Cheap machines ideal for Puppy

What works, and doesn't, for you. Be specific, and please include Puppy version.
Message
Author
parwrench
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri 15 Jan 2010, 13:45
Contact:

acer aspire revo r1600

#121 Post by parwrench »

picked up for just over 200$ .. came with xp.... not any more. installed puppy 4.31 from a 2 gig jump drive without a hitch cept some dummy forgot to make the partition bootable.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-a ... 77218.html
:D
i am impressed with graphix and hd audio. i have paid more for video cards in the old days.
hmmmm....theres only 1 screw in the case...i wonder what happens when i take it out????

acer aspire revo r1600
intel atom 230@1.6ghz
1 gig ddr ram
nvidia ion graphics 512mb
intel hd audio

mrreality13
Posts: 93
Joined: Sat 04 Oct 2008, 03:24
Location: arlington texas

Re: acer aspire revo r1600

#122 Post by mrreality13 »

parwrench wrote:picked up for just over 200$ .. came with xp.... not any more. installed puppy 4.31 from a 2 gig jump drive without a hitch cept some dummy forgot to make the partition bootable.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-a ... 77218.html
:D
i am impressed with graphix and hd audio. i have paid more for video cards in the old days.
hmmmm....theres only 1 screw in the case...i wonder what happens when i take it out????

acer aspire revo r1600
intel atom 230@1.6ghz
1 gig ddr ram
nvidia ion graphics 512mb
intel hd audio
how do you like this ?i looked at 1 at a best buy for same price-$199.00 -im thinkin bout getin 1 to replace a older pc in bedroom for music/video streaming.

User avatar
Aitch
Posts: 6518
Joined: Wed 04 Apr 2007, 15:57
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

#123 Post by Aitch »

I don't like Acer, but I gotta include this one @ £150

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2009/09/02 ... t-eee-box/

The Aspire Revo3600 has Nvidia Ion full 1080p graphics engine
+ Atom 230 processor & up to 1Gb DDR ram

Look out for dual Atom powered versions with Nvidia Ion in netbooks soon

I might even upgrade my CarPC project with one of them....

If only someone would do a LinuxICE with Puppy instead of *buntu... :D

Aitch :)

User avatar
oldroy
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue 03 Feb 2009, 22:55
Location: Alberta, Canada

Free machine

#124 Post by oldroy »

Hello,

I am retired and volunteer a couple of time per week at a local thrift store where people often dump off obsolete computers, etc that we usually haul to the recycling center at our own expense.

Typically:

160 mhz pentium
48 meg EDO RAM
CDROM drive (Won't boot from that, have to use floppy)
Serial mouse only
2 hard drives, 1 6.4 gig, 1 about 1 gig , both wiped clean

Partitioned both drives, linux swap file, ext3 file system

Used wakepup and booted from Puppy 4.3 CD

Worked but glacially slow.

Found a couple of 32 meg EDO RAM chips my junk and installed.

Did Puppy full install.

I am typing this on that machine now and its not the fastest thing in the world but its tolerable and user friendly. Not bad for a free computer.

FWIW I have Lighthouse pup on an old HP 4150 that my totally non-geeky wife uses and als have a Debian lenny box.

amigo
Posts: 2629
Joined: Mon 02 Apr 2007, 06:52

#125 Post by amigo »

You'll find that a normal installation to hard drive will work better on such low-end hardware.

looseSCREWorTWO
Posts: 812
Joined: Thu 04 Feb 2010, 13:16
Location: Australia, 1999 Toshiba laptop, 512mb RAM, no HDD, 431 Retro & 421 Retro

Cheap machines ideal for Puppy

#126 Post by looseSCREWorTWO »

Here in New South Wales they have some funny laws designed to keep Insurance Companies (and Micro$oft ?) happy, which means few of the Thrift stores sell second-hand electronics, including computers. This only applies to New South Wales - in other Australian States the Thrift Stores and the Opp Shops sell heaps of electronic goods.

The good news is that we can buy computers from Recycling Centres and Garbage Tips for $5 - $20. Usually they don't work, but usually it's cos some dweeb in the IT Department pulled out the RAM and the Hard Drive (or wiped the HDD clean) before the company tossed the PC in the rubbish bin.

The Recycling Centres also sell computer bits and pieces cheap, so for well under $50 you can put together a working Dinosaur PC, then install Puppy Linux and the Dino PC will run like a champion.

