What should I do with an old old old machine?

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Joined: 7 Mar 2010
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09 Jun 2012, 6:38 pm

Hey!
Does anyone know what I could do with the following system:
Dell Latitude L400 (Laptop)
800Mhz Pentium 3.
ATI RAGE 128
Ram: 256 (Can upgrade)
10GB (or was it 20) HDD.
What do you think I could/should do with it apart from selling it?
Do you think it would make a nice Linux machine for me to bugger about with? (If I run something like Damn Small Linux with LXDE)

What do you think?

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duncvis
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09 Jun 2012, 6:43 pm

I'd stick a lightweight Linux distro on it meself, or summat else with low hardware requirements like Haiku, and use it to play with.

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amboxer21
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09 Jun 2012, 7:01 pm

I would install Arch!! Or if you are a Linux Guru; Give Linux From Scratch a try.

lau
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10 Jun 2012, 7:15 am

Madbones wrote:

I quite like the performance of my Puppy on its 96Mb Compaq, from a partition of the 8Gb(-ish?) HDD. It's a while since I played with it, but I may have had a DSL partition on there as well.

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ruveyn
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10 Jun 2012, 8:30 am

Dispose of it safely. There are companies that extract the valuable metals and dispose of the toxic materials safely.

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scubasteve
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10 Jun 2012, 3:48 pm

Depends on what you're looking to do with it. LXDE or XFCE should run fine without needing to add memory.

edgewaters
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10 Jun 2012, 4:27 pm

Give it to a kid who doesn't have his own computer.

Kumorigoe
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10 Jun 2012, 8:08 pm

Use it as a hardware firewall. Or a file server. Or a jukebox.

Fogman
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11 Jun 2012, 9:53 am

I'm for the Puppy Linux, or using the computer as a jukebox. --If you use it as a jukebox, you could probably get away with loading the system with a legacy version of Redhat, such as RedHat 9, which is still available for download from here:
ftp://archive.download.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/iso/i386/

If you're not familiar with this one, it's the last of the real RedHat distro's from beofre they decided to get corporate and start charging a S**tload of cash for a free OS. It uses one of the later 2.4 Kernels, and GNOME 2.2 or KDE 3.2. --You can install both environments side by side, and these early versions of the major desktop environments actually play well with one another.

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Tollorin
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11 Jun 2012, 9:55 am

Play old video games.

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compiledkernel
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11 Jun 2012, 9:58 am

Cram another network card into it, and make a firewall out of it.

Edit: nm, didnt read it as a laptop.

Turn into into a core services machine on your network and expand your networking knowledge.

Oodain
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11 Jun 2012, 10:16 am

make a retro arcade box
run interactive screens throughout the home
peactice your overclockign skills, some of the older chips were phenomenal at taking punishment.

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MarthaCannary
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13 Jun 2012, 1:05 pm

Uh... that thing is reeeeally old... using it for networking/core services, anything that needs a fast network won't be a good idea, 10/100 ethernet...... Hello Bottleneck!

Slap some linux on it and give it to a homeless person or a kid with some aptitude.

Donate it to your local autism center. Someone there would be able to put it to use I'm sure.

pete1061
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14 Jun 2012, 8:38 pm

Door-stop.

That thing is useless. It would be a dis-service to give it to anyone.
As far as monetary value, it has none. You would have to pay someone to dispose of it properly.

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DefKoN
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15 Jun 2012, 4:19 am

edgewaters wrote:

Give it to a kid who doesn't have his own computer.

zacb
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15 Jun 2012, 2:33 pm

I think maybe turning into a general purpose media play might be a good idea. Maybe either add winamp or something like that. I don't know what os that has, but maybe you should try turning it into a media player. Kinda like a poor mans roku player.

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