Sounds like a good way to make use of old eMachines, at a large discount too.
Finally, the year of the Linux Desktop! (eMachine edition)
When quarantines hit and everyone was communicating via zoom, I offered to recycle people’s computers and destroy their old hard drives for free. I’d remove and drill multiple holes through the hard drives, vacuum/dust the computer, install a small, inexpensive HDD, and install Ubuntu.
Then I’d install zoom and chrome (sorry) and then pair each computer with a wired mouse, keyboard, and webcam that I had laying around in bulk. Then I’d drop these computers off at shelters, elder communities, and religious institutions. Essentially, anywhere you’d find someone who didn’t have the means to contact family, attend an interview, or whatever.
Recycling/upcycling old computers isn’t just good for the environment and your investment, it’s good for your community!
You’re doing the lord’s work, fartographer
Eh, I didn’t have much else going on and playing Jackbox remotely with my family made me realize how much others were possibly missing out. I don’t even know if or how those computers were used. I just had a lot of time on my hands and an urge to use my then-new drill. Then, I’d move the equipment out before my wife killed me and then let literally anyone else handle the logistics.
Prior to the pandemic, I’d take 20+ year-old laptops and other equipment to a friend’s ranch and we’d shoot shit. One time, I peppered myself with glass from a CRT after shooting it from a few feet away with a 16 ga.
I’m not directed by charity, I’m just wildly impulsive and occasionally productive.
Then I’d install zoom and chrome (sorry)
You monster…
Chaotic good
Why chrome?
Sometimes you have to meet people where they are with something familiar, I’m guessing?
Mainly because it’s what people knew and expected. “Other” browsers make it too easy to blame user errors on an unfamiliar environment or interface.
But most of all, it’s about picking my battles. I’m there to get employees and volunteers to help vulnerable people get connected and don’t want to get hung up on trying to educate them about privacy and ethics.
“Ewww, Ubuntu? Honey, don’t touch it. We’re an Arch family.”
-No one ever
Ubuntu 16.04? Was this photo taken 8-9 years ago?
idk if it’s that old but it’s certainly not recent, ive seen this photo floating around for years
I’m all about upcycling PCs with Linux, but I think selling a PC with 2GB RAM is going to make Linux look bad. It’s gonna handle its resources better than windows, but 2GB is just too little for today’s standards. It will not run well.
edit:considering this is 10 years old judging by the versions used, back then it would have been okayish, I have a convertible from that time with the same specs but it just can’t keep up anymore.
Idk what year that pic was taken, but 2GB of ram is useless no matter what operating system you put on it.
Except ofc for a home nas, but as a desktop, the user is going to open Firefox, try to open a website, it will take minutes to load and the user just wasted $20
2GB of ram is useless no matter what operating system you put on it.
Ubuntu 16.04
This is an old photo
It’s a poor spec for a phone, let alone a PC.
Sometimes it’s best just to scrap it.
My NAS had 4GB and eventually I maxed it out to 16GB when the pricing for its type of RAM dropped significantly.
Mine has 256Mb for steaming audio. Doesn’t use it all even :)
Libre Office 5.2 seems to have been released in August 2016.
5 minutes ago I was gaming on my 2gb Windows XP machine.
I just installed my tenth distro on a 2gb netbook, and they all played games of that era just as well as I remember. Just got done playing a map on dawn of war.
I don’t expect these things to play cyberpunk 2077, but if you just want to play stardew valley or terraria it is more than sufficient.
After reading that, I just checked my memory. After an hour and a half using FF and and a videoplayer (on a reasonably up-to-date Ubuntu 20.x-based XFCE system), I’m using 2.2GB (out of 16, fairly typical, with no swap). So I’m pretty sure that - depending as always on what software they’ve chosen - 2GB is far from ‘useless’. As always, depends on the use case. That’s plenty if you spend most days in a text editor coding.
I was able to get Windows 11 to run on a 10 year old laptop through Proxmox. With 3 other Linux OSs running at the same time. With almost no issues. The Win11 system requirements are made up. It’s a way to sell more computers, that’s it. Line go up is all it is.
Still a very inefficient OS
Oh totally! It took 5x longer to install than endeavorOS and Arch combined. It was really more of a test. I was just surprised that it ran at all on such low allocated resources given how inefficient it is! Especially since it wouldn’t pass the system requirements they allegedly require to upgrade from win10. I guess the point I’m driving home is, if you really HAVE to use windows, there are janky, hoop-jumping workarounds. It’s all getting wiped anyways. I’ll probably load LM or an Arch flavor for more fun tests later. It’ll end up as ewaste in a couple years anyway. The onboard vent fans are dying.
Yes, but at the end of the day you’re still running Windows.
This is exactly how I got into Linux .
Had some… Life troubles.
Started over.
Needed computer.
Local community employment/outreach/social support place had a volunteer run computer place in the basement (they also had a bike place, and a cafe or two, and some apartments, and they were the best community org ever…).
100$
I bought 2 over a couple years.
I’m pretty sure they had xubuntu.