This message is coming to you from a year-2000 Toshiba laptop with 117 mb of RAM and an 800 mhz Pentium 3 CPU. Oh, and it has no Hard Drive, by the way. Boots from a floppy, then uses a USB Flash Drive as a make-believe Hard Drive. Total cost = $10.

User avatar
Colonel Panic
Posts: 2171
Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09

Re: Cheap machines ideal for Puppy

#127 Post by Colonel Panic »

looseSCREWorTWO wrote:Here in New South Wales they have some funny laws designed to keep Insurance Companies (and Micro$oft ?) happy, which means few of the Thrift stores sell second-hand electronics, including computers. This only applies to New South Wales - in other Australian States the Thrift Stores and the Opp Shops sell heaps of electronic goods.

The good news is that we can buy computers from Recycling Centres and Garbage Tips for $5 - $20. Usually they don't work, but usually it's cos some dweeb in the IT Department pulled out the RAM and the Hard Drive (or wiped the HDD clean) before the company tossed the PC in the rubbish bin.

The Recycling Centres also sell computer bits and pieces cheap, so for well under $50 you can put together a working Dinosaur PC, then install Puppy Linux and the Dino PC will run like a champion.

This message is coming to you from a year-2000 Toshiba laptop with 117 mb of RAM and an 800 mhz Pentium 3 CPU. Oh, and it has no Hard Drive, by the way. Boots from a floppy, then uses a USB Flash Drive as a make-believe Hard Drive. Total cost = $10.
This is wonderful, saving machines from the skip. One of the great advantages of Puppy is that it can boot from a flash drive and doesn't need a hard drive to boot and run from.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

looseSCREWorTWO
Posts: 812
Joined: Thu 04 Feb 2010, 13:16
Location: Australia, 1999 Toshiba laptop, 512mb RAM, no HDD, 431 Retro & 421 Retro

Cheap machines ideal for Puppy

#128 Post by looseSCREWorTWO »

I have put together several working computers (which I define as a PC that can surf the Web and play a DVD movie) from stuff found in skips, laneways and thrown out with the rubbish. There is a disturbing trend where people chuck out a perfectly good PC just because it's last years model. 90 percent of the time when you stick in some RAM the old PC will Boot Up. On the rare occasions where the PC can't be salvaged I strip it for spare parts. With the ones that I get going, I either sell them cheap or else give them away to an Opp Shop/ Thrift Shop /Recycling Centre so they can sell it.

mechmike
Posts: 100
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2005, 16:43
Location: Pelham, AL
Contact:

#129 Post by mechmike »

Edit 02/2014 - the link originally posted no longer exists...

$59 USD, has FireWire and card reader...
Last edited by mechmike on Tue 11 Feb 2014, 19:56, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Colonel Panic
Posts: 2171
Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09

Re: Cheap machines ideal for Puppy

#130 Post by Colonel Panic »

looseSCREWorTWO wrote:I have put together several working computers (which I define as a PC that can surf the Web and play a DVD movie) from stuff found in skips, laneways and thrown out with the rubbish. There is a disturbing trend where people chuck out a perfectly good PC just because it's last years model. 90 percent of the time when you stick in some RAM the old PC will Boot Up. On the rare occasions where the PC can't be salvaged I strip it for spare parts. With the ones that I get going, I either sell them cheap or else give them away to an Opp Shop/ Thrift Shop /Recycling Centre so they can sell it.
Great. I wish there were more people like you in the UK (where I live). I might even do it myself if I had transport and could drive (to pick up the discarded PCs from the skips).
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

mechmike
Posts: 100
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2005, 16:43
Location: Pelham, AL
Contact:

#131 Post by mechmike »

Edit 02/2014 - the link originally posted no longer exists...

IBM ThinkCentre S50 8183

Review #3 is from a Puppy user who bought two...
Last edited by mechmike on Tue 11 Feb 2014, 19:56, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Aitch
Posts: 6518
Joined: Wed 04 Apr 2007, 15:57
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

#132 Post by Aitch »

Colonel Panic wrote:Great. I wish there were more people like you in the UK (where I live). I might even do it myself if I had transport and could drive (to pick up the discarded PCs from the skips).
I know a guy who rigged up a bike trailer for just that purpose

I've been doing recycling PCs for years, as I'm retired and bored, and giving them away with different versions of puppy on, sometimes with free instructions, too
ebay is a good source for cheap guaranteed spares, like memory or processor/cdr/dvdr/hard drive upgrades for own builds [I have too many....]

