What to do With Old Computer

[whitewater3505]

Hey Guys,

I have a Dell 600M Laptop, that is almost completely archaic. It has 512 MB of RAM, a 1.8 Ghz Pentium M, an 80 GB hard drive, a cd burner, a NIC and such.

Any ideas of what I should do with it.

Use it as a file server, sell on ebay, take a hammer to it are some of the things a came up with any others?....

Thank you

[nolimit974]

use it for folding or....send it to me:D

[panther3e]

Old computer? What you described is twice the computer than thwe four machines I own. All of the machines I have run various distro's of linux very well. I can't imagine what I would do with that machine LOL.

If your computer is almost completely archaic, than what would mine be considered?

[folkert]

Sounds like something very usable. If it was mine, one month ago, I wouldn't have bought a new computer.

You could use it as a file server, if you want one.
You could experiment whatever idea you have and do not want to do on your new computer
You could see it as a spare, if you experiment to much on your new computer
If you don't see use for it, sell it or give it away, don't wait until nobody sees use for it.

[happybunny]

I have an old armada I am turning into a digital photo frame.

As soon as my new camera shows up, I hope to take pictures of my progress.

Having issues with mounting the parts to the plexiglass, but it *should* look cool when I'm done.

I've complete removed the outside of the laptop, so you can see the mobo/cpu/ram and hard drive, all still working and hanging on the wall showing pictures....

I hope!

[infiniphunk]

you should put Xubuntu (http://www.xubuntu.org/) on it; betcha you get everything working properly, including wireless.
I had pretty much the same laptop at work a couple years ago, and regular Ubuntu worked on it perfectly.
Of course any other nice light distro of your choosing could make and excellent choice.

cheers

[whitewater3505]

I chose Ubuntu Server edition. I'm just going to use it for a file/print server. Hope everything installs and setup easy....

Edit: New error message (I have been using Linux for a while now)

PANIC: CPU too old for this kernel.

Well played Ubuntu well played

I have a Centrino which is i686, and the download is for x86?

[i845_]

You might find this interesting... (link (http://linuxgazette.net/141/lazar.html))

[happybunny]

I *thought* if you had less than 512megs RAM you needed to install Ubuntu a special way....perhaps the same goes for your slow CPU?

[whitewater3505]

Do you know the special way? I do not want to install any type of gui, want to save some RAM... So Ubuntu Desktop is out of question.

Just a note.

Ubuntu 7.10 desktop installs fine

but

Ubuntu Server 7.10 and 6.06 LTS gives me the CPU too old error.

[panther3e]

did you try the alternate desktop CD. This CD does not include the Live CD, instead it uses a text-based installer.

[bwkaz]

I have a Centrino which is i686, and the download is for x86? Just as a double-check: That's not x86_64, right?

Well, never mind: Googling the error message resulted in this page:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/151942

as the first hit. ;)

[whitewater3505]

Yeah I saw that

The work around they provide is also a no go.

I think ima find another distro other than the *buntu family :(

I will feel a little weird outside of my distro...

I'll try Suse server edition, since I have heard nothing but good things about it...

[skyline111]

If you got a better laptop, don't need it any more you can just sell it out on the ebay.

[nolimit974]

I still say send it my way.

[psych-major]

My wife uses that same laptop every day, and it performs beautifully.

I had a Dell D800 (1.6 Ghz proc, 512 RAM) until recently as my work machine, at various times I dual-booted windows and either SuSE, Slackware or Ubuntu...all three ran totally fine.

If that were mine now, I would set up Slack 12 on it, especially if you want to use it as a server...