Over 10 years later I still have both. And I just put mint 23xfce on one and use it as my living room media player - dvi to HDMI projector.
I have no need for a lot of stuff. I make work what I can. And I keep it working as long as I can however I can.
$20 is one hell of a price, considering how much time must have gone into this machine!
That depends on their setup.
Taking donated PCs to save them from e-waste. Hooking it up to a large KVM and running hardware diags then a image script to load OS, software and quick check for drivers and functionality…
Maybe 15-30 min labor if you’re efficient and doing them in bulk.
… Yeah still a good deal haha.
I used to do this kind of work. With a wall of monitors mounted and PCs below. It was pretty chill and just needed to poke one when needed.
Nah that’s at least an hour, assuming there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
I don’t mean time on the bench. I mean tech time working on it.
Hook it up. Start diag. Poke a different system.
Diag done? Passed? Start imaging with post kickstart or Ansible script. Work on a different box.
Image done? Check drivers, updates and functionality checklist.If you had to do 100 of these you can get pretty good at it.
Exactly. I used to do the same thing about 15 years ago with Windows XP and Windows 7 computers. I didn’t have a lot of space, so I’d get about half a dozen set up and go along them in a row running the installers. By the time I got to the end of the row, the first one would be about ready for me to click the next box. The vast majority of time installing an OS is waiting.
Yep. Wrench time vs bench time was my thing. If you do 16 in a 8 hour shift that’s 30 min a piece even if they take a few hours with diag, imaging, installs and updates.
Once you get good you just doom scroll while you wait.
make use of old eMachines
eMachines was a brand of economical personal computers. In 2004, it was acquired by Gateway, Inc., which was in turn acquired by Acer Inc. in 2007. The eMachines brand was discontinued in 2013.
The year of the Linux eDishwasher!
i guess the eMachines truly were never obsolete
I’m troubled that my older hardware is way less power efficient doing the same tasks.
The most environmentally friendly computer is the one you already have. No power savings is so great as to offset the environmental cost of manufacturing of a new machine, shipping it to you, and the environmental impact of putting the existing machine into landfill. Run it into the ground until it either physically breaks or is literally no longer capable of performing the tasks you need. It’s not an environmental gain to upgrade JUST for power efficiency.
This is useless. It’s not even high enough spec to run your Electron calculator in a sandboxed container.
/s
What has kept me from trying Linux is my fear of not understanding what I’m doing all over again, and difficulty running all of my games. I’ve used Windows since the mid-90s and I’m very good/familiar with it. Diving headfirst into a new OS and feeling like an idiot again is not something I want, so I’ve been too afraid to make that jump. I also don’t know whether or not the difficulty running games thing is overblown.
Linux Mint is often recommended to the uninitiated and you can test it without installing it, using a live USB image. Boot up of off the USB drive, test it, turn it off, pop out the drive, tun it back on, you’re back to your old OS.
Whatever the linux flavor, the graphical part will most likely be called GNOME or KDE. They’re very user-friendly, you just need to explore a bit with your mouse.
Games have improved tremendously thanks to Valve and you can play most of them on linux via compatibility layers.
Games are now incredibly easy to run on Linux thanks to Proton. I haven’t tested my entire back catalog but I’ve yet to encounter an actual problem that required a fix since I switched to Linux for good earlier this year.
Anecdotal, but I remember the difficulty of running games as the reason I never fully committed in the past. I’ll never touch Windows again. I see the learning curve as a positive. I’m always excited to dive deeper into Linux.
There are some that will have a familiar interface to you. I don’t have experience myself but since the Steam Deck came out gaming on Linux has been rapidly improving.
I was like you and I took the plunge when W10 was given its death sentence. I watched a few tutorials on YouTube, picked a distro (Mint, it feels very familiar if you come from a windows environment) and after a few days of dual boot I got rid of Windows for good. Never looked back.
Initially there were some little hurdles with games, you can install Steam very easily (flatpaks are a godsend) but only a small selection of games are Linux-compatible by default. Then I heard about Proton, and with another flatpak installation boom all my Steam games worked, and damn well I have to add.
Then I heard about Lutris, and my Sims games that I thought I’d never get to play again now work.
Please don’t worry about not knowing what you’re doing, if you pick a distro like Mint you will not have to mess up with the terminal unless you choose to. Try running a distro on a virtual machine to see how it feels!
like others are saying: I installed a second NVMe SSD and put Linux Mint on it. This was a very simple task, and it automatically setup a boot window so when I start the computer it gives me the option to pick Windows or Linux. Linux Mint has a software center where I selected and installed Steam w/ Proton (again, super easy to setup, lots of online instructions) and my games work just fine. I keep Windows just because I dont want to lose my access to the OS, but Linux is now my main.
I can’t speak to games, but I’ve found that when I used Ubuntu, it was pretty easy to figure out. I’m thinking other distros should be comparably simple.
I have close to no problems with games that are compiled for Windows.
The only real problem is anti-cheats actively combating Linux/Wine/Proton: https://areweanticheatyet.com/
Anything else either works or does so after a few Wine/Proton updates.
$20 👍
