need a screen and keyboard on the K6 box. You'll find that a separate networked Linux system is far more useful than than a dual boot system. FWIW, for a few years I used a 133 MHz PII system with 128 MB RAM as my house server and firewall, configured more or less as described above. It ran Fedora Core 2 and did the tasks I mentioned. In addition it also ran ntpd as a time server with a home-brew MSF radio clock and was my backup server using a DDS2 tape. It was plenty fast enough for everything I needed it to do. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
From: Bernard Peek on 5 Jan 2008 11:46 Neil Sluman wrote: > I recently resurrected an old machine. A K6-2 running at 300MHz. > Seems I might as well install Linux on it. > > Trouble is, I have no idea what to do with this thing. Anyone have > any thoughts? It's too slow for video. And doesn't really have > enough disk space to use as a file server. (Yes, I know you have no > idea what I'm interested in. I'm after random ideas here!) > > Also, what linux distribution I should use? The CPU is in the Pentium > family so anything targetted at Pentium Pro or Pentium 2 or better > isn't going to work. An old machine would make a reasonable server. A print-server if you add another disk (although you may also have to add a new controller card too, to get around BIOS limitations on disk size.) You can choose SATA, IDE or USB2 cards depending on what type of disks you prefer. As a print-server a second machine can take some of the processing load off of your main machine. As a file-server a second machine allows you to create backups very quickly. It's this ease of use that makes it more likely that backups will actually be done and that alone may justify adding a second disk to the spare machine. (There are limitations to doing backups this way, so you should also consider separate off-site backups too.) You could set up a web-server if you want to experiment with web-page design. With a suitable router and a decent firewall you could even make the server Internet-facing. A specialist Linux distro like IPCop will turn a spare PC into a very effective Router/Firewall box. Definitely recommended if you want to set up any Internet-facing systems. Depending on just what functions you want to include you can choose a specialist distro or a general one. Specialist distros include IPCop as a router/firewall and Freenas as a file-server. You could build similar systems from any of the generalist distros like Fedora, SuSE or Fedora but specialist distros exist for a reason. Decide what you want to do and then ask again for more detailed advice. -- bap(a)shrdlu.com
From: PeeGee on 5 Jan 2008 13:06 Martin Gregorie wrote: > Neil Sluman wrote: >> On Jan 4, 6:33 pm, Chris Whelan <cawhe...(a)prejudicentlworld.com> >> wrote: >>> Neil Sluman wrote: >>>> I recently resurrected an old machine. A K6-2 running at 300MHz. >>>> Seems I might as well install Linux on it. > > > I have a very similar box - 300 MHz K6, 384 MB RAM, 2 x 6.4 GB drive > (Award BIOS won't handle disks over 6.4 GB), 3COM NIC. > [snip] Provided you boot from partitions that meet the BIOS limitations, the disk size shouldn't matter. My K6-2/500 has Award 4.6 (32GB max)and runs quite happily on a fully utilised 40GB Quantum (with Suse 7.3 or later). PeeGee -- The reply address is a spam trap. All mail is reported as spam. "Nothing should be able to load itself onto a computer without the knowledge or consent of the computer user. Software should also be able to be removed from a computer easily." Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist (Computing 18 Aug 05)
From: Jim Backus on 5 Jan 2008 14:17
On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 18:29:03 UTC, Neil Sluman <squigs(a)postmaster.co.uk> wrote: > I recently resurrected an old machine. A K6-2 running at 300MHz. > Seems I might as well install Linux on it. > > Trouble is, I have no idea what to do with this thing. Anyone have > any thoughts? It's too slow for video. And doesn't really have > enough disk space to use as a file server. (Yes, I know you have no > idea what I'm interested in. I'm after random ideas here!) > Voicemail? I guess you'd need a sound card, a telephone line isolator and some fairly simple software. Every answering machine I've owned has been a P.I.T.A. a dedicated PC to provide a bit more intelligence than the standard machine would be great. -- Jim Backus running OS/2 Warp 3 & 4, Debian Linux and Win98SE bona fide replies to j <dot> backus <the circle thingy> jita <dot> demon <dot> co <dot> uk |