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Piece of Crap practice machine [solved]


null
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The place where I buy all my hardware, which is also my ISP, has about 15 machines in the back room, made up of various "traded-in" machines and components. They are selling each one, no matter what the specs are, for $99. I was thinking about picking up one and using it to install various linux distros on. I figure I'll learn alot about installling various distros, partitionining during install, and whatnot. I would probably keep a distro on it for a week or 2 just to get a feel for each distro. Then install the next distro on top of the previous one.

 

The machines all have win98, processors range from amd-350 to P-III 450 and everything in between, HDs range from 2GB to 10GB, RAM ranges from 64MB to 256MB, all have a network card, some have USB-1.

 

I hate paying $99 for a crappy old box, but I wonder if its worth it for all the linux experience I would pick up by installing & reinstalling many different distros. I have a spare monitor, kb & mouse so nothing else would be needed. If I bought one it would a minimum of 128MB RAM, and a 6GB HD.

 

I can't think of a faster way to pickup alot of linux experience. $99 bucks for an old box, worth it or not??

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I picked up a cheap $99 computer and used it for about four years and then ran into problems. But it was my spare, play with things, computer. Only I used a kvm switch so I didn't have to mess with another monitor, mouse or keyboard. If you can get a decent one I say go for it.

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I wouldn't use it for anything other than to practice installing distros on. I have 2 decent boxes already that get daily use. This mandriva box is my main machine, and the win2k box I consider my spare. My win2k box is my most high-end machine - AMD-64, 1GB RAM, 160MB HD, Gigabyte Mobo w/SATA & RAID. I'm intending eventually to make it dual-boot with arch probably.

 

I gave my 8 yr old son my "old" machine, which is a P-III 1GHz, 256 MB ram, 2 HDs - 80GB & 6GB. I would love to still have that one as a practice machine.... but can't very well take it back now....

Edited by null
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I think that $99 for at best a used PIII 450MHz with 10GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM is too much money!

 

You can get a brand new Dell for $299 (includes 2.5 Ghz Celeron, 80GB hard drive, 256MB RAM, CD burner DVD player, 17 inch Flat Panel, 10/100 NIC, 1 Yr Warranty, etc.) and if you can build your own from parts you can find better deals than that. (Not a Dell sales pitch just one vendor I saw an ad for and just checked their web site.)

 

I recently purchased an old P-III 600Mhz, 15BG drive, 256MB RAM white box computer to use for Linux install test and training but I only paid $20 including monitor.

 

See if your ISP will negotiate on that price :)

 

-Bill

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Why don't you buy a nice new HD plug it in and experiment with that, and you will learn dual triple etc. booting too? It'll be cheaper and can save a lot of frustrating getting old so-so stuff to work.

Edited by ffi
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99 bucks is a bit too much for it. 60 bucks would be acceptable. My toybox is similar to what they offer you and it hasn't cost me even one cent. Actually itwas built by combining parts of old, abandoned computers. After a bit of invested time, I managed to build a 450 Mhz box with 320 MB Ram, a 20 GB Hdd, a CD-burner, USB 1.1, keyboard & mouse. (currently running with Debian)

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You should ask them how many they got left right now as if you're interested in buying a few, then leave it a week and phone them again and ask how many they got going. Can find out how quick they're going then ;) and see if they're talking crap about the price.

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null:

 

The Ars forum has a Agora Classifieds section where folks sell used hardware. You could put together a cheap system using pieces obtained from this forum. I have bought various bits of hardware from these folks over the years. Mostly to keep my chlidren's computers limping along so they can play games under Win98 :afro:

 

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/57909216

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ok, I'm not gonna do it. This is an ongoing thing for them. This company (a husband & wife company) is an ISP, and also they provide business computer services (sell, repair, and networking) (including the company I work for) so they always have "trade-ins" or just machines that they take off client's hands... In many cases the machines were not working - bad HD, or screwed windows, or whatever. So they will invest some time in putting in a working HD or any other component that is no good, reinstall win98, and stick it on their shelf for $99.

 

So the price does have some "time spent" calculated in it...

 

but I'm not gonna do it, anyway...

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