As you are reading this blog, I believe you have at least one or two spare computers you cannot find any real use at the moment. If you are not interested in following K. Mandla's footsteps and use Crux and Awesome with an ancient laptop of 120 MHz & 16 Mb, you might try this "Frankenstein hack" and build a cool slim desktop out of your old laptop!
Or maybe you could combine the two ideas?
Showing posts with label Hardware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hardware. Show all posts
Rescuing LaCie - thinking about backups again
Today in the morning, I turned my computer on and plugged my LaCie external hard drive on. Nothing happened. No icon appeared on the desktop. Soon I noticed that the led was blinking orange and green light and I heard the hard drive slowly click.
Not again! Only last summer I lost one hard disk drive, and now the rather expensive external hard disk was dead. Fortunately, I had mostly backups on the hard disk and only a few hundred photos that I probably did not have elsewhere.
After some googling around I learned how to open the case by using a thin kitchen knife. What I found was a basic Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive. It turned out to be a fully functioning hard disk that was easy to mount as an internal hard disk in my desktop computer.
Now I have something I should probably call an internal external hard disk :-)
Tomorrow I have to buy yet another hard disk for building some kind of automatic backup system using some old box I have under my desk.
Any suggestions?
Not again! Only last summer I lost one hard disk drive, and now the rather expensive external hard disk was dead. Fortunately, I had mostly backups on the hard disk and only a few hundred photos that I probably did not have elsewhere.
After some googling around I learned how to open the case by using a thin kitchen knife. What I found was a basic Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive. It turned out to be a fully functioning hard disk that was easy to mount as an internal hard disk in my desktop computer.
Now I have something I should probably call an internal external hard disk :-)
Tomorrow I have to buy yet another hard disk for building some kind of automatic backup system using some old box I have under my desk.
Any suggestions?
Fit-PC Slim from Amazon
I just noticed Amazon sells a cool tiny and noiseless PC for USD 199. The computer even comes with Ubuntu 8.04 and Gentoo 2008.0 preinstalled for dual boot use!
The computer uses an AMD Geode LX800 CPU, has 512 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. For the graphics it uses an Integrated Geode LX display controller that is able to show screen resolutions up to 1920x1440 pixels.
Its size is miniature 4.3 x 4 x 1.2 inches and like the popular netbooks it weighs only about two pounds.
This computer looks like the ultimate Linux desktop computer that would satisfy all my computing needs. Does any of my readers have any personal experience with it?
The computer uses an AMD Geode LX800 CPU, has 512 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. For the graphics it uses an Integrated Geode LX display controller that is able to show screen resolutions up to 1920x1440 pixels.
Its size is miniature 4.3 x 4 x 1.2 inches and like the popular netbooks it weighs only about two pounds.
This computer looks like the ultimate Linux desktop computer that would satisfy all my computing needs. Does any of my readers have any personal experience with it?
Two Watt Linux System
This might be old news to some of my readers, but for me it wasn't. Hackszine.com published two months ago an article about BeagleBoard that is an ultralight, extra tiny, 2 watt Linux system. Fortunately I don't have at the moment the necessary $$$ to buy a new gadget.
Jukebox with P133 and 42 MB RAM
You might get some new ideas for using old hardware by reading the blog posting The Garage Jukebox in the blog Classical Gas Emissions. The author describes here how he built a digital jukebox with P133, 42 MB RAM, four DVD drives, and Damn Small Linux.
Nice Hack!
Nice Hack!
News: Houswives buy Laptops with Linux
According to an article published in zdnet, housewives in Taiwan buy Asus' laptops with Linux while geeks buy them with XP. Makes me wonder, why geeks in Taiwan want to pay for XP when they could get a better OS preinstalled?
News: low end hardware from Asus
The trend of producing new low specs hardware for sustainable and affordable computing seems to continue as new products are coming to market.
Asus has been famous for its hugely popular Eee PC laptops with preinstalled Linux. Now Asus has published a low end desktop computer, Eee Box. These should be energy efficient and have a low carbon footprint. Unfortunately, at the moment Eee Boxes come with a preinstalled Windows XP which is probably the reason for rather high announced price (£199 or €251). Boxes with preinstalled Linux should follow later.[1]
I am not quite sure whether a computer with 1.66 GHz CPU and 1 GB of memory should be regarded as low end hardware. Most of the world seems to think it should - but I'm still using hardware with even lower specs as my main desktop and laptop. And I am not even considering buying new hardware just because of new OS releases.
[1] Not such a little revolution in Desktop Computing " (29.8.2008)
Asus has been famous for its hugely popular Eee PC laptops with preinstalled Linux. Now Asus has published a low end desktop computer, Eee Box. These should be energy efficient and have a low carbon footprint. Unfortunately, at the moment Eee Boxes come with a preinstalled Windows XP which is probably the reason for rather high announced price (£199 or €251). Boxes with preinstalled Linux should follow later.[1]
I am not quite sure whether a computer with 1.66 GHz CPU and 1 GB of memory should be regarded as low end hardware. Most of the world seems to think it should - but I'm still using hardware with even lower specs as my main desktop and laptop. And I am not even considering buying new hardware just because of new OS releases.
[1] Not such a little revolution in Desktop Computing " (29.8.2008)
Linux on Low End Macs
Many people do not realize, that one can install Linux also on older Macintosh computers. I myself have Debian installed on an old iBook (600Mhz, 384 MB RAM). A great way to resurrect a great-looking and really portable laptop that had some old version of Mac OS installed, with no chance of getting modern software. Debian offered me everything I needed, and more.
PenguinPPC.org is on of the best sources for information on running Linux on a PowerPC. More tips can be found in Linux on Power wiki. If you want to try something else, you can always try NetBSD. It is a lot easier to install NetBSD in Macintosh than in a toaster. And even that can be done...
If you can get an older Mac for free, like I did, take it and liberate it!
PenguinPPC.org is on of the best sources for information on running Linux on a PowerPC. More tips can be found in Linux on Power wiki. If you want to try something else, you can always try NetBSD. It is a lot easier to install NetBSD in Macintosh than in a toaster. And even that can be done...
If you can get an older Mac for free, like I did, take it and liberate it!
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