My big niggle is that Local Authority 'recycling centres' don't actually let people recycle computers.....I've been threatened with physical assault as well as legal action, for trying to use perfectly good [often better than I use] PCs, that people have 'taken to the dump'
It's such a darn waste of good re-usable hardware.....I wish it was banned/illegal! gggrrr! :lol:

There are also many local authority approved 'charity recyclers' who charge quite a bit for working PCs, usually with windoze or *buntu on them, having used teen labour to fix them really cheaply, so greed is the motive, not charity....I dislike current charity structures, too

Aitch :)

User avatar
Colonel Panic
Posts: 2171
Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09

#133 Post by Colonel Panic »

Thanks for that post. A bike trailer would certainly work but it'd be hard going round here (I live on the edge of a moor and it's very hilly here).

"It's such a darn waste of good re-usable hardware.....I wish it was banned/illegal! gggrrr! Laughing "

I actually didn't know that, but that makes me angry too. I don't know if it's true down here in Cornwall.

If you were threatened with physical assault I'd say you had a case for complaint to the council; they absolutely shouldn't be doing that.

My present computer was a gift in 2006 from someone who works for the local education authority, after I'd given some talks for them; it was "surplus to requirements" as apparently no one there wanted a five year old machine (as it was then) for their own use. With only a change of hard drive from 20 GB to a secondhand 30 GB one, It's still going strong 5 years later :)

I take your point about charity recycled computers but they can still be a bargain compared to new machines. There's a company in Southampton who have some good offers;

http://www.jamies.org.uk/sales.html
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

User avatar
Dave_G
Posts: 453
Joined: Thu 21 Jul 2011, 13:53

#134 Post by Dave_G »

Recycling old computers is not only fun but saves a heap of cash.
(I'm such a geek and a cheap one at that).

Seriously, if more people re-used old computers just think how many
would be saved from some land fill somewhere.

Unfortunately the current trend is that if a pc is older than 6 months
then it's worthless and nobody wants it.
M$ also contributes to this by releasing it's bloatware that simply won't
run on any hardware except the very latest.

Strange how the authorities all jump on the "green" bandwagon but try
approaching them for a tax refund/credit because you are using a 5 year
old computer for your day to day needs and thus helping the environment
and they look at you as if you have just landed from the planet Zog.

A popular "activity" by some companies (sometimes under the guise of a charity)
is to buy up older computers by the truck load often at very little cost
from big corporates that can no longer depreciate the hardware and the cost
of dumping the computers exceeds their book value ( or have
been conned into upgrading their pc's to run win7) then sell
them off to third world countries then also claim from the
government due to some little known tax incentive for the export of I.T.
related products.

mechmike
Posts: 100
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2005, 16:43
Location: Pelham, AL
Contact:

$139 USD VIA 15" laptop...

#135 Post by mechmike »

Edit 02/2014 - the link originally posted no longer exists...

From the link:
This HP Neoware m100 is mobile thin client is your ticket to secure and reliable client computing! This KH188AT is powered by a VIA Edem 800 MHz processor and includes 512 MB DDR2 memory.

This Neoware m100 includes VIA S3 graphics as well as integrated audio with stereo speakers. Connect to high-speed networks and hosts via integrated IEEE 802.11b/g wireless LAN or integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet. This Neoware m100 includes a Li-ion battery and an AC power adapter and is built using low-power components...
Last edited by mechmike on Tue 11 Feb 2014, 19:56, edited 1 time in total.

mechmike
Posts: 100
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2005, 16:43
Location: Pelham, AL
Contact:

Netbook - $129

#136 Post by mechmike »

Edit 02/2014 - the link originally posted no longer exists...
Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, an 80GB hard drive and 1.3 megapixel integrated camera.
This is what I want for Xmas... ; )
Last edited by mechmike on Tue 11 Feb 2014, 19:57, edited 1 time in total.

izezi
Posts: 56
Joined: Mon 19 Mar 2012, 12:10

#137 Post by izezi »

Wary Puppy runs great on my 12 year old Gateway laptop. The LCD screen burned out on it several years ago and I use an external 15" Viewsonic CRT monitor with it that displays in 1024x768 with 24bit color.


