giving good homes -- and Ubuntu -- to old machines

[RwL]

Whenever I can rescue an old desktop or laptop from an upgrading friend, a closing business, or just a trash heap, I fix it up, install Ubuntu, and give it away or sell it cheap. I've got another such machine now; it's over in the community market forum (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=369450) if anyone's interested. Little HP desktop machine.

Years ago I taught English in Korea, and a colleague and I used to find amazingly nice clean working computers in boxes next to the dumpsters behind our University (they'd upgrade and just toss 'em out); that's how I acquired the habit. Only once did we have to leave a machine behind, as the case was open and some bees had made a hive in there. Anyone else have any good salvage stories?

[Mateo]

so, if I wanted to install Ubuntu on an old (like pentium 2 era) computer, how can I install ubuntu without a desktop environment. Like, I would want to install it bare and then install fluxbox or xfce or something like that later. Will a server install do that? I guess I would have to uninstall apache later. Also, does fluxbox and/or xfce need Xorg? thanks.

[mysticrider92]

so, if I wanted to install Ubuntu on an old (like pentium 2 era) computer, how can I install ubuntu without a desktop environment. Like, I would want to install it bare and then install fluxbox or xfce or something like that later. Will a server install do that? I guess I would have to uninstall apache later. Also, does fluxbox and/or xfce need Xorg? thanks.
You can either do a server install or use the alternate cd for a command-line install, there is an option at boot. Fluxbuntu, Elbuntu, and Xubuntu are all other options (Elbuntu hasn't been released yet, but it is Ubuntu with E17 by default).

[lemoniceblock]

I don't really have a good salvaging story (except fixing my very old and laggy laptop into something that I am actually happy to use ^^ ) but I was inspired by an article I had to read in class about a project that took place in Manchester, UK a few years ago where people were concerned that the growing integration with the Internet might leave people without a good internet connection (or, even in this digital age, people without a workable computer behind) behind economically and socially. I can't remember if that project well or not, but with Ubuntu+old machines+willing people, providing people with workable computers that they otherwise wouldn't have around your community would be a lovely place to start, methinks~

[RandomJoe]

I salvaged like crazy at my last employer. For years they had bought out the leases when they expired and had this idea they would have people use computers until they flat died before replacing them. After a management change, that was frowned upon - everyone needed to have on-lease, modern machines so they could be more reliable and operate better! So we started giving people new machines. And wow, did some of these people whine about their old systems - how slow they were, yadda yadda...

But what to do with the old, off-lease machines? We gave them away. A few people were willing to take some, but most figured they were just junk. I wound up with a LOT of systems! The crazy thing was most were perfectly capable of running even Windows - let alone Linux - just fine. The desktops were in the 1GHz P3 to P4 range, and the laptops were 1-1.8GHz! The only thing that really limited them was memory - everything had been ordered with only 256MB.

I've given a few away, and have some here for playing around. I have one desktop as my firewall, another as a testbed machine (big, roomy tower case), a third that's just being parted out... At one point I had four laptops, but gave two of them away. The other two are setup for some specific testing / experimenting tasks.

I also got a Compaq machine off a friend of my sister's. Their machine had "died" so they bought a new one. The old one was in the trunk of her car, and she quite happily gave it to me to be rid of it. Brought it home, and found it was a ~2Ghz P4 system with a corrupted boot sector! Reformat, reinstall, good as new. Gave that one to a friend.