(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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

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

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

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.

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...

Aitch

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

$59 USD, has FireWire and card reader...

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).

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

IBM ThinkCentre S50 8183

Review #3 is from a Puppy user who bought two...

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!

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

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

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.

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...

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... ; )

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.

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!

Here's some stuff to drool over:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems
http://www.tekmote.nl/epages/61504599.s ... tID=935271

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.