Yay, free disks in the mail!

[zerhacke]

Hooray! I just received my Ubuntu 5.10 disks in the mail from ShipIt. Now I'm ready to take the big plunge from 5.04 to 5.10. This coincides nicely with the fact that my friend living in West Virginia just got two dozen computers that were rescued from the trash bin of a local college. Looks like I'll get that chance to cluster Ubuntu after all.

This should prove to be a great treat.

[Brunellus]

you mean they actually throw stuff out in WV?

;)

[Master Shake]

I can just picture a PC with the BSOD on blocks out in the front yard... :)

[blueturtl]

you mean they actually throw stuff out in WV?

They actually throw computers away everywhere. Here in Finland, large companies, schools, even the military! It's really sad to see so much good hardware being thrown away because it couldn't run the latest MS Office Outlook.

People upgrade because their computers are "old" and "slow". I just wonder how computers that were completely capable of

word processing
email
web browsing
etc


turn incapable of doing those things. Shouldn't new computers enable people to do more with them? Not the same things over and over again?

[zerhacke]

A PC on blocks... hahaha.

No, these machines were sent to the trash bin because the college upgraded most everything they had to newer systems. There's even some 1u rackmount switches in the pile my buddy rescued.

From what I got out of our conversation about ten minutes ago there's a few 2u servers in there too. Either that or they're desktop machines. He doesn't know jack about computers other than how to be a general end user, so I don't fault him for not knowing the difference.

If they are some 2u servers, I'm going to have a ball. I don't even really care how old they are, I am a lover of all things server. I'm hoping to replace my aging HP Netserver LXPro with one of these machines. The only thing I'll miss from that machine is the RAID card it had, god that thing is sweet even if it is six or eight years old.

[Ride Jib]

They actually throw computers away everywhere. Here in Finland, ...

Being from Finland, I think you missed the joke. West Virginia is a section of the U.S. that is stereotyped as a very 'white-trash' type of place. By this, I mean that people have very little money, live in trailers, and procreate with their siblings. Again, this is a stereotype. I have never visited WV personally, so I cannot confirm or deny this. I have, however, met a couple people from there and the elevator didn't go all the way up, if you know what I mean...

[blueturtl]

Being from Finland, I think you missed the joke.

Oh great. My ignorance has been revealed. :p

Well but it's interesting to learn new things. You want to tell me things about what people in Wisconsin are like, because I lived there ten years ago and people often tell me how sorry they are but I don't understand why? :D

Oh, and just so we stay on topic, I'm still waiting for my discs to arrive...

[zerhacke]

Wow, I made a mistake. They're not just two dozen workstations, there's eight 1u rackmount servers in there too. And I get all of the servers. Screw workstations!

I get them tomorrow. I'll let you guys know the specs on them as soon as I can get a model number or otherwise pull the specs off the machines.

[Brunellus]

I meant the WV joke in a more positive light: poor, hardscrabble areas are often the places where you find a lot of "creative reuse". When there's very little out there, you don't waste the little you have.

Thinknig laterally: when is windows 2k EOL'd, finally? Because I expect there to be a great haul in the used hardware market when that happens.