I got a free computer...

[sydbat]

...and I have it set up as a media server in my living room!!

My brother-in-law decided that his old computer was starting to run too slow and went out and bought a new one. He asked me if I wanted this old one. Of course, being the geek I am, I said yes.

To my surprise, this box turned out to be only 2 years old. The reason it was running slow was the amount of cat fur/dust bunnies living inside and clogging all the heat sinks. I asked him if he had ever vacuumed it out and he said he never opens his computers to clean them.

So I cleaned it out and it runs perfectly fine.

It is an Intel quad core with 4 GB RAM, 500GB HDD, a wireless network card that downloads faster than my wired box, a high-end sound card (that he could never get running under Windows, but works flawlessly OOTB with Lucid) and a nice nVidia graphics card. Everything works wonderfully on my 46" LCD.

However, I have had to remove Pulse because it would not recognize the audio card properly. It did correctly find the analog 7.1 outs, but the digital out was only 2 channel. While I could set VLC to play with ALSA and 5.1 digital, I wanted to have everything come out of all 5.1 speakers of my home theatre receiver for every application. The only downside to removing Pulse is I can only have one app with sound at a time.

Is there any way of getting ALSA to play more than one app's sound at a time? My wife likes to play a couple of video games while listening to music (so do I) and the sound from both is usually on.

Or are there any configuration tools for Pulse (if I decide to reinstall it) that allow choosing which system-wide sound drivers I want...kind of like the way it used to be in Hardy?

[dragos240]

My goodness, nice free comp!

[sydbat]

My goodness, nice free comp!Tell me about it. I thought it might be a P4 or something, the way he talked about it.

[TheNerdAL]

Wow, great computer. I would've loved it. :D

[RiceMonster]

People give computers like that away for free? :confused: Sweet deal.

[Tristam Green]

since it's free: i can has?

[dragos240]

since it's free: i can has?

Not free anymore. You cannot has computar.

[Tristam Green]

Tristam sad. Tristam can has buckat?

[RiceMonster]

Tristam sad. Tristam can has buckat?

No, that iz ma bukkit

[gutterslob]

...and I have it set up as a media server in my living room!!

.....................

It is an Intel quad core with 4 GB RAM, 500GB HDD, a wireless network card that downloads faster than my wired box, a high-end sound card (that he could never get running under Windows, but works flawlessly OOTB with Lucid) and a nice nVidia graphics card.

That's one helluva media server you have there. o_O

3 words.
You Lucky Bastid!! :p

[sydbat]

Thanks to everyone who understand how lucky I am to get this. I tried to not take it, but he gets insulted easily and my wife told me just accept it gracefully.

As to my questions in my OP, anyone know an answer?
However, I have had to remove Pulse because it would not recognize the audio card properly. It did correctly find the analog 7.1 outs, but the digital out was only 2 channel. While I could set VLC to play with ALSA and 5.1 digital, I wanted to have everything come out of all 5.1 speakers of my home theatre receiver for every application. The only downside to removing Pulse is I can only have one app with sound at a time.

Is there any way of getting ALSA to play more than one app's sound at a time? My wife likes to play a couple of video games while listening to music (so do I) and the sound from both is usually on.

Or are there any configuration tools for Pulse (if I decide to reinstall it) that allow choosing which system-wide sound drivers I want...kind of like the way it used to be in Hardy?

[philinux]

sydbat,

This may help.

pulse audio (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578&highlight=pulse+audio)

Also http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=776739&highlight=pulse+audio

[CharlesA]

I don't deal with pulse audio but maybe this will help?

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-814285.html

Looks like it's from 2009, but it might still work for Lucid. I don't know.

[sydbat]

sydbat,

This may help.

pulse audio (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578&highlight=pulse+audio)

Also http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=776739&highlight=pulse+audio


I don't deal with pulse audio but maybe this will help?

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-814285.html

Looks like it's from 2009, but it might still work for Lucid. I don't know.Thanks guys. I'll check those out.

Y'know, I have Googled and searched this forum for the past 2 days and did not find these. Weird, eh?

[Dragonbite]

Tell me about it. I thought it might be a P4 or something, the way he talked about it.

Dang! The P4's I've gotten a while ago are UPGRADEs for me! Now they're my "power" machines!

I am like sooo far behind in the tech curve!

[sydbat]

Sound works without Pulse perfectly now. Can play music and other sounds at the same time through ALSA. Might be because I turn this box off at night and the reboot did the trick.

Thanks guys!

[chessnerd]

Nice. Both of my desktops were given to me by relatives free of charge, and I combined parts from other free machines to make them a bit better.

The best free computer I have ever gotten is the one that I am using right now. It is a Dell Dimension 4600 desktop, the specs - 2.8 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, and 120 GB HDD. I also got the monitor, keyboard, and speakers. Not an amazing machine, but not too shabby either.

Before that, I had received two towers:

A Sony Vaio desktop with a 1.8 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, and 80 GB HDD.

A Dell Optiplex GX240 with a 1.7 GHz P4, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD, and a 128 MB nVidia GeForce FX 5200 card.

