[NBLUG/talk] Cheap Computers for All

[Walter Hansen]

I'll be sure to post my results when I try it. :-)

> I put Damn Small Linux on a Toshiba laptop Portage T3600CT 486 50 MHz 24
> MB
> memory 500 MB HD. Swap was set to 96 MB The display is vga only. It was
> work
> because no cd boot, parallel port cd. I did this to get support for a
> pcmcia
> wireless card.
> The laptop was reasonably fast on Win 95 and even ran Office 2000. With
> DSL
> it is glacial 5 minutes to boot. Firefox takes over 15 minutes to load as
> does Open Office and AbiWord.. It will run Dillo and the FLWriter slower
> than you would like but useable. VGA resolution limits usefulness on the
> web.
> The point of this is that Pentiums arround 200 MHz and  more than 24 MB
> mem
> and 800 X 600 is a practical minimum. I would be interested in hearing how
> your installation of the RULE software works. Especialy a comparsion with
> DSL. My laptop is the equivalent to a kerocene lamp and stove.
> Bob Smith
> KD6FVI
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Walter Hansen" <gandalf at sonic.net>
> To: <talk at nblug.org>
> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 12:29 PM
> Subject: [NBLUG/talk] Cheap Computers for All
>
>
>> Just ran across this in one of the tech journals I get and thought it
> might
>> be of interest to you and yours.
>>
>> There is a project to make an install of Linux that will work very well
>> on
> a
>> very low power computer. Sounds like they have it working with computers
>> such as 486s (might even work with 386s) with as little as 6megs memory.
> The
>> idea is that there is no real reason why such junk computers need to
>> fill
> up
>> landfills when people who can't afford much could be using them.
>>
>> I've got a couple of Pentium 100 laptops with 1-gig drives that I might
>> install this onto. Their idea is to use modern distributions but with
> memory
>> and hard drive minimal programs that will run fast on older hardware.
>> They've got a desktop/browser and such all working along with office
>> applications and such. Also these are secure modern distributions
>> (fedora/kde), not old software.
>>
>> It kina boils down to the fact that you don't need a P4 2ghz machine
>> with
> a
>> gig of ram to run minesweeper or check email. In the windows world these
>> computers are not supported and are only good for the trash. (Just try
>> getting patches for win 95). But in the linux world that may not have to
> be
>> the case.
>>
>>
>> http://www.rule-project.org/
>>
>>
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