[NBLUG/talk] ATTN: Todd Carry: Talked to the Computer Recycling Center

Justin Thiessen thiessen at sonic.net
Thu Aug 14 10:59:00 PDT 2003


<delurk>

Hiya,

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Eric Eisenhart wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 04:49:38PM -0700, augie wrote:
> > Lincoln Peters wrote:
> > > And if this doesn't work, maybe we can start our own Computer
> > > Recycling Center.
> >
> > i think the hardest part about that would be finding someone to store
> > all the old pc's, and someone to run or be in charge of it all.
>
> Also, if you end up with a bunch of old monitors that can't be used, those
> cost money to get rid of.
>
> I'd much rather see some sort of cooperative venture with CRC.  Maybe
> interested NBLUG volunteers helping them out, particularly with getting
> Linux onto machines, etc...

A few thoughts:

I just joined the talk list, so I may have missed some discussion in an
earlier thread, but I was wondering exactly what the goals would be for
this effort.  Is the primary motivation a bit of linux evangelism, or is
it mainly a desire to save old hardware from going to the dump?  Don't get
me wrong, I hate seeing perfectly functional hardware get crushed, and the
performance bar CRC sets for the systems they keep as opposed to the
systems they strip/recycle is higher than I *personally* would like, but I
understand their reasoning.  We aren't talking about setting up _really_
low-spec systems that CRC doesn't want, are we?  I may think it's cool to
teak an installation so that it runs tolerably on a 486, and you guys may
as well, but I doubt most people who ended up with the resultant systems
would be all that pleased.

My impression is that CRC does post-purchase user support.  Setting up
systems with linux may be fun, but unpaid tech support isn't.  Are NBLUG
members going to step up and provide such?  We're talking serious newbies,
too.  I've overheard questions asked at the weekly sale that made me
wince because of the complete lack of background revealed.  Again, don't
get me wrong; I'm not saying such people can't learn to use Linux, but I
suspect there may be a lot of handholding necessary.  If NBLUG members
volunteer to put together linux boxes, I imagine they're also volunteering
to do the post-purchase support.

In the same vein, any systems built/setup need to be rock-solid from the
end-user standpoint.  This probably means a fair amount of hardware
swapping to produce fully-functional boxes.  It also means not relying on
hardware only supported by alpha-quality drivers, which may require
judgement calls and a suprising amount of research on the part of the
builder.

Systems should be setup to be as transparently Windows-interoperable as
possible.  While this is personally not a big deal to me, since I
don't take data back and forth, my guess is that most new users will,
especially since many of them may be students.  Data interchange should
not be a heavy-duty annoyance for the new owner.

How disillusioned are volunteers going to be when they find out that over
half their carefully configured linux installations get wiped and replaced
by Win2000/XP/whatever within a week of sale?


> I think we're too disorganized to really pull off doing a CRC-type operation
> on our own.  Probably need to do the tax stuff to be a 501(c)(3)(?) official
> non-profit and whatnot, too.  There's a lot of logistics to an operation
> like that...

Yeah, it'd be much easier to let them take care of legal details, as well
as donation filtering and storage.  _My_ office is already on its way
to looking like the CRC backroom...


<snip>

Justin Thiessen
thiessen at sonic.net


PS - any other Justins on this list?  If I'm going to overload the
namespace I can go by something else for clarity's sake.



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