-Computer-
Processor : Intel(R) Celeron(TM) CPU 1200MHz
Memory : 253MB (128MB used)
Operating System : Linux 2.6.32-uni (i686)
Distribution : Wary Puppy 5.2.2
User Name : root (root)
Date/Time : Mon 19 Mar 2012 04:38:27 AM CDT

-Display-
Resolution : 1024x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Mesa GLX Indirect
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation
-Multimedia-
Audio Adapter : Allegro - ESS Allegro PCI
Audio Adapter : ICH-MODEM - Intel 82801CA-ICH3 Modem

-Input Devices-
AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
Lid Switch
Sleep Button
Power Button
Video Bus
PC Speaker

-SCSI Disks-
ATA TOSHIBA MK2018GA
QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083
SanDisk Cruzer

-PCI Devices-
Host bridge : Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge
VGA compatible controller : Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
Display controller : Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
USB Controller : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1
USB Controller : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2
PCI bridge : Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
ISA bridge : Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge
IDE interface : Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller
SMBus : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller
Modem : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller
Multimedia audio controller : ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1
CardBus bridge : O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
Ethernet controller : Intel Corporation 82801CAM

I run FreeBSD 7.4 with Fluxbox on the HD with Puppy booting from an 8GB USB stick. I couldn't believe how easy the install went, liked how everything had a wizard to get it up and running and am really happy with it.
Attachments
redrum04b.jpg
My Puppy
(132.64 KiB) Downloaded 2147 times

GJones
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon 19 Mar 2012, 02:09

#138 Post by GJones »

Thinkpad 600E runs Wary 5.2.2 reasonably well.

Cost: seems to usually go for $50 to $100 on EBay, so not a particularly good value. OTOH it does qualify as cheap.

Specs for mine:
400 MHz Pentium II processor
192 MB of PC100 RAM (I think this was upgraded on mine though)
40 GB IDE hard disk (originally 20 GB but that one broke)
Some sort of Neomagic GPU
2 16-bit PCMCIA slots

Quirks:
Needs acpi=force to boot from the CD.
Takes a long time (~20 seconds) to POST.
BIOS setup screen is very unintuitive, and uses a cursor shaped like a duck, which flaps its wings when you move it.

Problems:
Only one USB port, which may or may not have lag problems with certain USB mice.
No ethernet, you need a PCMCIA ethernet card - I use an old 3Com model.
No wireless, and I've no idea if there are any compatible wifi cards.
Screen is rather low res, laptop is heavy and bulky, battery life is rubbish... etc.

What is usable:
Rox, Geany, Seamonkey... Basically most stuff. JWM's outline move/resize helps a lot. Responsiveness is generally on par with Windows 2000, and boot time is about the same. Don't expect Seamonkey to handle Hotmail or anything else JS intensive though.

What is not usable:
Abiword is completely broken - smooth scrolling is hardcoded into the current version, but the poor CPU is too weak to handle it, which makes the word processor unresponsive when typing. This is really the fault of the Abiword devs, for failing to provide an off switch for this behavior! Too bad though, because everyone needs word processing.

Misc. advice:
Use a full install, not a frugal install. Frugal takes twice as long to boot on this computer, and has no real advantages, at least until someone figures out how to make a multi-user distro run on this slowpoke.

P.S. If anyone does figure out how to make Debian or Slackware or something run usably on this thing, please drop me a line!

mini-jaguar
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#139 Post by mini-jaguar »


starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#140 Post by starhawk »

Thin client conversions are fun ;) and some of them are actually useful, too. Just pull the flash disk module, and put in an IDE->CF adapter and either CF card or Microdrive (I like 8gig Microdrives a lot -- especially since you can put swap on 'em). You probably will want to upgrade the RAM as well.

Older thin clients (anything with an AMD Geode CPU) will be obnoxiously slow running Puppy of any kind (well... maybe not PupNGo...). However, I have a thin client right now that has Puplite 5 on it and is quite responsive -- about on par with my ASUS 1000HEB netbook!

That particular model (which I recommend) is a NeoWare CA19 that I purchased on eBay. (I was supposed to get a CA21, but whatever, it works fine.) There aren't many on eBay at this moment, but those that are are going for around $25-30 including shipping. You'll need about $10-15 for the RAM; the CF adapter should be $5 or less; and the CF card itself will set you back about the same price as the system unit if you get a nice one (same with Microdrives -- 4gig ones go for about $15, but the 8gig ones are more like $30).

The nice things about the CA19 are that it has fairly modern RAM (a DDR2 laptop style SODIMM) and that the drive connector is the laptop style 44pin -- that means that the connector is self-powering and you don't have to splice a 5/3.3volt CF card into a 12volt power supply somehow (probably this would involve a run to a local electronics supply store for some regulator components!). BTW, there's a USB header on the board, unused, so if you don't need a parallel port you can double your USB ports... handy.

More on the thin-client-as-desktop stuff --> www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
That guy is awesome and knows everything about this stuff.

Post Reply