Old/crappy pc/laptop users, come chat and share here!

[Dragonbite]

Wow! Finally people who may see my computer as a POWERHOUSE!!

Sony Viao PCV-R545DS
P3 500MHz
maxed out with 256MB Ram
8MB video
originally a 20GB HD, but I've upped it to 80GB

• Edubuntu 6.10 (I share it with the kids, will update after I backup the system and .deb packages).
• Gnome for Desktop (installed and used, but not lately, Xfce)
• Removed OpenOffice and replaced with Abiword and Gnumeric (also trying KOffice)
• Firefox for browsing (Opera is bloated and crashed, Epiphany is nothing spectacular, if there is any speed benefit, which I don't see, it is overshadowed by Firefox's solid, stable feel)
• Thunderbird for email
• Kino for Digital Video editing (sort-of works)
• I have Blender, but haven't fooled with it yet
  
  It does fine for the usual stuff/activities

• kid's games (gCompris, Childsplay, etc.)
• Web browsing and Email (dial-up a bigger slow-down)
• mild Image manipulation (Gimp, Krita, etc.)
• Video watching (downloaded only, nothing streaming or online)
• iPod management (Banshee and gtkpod)
• Website design/management (do not have Apache running on system though)
• I have Monodevelop installed with this grand idea of fooling around with Mono at home since I work with .NET at work.. but Monodevelop has not enticed me enough and now I'm thinking of switching to NetBeans and try developing/teaching myself Java

If everything works out and I get a system from work that is powerful enough, I would like to install Edubuntu server on the new system and use this one as a thin client! We'll see.

BTW.. it's sad when my maxed out RAM is what a friend of mine has on his Video Card alone! Or when somebody pulls out a PDA with specs better than this desktop (someday my kids will pull out their PHONE more powerful than this system!!!)

[cunawarit]

Tha's one big PDA.

The iPaq name is not just reserved for PDAs, they also made iPaq desktops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ_%2...op_computer%29

[bchaffin72]

I have an HP OmniBook 4100
233 Mhz PII MMX with 96 MB RAM and 4 GB HD
Currently runs a workstation installation of Edubuntu 6.10

[Persianelfster]

Pentium II 400MHz, 192kb of RAM, and 8GB hard drive....worse part: running XP on it DEAR GOD it was slow. Now I put linux on it, runs much better =D

[Bungo Pony]

I love pushing old PCs to their max. It's a fantastic challenge. Here's what I've got for old PCs that stand out:

Acer 386 SX25 laptop
- 4M of RAM
- 360M hard drive
- Running Win95
- 300 baud internal modem

This is my only laptop which I bought for $20 a few years ago. I could care less if it connects to the internet. It's great because it's portable, and I can work on text documents or read e-books on it. For moving software around, I connect via the serial port and transfer files with Telix (I still have yet to find a good Linux comm program.)

Compaq Pentium II
- 48M RAM
- 1.2G hard drive
- Running DSL (Damn Small Linux
- DVD ROM drive

This is my garage computer. It doesn't even have a keyboard - only a mouse. Currently, it's only purpose is to play MP3s. The 50M distro of Linux leaves lots of room for MP3s, even for a 1.2G hard drive. For what I can't put on the hard drive, the DVD ROM drive takes care of. I had trouble filling one DVD full of rock & metal MP3s. There's over 500 songs on that one disc (over 30 hours of music). To make things easier, I made desktop icons which will load xmms with MP3s from the hard drive, or play audio CDs. DSL is a little more tricky to use than Ubuntu, but as a former DOS user, I'm not having much trouble with it.

[information_entropy]

Bungo Pony

I love pushing old PCs to their max. It's a fantastic challenge. ...
This is my garage computer. ...

WOW, I am really impressed with your garage system.
That really is pushing it to the limit.

I have several old slot 1 Tyan motherboards that I am currently putting in cases and testing with Ubuntu.
They all have PIII's and my intent was to build a (not exactly portable) MP3 player for my workshop with one of them.

Hopefully, all of you realize that your use of these old systems anti-capitalism and harmful to the WINTEL business model. You all need to go buy a new computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo Quad CPU and Microsoft Vista Media Center or they will not have the financial resources to develop the next generation of Trusted Computing and Digital Rights Management. The really do have your best interest in their hearts.

[Bungo Pony]

The really do have your best interest in their hearts.

Yeah, and because I have a non-genuine version of WinXP, I'm a VICTIM of software piracy. I think I need more therapy before I become a SURVIVOR of software piracy.

[timzak]

Compaq Pentium II
- 48M RAM
- 1.2G hard drive
- Running DSL (Damn Small Linux
- DVD ROM drive

This is my garage computer. It doesn't even have a keyboard - only a mouse. Currently, it's only purpose is to play MP3s. The 50M distro of Linux leaves lots of room for MP3s, even for a 1.2G hard drive. For what I can't put on the hard drive, the DVD ROM drive takes care of. I had trouble filling one DVD full of rock & metal MP3s. There's over 500 songs on that one disc (over 30 hours of music). To make things easier, I made desktop icons which will load xmms with MP3s from the hard drive, or play audio CDs. DSL is a little more tricky to use than Ubuntu, but as a former DOS user, I'm not having much trouble with it.

How funny. I have a garage computer strictly for playing MP3s and I was surfing this thread to get ideas for a good distro to run on it. Currently using Win2k, which is pretty clunky (HP Pavilion, 466Mhz Celeron, 256MB ram, integrated Intel graphics, 15GB 5400rpm hdd). I've already tried Feisty on a 750Mhz P3 and it doesn't run as nice as I'd like. In fact, it seems to idle at around 10% cpu usage and immediately pegs 100% whenever I do anything outside of web browsing (PCI LAN card) or 3D graphics.. What's funny is the Geforce3 video card is so overkill for this computer that Beryl runs faster than Metacity. So I figured Feisty wouldn't work well on the garage computer if it's struggling on a P3 750. I've downloaded DSL, but it's a little non-user friendly for a noob like me. I've downloaded MepisLite and have been reading up on AntiX. Have you tried either of those?

[PatrickMay16]

I've played with linux on old and slow machines a fair deal through the times. I find that a Celeron 733MHz can be as usable for many tasks as a modern computer, if you set it up with IceWM, Rox filer, Firefox (from the official website rather than the version included in the repositories), and Pidgin, and using leafpad rather than gedit... and disabling a bunch of unneeded services from starting at boot.

[blah blah blah]

I feel left out.