I also had two desktops in my garage:

A Gateway Mid-Tower with a 1.1 GHz Athlon, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, and a 64 MB nVidia TNT2 Pro card.

A Gateway 2000 P5-200 with a 200 MHz Pentium I, 32 MB RAM, and a 4 GB HDD.

I have since gutted the Gateway Mid-Tower and Sony Vaio and gave their parts to the Dell Optiplex, so it's current specs are: 1.8 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB HDD, and 64 MB nVidia TNT2 Pro. It currently runs Windows 2000 SP4 (which it came with) and *buntu 10.04 with vanilla Xfce. I plan on putting in the 80 GB hard drive and removing the 20 GB Windows 2000 drive in July after Windows 2000 loses support.

I gave the 128 MB GeForce card to the Dell Dimension. It is running Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu 10.04.

[The Real Dave]

You know what my last free computer was? A 2.4Ghz Celeron >.< Which I setup as my encoding server! :D

Takes 14 hours per DVD, but does the job :)

</jealous>

[Timmer1240]

You lucky dog put linux of some flavor on it treat it nice!

[sydbat]

You lucky dog put linux of some flavor on it treat it nice!As I mentioned earlier, I put Lucid on it.

Took Windows off, as I haven't had to use Windows for 3 years and my bro-in-law has this "thing" about licensing (even though he wouldn't even be using the Windows that came with this box, he thinks it would be piracy...weird).

Also, to update the sound issue, followed the threads posted above and reinstalled Pulse...seems to be running perfectly so far.

[CharlesA]

Glad you got your sound working. :)

That's a pretty badass rig, for free. :D

[Metrop021]

sweet free system, thats an upgrade from my main system :(

[mamamia88]

Sounds like you won the lottery. Free quad core machine thought I had it good when I found Mass Effect 2 at a Garage Sale for $4

[doorknob60]

Better than mine :/ Mine's good enough for me though (except I need a new GFX Card).

[Windows Nerd]

My goodness, nice free comp!

Sure is, I would kill to get one of those for free...it's better than the old computer I am getting from my dad because he is replacing his. (And this one actually is a P4).

Scott

[Khakilang]

Lucky you! The last free computer I got was Intel Celeron with 128MB RAM and no hard disk. So I salvage whatever I had to built a whole computer with Lubuntu installed. That's a great computer.

[Johnsie]

Sounds good, but if you're using it for multimedia you should really be using Windows on it. Windows is alot better for multimedia and there are lots of really good apps.

Each to their own though ;-)

[Dragonbite]

I've been lucky to upgrade my systems from donated and give-aways; laptop, 2 P4 desktops and 6 P3! Now I'm hoping work will raffle off their replaced systems and if lucky can get another P4, possibly a dual-core or even a laptop (wish I could get my work laptop and install Linux on it!)

[sydbat]

Sounds good, but if you're using it for multimedia you should really be using Windows on it. Windows is alot better for multimedia and there are lots of really good apps.No. Not even close.

Also had a friend stop by yesterday and he was impressed. At first he thought I was running Windows 7. It is just the basic Gnome install, nothing fancy or really customized. He was blown away by all the things it could do (and I haven't even fully configured everything yet), and wondered how much it cost. When he found out the box was free, and so was the OS, he nearly fainted. He cannot do half the things with either his XP or Vista that I can do with Ubuntu.

[Klink]

I asked him if he had ever vacuumed it out and he said he never opens his computers to clean them.

Compressed air is what you should use. You run the risk of static buildup with a vacuum.

[markp1989]

nice gift!! all i ever get is slow p4s :(

[mystmaiden]

Now if I could just find someone to give me a computer like that!! sooo jealous ;)

[chessnerd]

nice gift!! all i ever get is slow p4s :(

Hey, in their day the Pentium 4s were the best processors around. ;)

The computer I'm on right now was top of the line when it was made in 2001. It came with the brand-new Pentium 4 1.7 GHz processor! Here's a review of the P4 1.7GHz from back in 2001:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/pentium41700/default.asp

It bounced between 2nd and 3rd best in their benchmarks (behind the OC'd Pentium 4 and sometimes the AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz).

Some highlights:

Today's 1.7GHz Pentium 4 however comes in at a shockingly low price of just $352 in bulk quantities!

400MHz system bus: The Pentium 4 has a 100MHz bus that is quad-pumped, offering equivalent performance of a true 400MHz bus. As a result, the Pentium 4's bus is capable of offering up to 3.2GB/sec of peak bandwidth.

Gaming performance: Quake 3 may be dying, but for those of you still playing it, the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 is the best solution on the market. Aspiring truck racers should also hop on the Pentium 4 bandwagon, although Serious Sam and MDK2 players should go with AMD's Athlon.

See. The Pentium 4 was a great processor line. I have 3 desktops in my house running Pentium 4s right now. It ain't dead yet!

[lisati]

You know what my last free computer was? A 2.4Ghz Celeron >.< Which I setup as my encoding server! :D

Takes 14 hours per DVD, but does the job :)

</jealous>

Must be some intense processing you're doing there!