[ubuntu-us-mi] Computer recycling

[Daniel]

This shows up as a possible project on the wiki... Shall we discuss it a
bit?

What would be the primary goal of the project? Standalone workstations or a
bunch of LTSP thin clients using Edubuntu? As far as getting the machines
for free, it would make more sense to use LTSP (free machines = crappy
hardware?) but then you have to get (most likely buy) a machine powerful
enough to be the server. El cheapo hardware should be easy to come by
though - the public school I work at pays something ridiculous like 15 cents
a pound to have a semitruck come and recycle the old hardware.

[Jeff Hanson]

Post by Daniel
What would be the primary goal of the project? Standalone workstations or a
bunch of LTSP thin clients using Edubuntu? As far as getting the machines
for free, it would make more sense to use LTSP (free machines = crappy
hardware?) but then you have to get (most likely buy) a machine powerful
enough to be the server. El cheapo hardware should be easy to come by
though - the public school I work at pays something ridiculous like 15 cents
a pound to have a semitruck come and recycle the old hardware.

I work with old hardware all the time. What constitutes "old" is a
complicated question as it depends on the target usage.

I haven't done a LTSP setup so I don't know what the minimum is.

With servers it's more about I/O, drive interfaces, and LBA BIOS compatibility.

For a firewall/router running IPCop I'm using a 450MHz K6/2 with 128MB
memory and 2GB storage space. This is enough to keep up with a 10Mbs
Internet connection, multiple subnets, and basic IDS. No content
filtering or proxy cache.

For my users its desktop applications. This means OpenOffice.org, DVD
playback, and Flash. My minimum is a 700MHz Celeron, 256MB memory,
8GB storage. 16bpp 3D acceleration at the minimum else it's too slow
for even 2D apps.

I've been doing some book editing in OOo with about 40 pages of text
and some grayscale photos in the 1-3MB range. On a 2.5GHz Celeron
system with 512MB and Kubuntu Gutsy it's tolerable but stalls for
several seconds whenever a photo or the containing frame is selected.
It handles most kids games fine.

Game system requirements vary. 24-bit 3D acceleration required for
anything modern. Old cards often only support 3D in 16bpp which many
games can't handle. Here is some examples of what I've set up:

Runescape, Tremulous, Chromium, Flash, Wesnoth: 700MHz Celeron
w/256MB memory on Ubuntu is tolerable. Can adequately handle Diablo
II under Wine. With Gnome it's at the point of swapping when the
desktop loads. Using XFCE helps a bit.

UT2004: 900MHz Athlon, Nvidia 5000 series AGP card.
Doom3, and Quake4: Athlon XP 1.3GHz, 512MB memory (Thunderbirds won't
work as they don't have SSE support), Nvidia 6000 series card.

I've set up Xubuntu on K6/2 500MHz systems with 256MB memory, 8GB
storage, and 16bpp 3D (3dfx Voodoo Banshee). It's bearable. Wesnoth
is slow. Blobwars is slow - like Max Payne or The Matrix bullet-time.
DVD and Flash are useless. Java is usable if you start it a day in
advance.

Wine of course increases the overhead of any Windows app.

You haven't really experienced computer recycling until you've spent
three days trying to stabilize a 3dfx Voodoo Banshee or Nvidia TNT2 on
a SiS chipset motherboard. ACPI is always entertaining. Luckily the
availability of broadband is eliminating the softmodem mess.

Recycling is painful and of questionable benefit when power efficiency
is taken into account. It is quite educational however. You learn a
lot when things break all the time.

[Dan Leichtweis]

Post by Daniel

Post by Daniel
What would be the primary goal of the project? Standalone workstations

or a

Post by Daniel
bunch of LTSP thin clients using Edubuntu? As far as getting the

machines

Post by Daniel
for free, it would make more sense to use LTSP (free machines = crappy
hardware?) but then you have to get (most likely buy) a machine powerful
enough to be the server. El cheapo hardware should be easy to come by
though - the public school I work at pays something ridiculous like 15

cents

Post by Daniel
a pound to have a semitruck come and recycle the old hardware.

I work with old hardware all the time. What constitutes "old" is a
complicated question as it depends on the target usage.
I haven't done a LTSP setup so I don't know what the minimum is.
With servers it's more about I/O, drive interfaces, and LBA BIOS compatibility.
For a firewall/router running IPCop I'm using a 450MHz K6/2 with 128MB
memory and 2GB storage space. This is enough to keep up with a 10Mbs
Internet connection, multiple subnets, and basic IDS. No content
filtering or proxy cache.
For my users its desktop applications. This means OpenOffice.org, DVD
playback, and Flash. My minimum is a 700MHz Celeron, 256MB memory,
8GB storage. 16bpp 3D acceleration at the minimum else it's too slow
for even 2D apps.
I've been doing some book editing in OOo with about 40 pages of text
and some grayscale photos in the 1-3MB range. On a 2.5GHz Celeron
system with 512MB and Kubuntu Gutsy it's tolerable but stalls for
several seconds whenever a photo or the containing frame is selected.
It handles most kids games fine.
Game system requirements vary. 24-bit 3D acceleration required for
anything modern. Old cards often only support 3D in 16bpp which many
Runescape, Tremulous, Chromium, Flash, Wesnoth: 700MHz Celeron
w/256MB memory on Ubuntu is tolerable. Can adequately handle Diablo
II under Wine. With Gnome it's at the point of swapping when the
desktop loads. Using XFCE helps a bit.
UT2004: 900MHz Athlon, Nvidia 5000 series AGP card.
Doom3, and Quake4: Athlon XP 1.3GHz, 512MB memory (Thunderbirds won't
work as they don't have SSE support), Nvidia 6000 series card.
I've set up Xubuntu on K6/2 500MHz systems with 256MB memory, 8GB
storage, and 16bpp 3D (3dfx Voodoo Banshee). It's bearable. Wesnoth
is slow. Blobwars is slow - like Max Payne or The Matrix bullet-time.
DVD and Flash are useless. Java is usable if you start it a day in
advance.
Wine of course increases the overhead of any Windows app.
You haven't really experienced computer recycling until you've spent
three days trying to stabilize a 3dfx Voodoo Banshee or Nvidia TNT2 on
a SiS chipset motherboard. ACPI is always entertaining. Luckily the
availability of broadband is eliminating the softmodem mess.
Recycling is painful and of questionable benefit when power efficiency
is taken into account. It is quite educational however. You learn a
lot when things break all the time.
--
ubuntu-us-mi mailing list
ubuntu-us-mi at lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-mi

I a little behind on the conversation but I have a nice hook up currently on
some old (only 3 years) IBM Netvista 8306's P4 2.66ghz for about $35 buckets
a pop if they are not all gone yet I purchased 10 last week. These are
basic machines but they keep up pretty well.

Dan Leichtweis
Owner Metro Innovations
248-632-9991
http://metroinnovations.com
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[Jeff Hanson]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Dan Leichtweis

Post by Dan Leichtweis
I a little behind on the conversation but I have a nice hook up currently on
some old (only 3 years) IBM Netvista 8306's P4 2.66ghz for about $35 buckets
a pop if they are not all gone yet I purchased 10 last week. These are
basic machines but they keep up pretty well.

I have two IntelliStation E Pro sytems. They looked nice until I
found RAMBUS memory (1 with a failed module) and a Matrox AGP video
card in a non-standard form-factor.

[Josh]

Hey folks.

The "recycling" thing was an idea greg-g and I came up with when mi loco
was just a baby (I think we had 4 members at the time?). The idea was to
take older, out of date systems that people are junking, breath some
life into them with Ubuntu and give them away to folks who otherwise
could not get anything, schools, church, whatever could use and/or
appreciate them. I thought it was a great way to keep from feeding the
landfills, a great way to give a bit of a helping hand to some folks
that may need it, a good way to promote Ubuntu, linux, and FOSS in
general, a way to build some skills, and a bit of fun tinkering.

I had some fun piecing together a bunch of older HP boxes, that's what
got me thinking.

I then got busy going back to school, getting married, and having a
personal life, so I didn't do anything with the idea at all. I'm glad to
see some interest in it.

I would really like to be able to give away one decent system a month,
document it, and post success stories on the Ubuntu-MI pages. One decent
system, and however many "Oh my God that thing actually works" systems
that could be managed. That, at least was I was thinking for better or
not.

If there is any momentum here, I am in (at least for the summer). I have
already given away/sold at ridiculously low prices ALL of my extra stuff
for my EEE pc mods, since I am a greedy jerk.

Anyway, happy hacking.

joshp

Post by Jeff Hanson
On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Dan Leichtweis

Post by Dan Leichtweis
I a little behind on the conversation but I have a nice hook up currently on
some old (only 3 years) IBM Netvista 8306's P4 2.66ghz for about $35 buckets
a pop if they are not all gone yet I purchased 10 last week. These are
basic machines but they keep up pretty well.

I have two IntelliStation E Pro sytems. They looked nice until I
found RAMBUS memory (1 with a failed module) and a Matrox AGP video
card in a non-standard form-factor.

[Robert Citek]

The idea was to take older, out of date systems that people are junking, breath some
life into them with Ubuntu and give them away to folks who otherwise
could not get anything, schools, church, whatever could use and/or
appreciate them. I thought it was a great way to keep from feeding the
landfills, a great way to give a bit of a helping hand to some folks
that may need it, a good way to promote Ubuntu, linux, and FOSS in
general, a way to build some skills, and a bit of fun tinkering.

Check out FreeGeek[1,2] and ByteWorks[3,4]. IIRC, there are a few
other groups in the SF Bay Area that do something similar. Those may
be models to emulate or at least learn from their successes/mistakes.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Geek
[2] http://www.freegeek.org/index.php
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bworks
[4] http://byteworks.bworks.org/

Regards,
- Robert

[Jeremy Leonard]

There is a company in Dexter by the name of ReCellular that deals with
recycling cell phones. It might be worth contacting somebody there to
see if they would like to sponsor or be a part of a program like this.

Regards,
Jeremy

Post by Robert Citek

The idea was to take older, out of date systems that people are junking, breath some
life into them with Ubuntu and give them away to folks who otherwise
could not get anything, schools, church, whatever could use and/or
appreciate them. I thought it was a great way to keep from feeding the
landfills, a great way to give a bit of a helping hand to some folks
that may need it, a good way to promote Ubuntu, linux, and FOSS in
general, a way to build some skills, and a bit of fun tinkering.

Check out FreeGeek[1,2] and ByteWorks[3,4]. IIRC, there are a few
other groups in the SF Bay Area that do something similar. Those may
be models to emulate or at least learn from their successes/mistakes.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Geek
[2] http://www.freegeek.org/index.php
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bworks
[4] http://byteworks.bworks.org/
Regards,
- Robert