Author Topic: Reviving the long dead laptop (Read 3064 times)

Iain · « **on:** February 04, 2006, 09:07:11 AM »

Bought a laptop in 1999, used it a lot and then got a new computer. Just the other day I found it in a box and decided that as I spent a relative shedload on it back then I really ought to do something with it. Was thinking word processing stuff and maybe an experiment into Linux or some alternative OS, despite no experience in this field. If I get clever there is a wireless PCMCIA network card lying around here somewhere.

Specs, as I remember them are - 433mhz Celeron, 96mb RAM, and 4gb hard drive. It was previously running Windows 98 reasonably happily.

Any ideas?

Guest · « **Reply #1 on:** February 04, 2006, 09:36:32 AM »

poor mans ipod.... mp3's , winamp, and plug er' into your stereo

jamz · « **Reply #2 on:** February 04, 2006, 10:26:46 AM »

I still have my PCJr from the 80's. It still plays Flight Simulator okay, but the horizontal hold is on the fritz.

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle · « **Reply #3 on:** February 04, 2006, 11:11:35 AM »

Donate it to a local school district or mentally disabled industry in the area.
It'll be worth more to them, AND give plenty of feelgood/philanthropic benefits to you.

mtnbkr · « **Reply #4 on:** February 04, 2006, 02:50:07 PM »

I just bought a used laptop for my mom for $200. It was a PII-355 with 64megs of ram and a 10gig drive. I added another 128megs of ram. It runs Win98 quite fast. I loaded some basic apps and updated the OS.

I installed my SMC wireless card to see how well that would work. I'll be darned if it didn't work quite well. Frankly, this laptop has lots of life left if you don't need the latest bells and whistles. It would probably run Win2k reasonably well, but it's not worth the time and effort for her needs. The only negative is that the battery won't hold a charge at all. A new battery would likely cost half or more what the laptop cost.

I'd load linux on yours and see how well it runs. I used to have an old Toshiba Portege that wasn't Y2K compliant, so it was going to get tossed at work (this was late 1999). I adopted it, added more memory, a 4gig drive, and installed Slackware Linux (v7). It ran quite well. I gave it to a non-computing friend of mine to get them onto the Internet. They used it for over a year before they outgrew it and got a desktop (no, they didn't even own a PC at that point). Old laptops and PCs are fun as long as you don't expect much.

Chris

RadioFreeSeaLab · « **Reply #5 on:** February 04, 2006, 03:03:03 PM »

Linux or BSD + a light(er) window manager.
Fluxbox, enlightenment, etc.

DrAmazon · « **Reply #6 on:** February 04, 2006, 06:57:42 PM »

Quote from: Felonious Fig

Donate it to a local school district or mentally disabled industry in the area.
It'll be worth more to them, AND give plenty of feelgood/philanthropic benefits to you.

I've done this with 3 computers. I think that the place I used was this one...

http://sharetechnology.org/donate.html

I filled out a form "advertising" what I had and was contacted by the organizations that were interested. About a year ago I donated a poor tired iBook to a church in Detroit for their job training program. I was almost embarassed to send it because I felt it was so beat to heck. I tossed in all the random stuff that I had along with it (padlock, some old software, a couple of manuals that I'd bought for the old OS etc). I got a really nice letter back, telling me that it was one of the nicer computers they'd gotten in quite a while. It made me wish I had the cash to send them a new one. Someday...

mtnbkr · « **Reply #7 on:** February 04, 2006, 08:14:35 PM »

Quote from: dasmi

Linux or BSD + a light(er) window manager.
Fluxbox, enlightenment, etc.

Dunno if it's still around, but Blackbox was a pretty lightweight WM, but easy to configure. It's what I ran on the Toshiba I mentioned above.

Chris

Iain · « **Reply #8 on:** February 05, 2006, 03:29:25 AM »

If I get it up and running and learn some linux stuff on it I've always then got the option to stick Win 98 back on it and give it to the charity that I do volunteer work for. They may be setting up 'field workers' in the next year or so, and may then have a use for it. Right now though, I'd like to do some learning.

Chris/dasmi - I know very little of what you speak. I sort of know what linux and BSD are, but being a big wimp I would definitely need a GUI. I do want something that is going to be pretty lightweight, it doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to function in a way that this Windows user can start to get the hang of. I'm not expecting a great deal, but wireless network access would be nice. Free would be good too.

I have little to no experience of setting up operating systems, so I'm probably going to need something that is fairly self explanatory. I assume the way that this works is that I download a cd image, burn it and sling it into the laptop, after that though the potential for my getting lost is high.

mtnbkr · « **Reply #9 on:** February 05, 2006, 03:54:52 AM »

If you have broadband (or are very patient), you can download an Unbuntu Live CD image, burn it to a CD and boot the laptop from the CD to test drive linux. It's a bit too slow for me to recommend using daily that way, but it'll let you check it out.

Here's the Blackbox page: http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/

Newer Linux distros install quite easily and autodetect hardware almost as good as Windows. It's been years since I've installed it on a laptop though. Last time I did, it was Redhat 6.1 and a Dell laptop (this was 1999 or very early 2000). It installed easily. The biggest issue doing that today is whether or not newer distros will support your older hardware.

Check out http://distrowatch.com

Chris

Sindawe · « **Reply #10 on:** February 05, 2006, 09:54:37 AM »

Quote

I still have my PCJr from the 80's.

Well frell me dead. A PCjr was the first PC I had a chance to play with, got it from my then inlaws when they upgraded to a '286. Sadly, it went with the ex when we split. *SNIFF* I miss that little box. You ever played Kings Quest on it? I have a copy if your interested. If the media is still good after all these years.

Iain · « **Reply #11 on:** February 05, 2006, 10:30:20 AM »

I've been looking at Ubuntu Breezy, which seems like it would do what I want. It has a GUI based on GNOME, and doesn't seem to be all that awkward, and seems to be popular. Only concern is that it recommends 128mb RAM.

www.ubuntu.com

Ben · « **Reply #12 on:** February 05, 2006, 10:44:11 AM »

Ubuntu is a good one to start with. If I had to do it all over again, that's the one I'd use to familiarize myself with the Linux environment. Best thing to do for learning though, is to initially also try some different Linux flavors. Install one, play with it a while, format HD, install another, repeat a few times then settle on the one you liked best to really delve into.

You might also check with one of the online memory warehouses. You should be able to pick up a 256meg stick for a song right now, even for most laptops.

Iain · « **Reply #13 on:** February 06, 2006, 05:13:24 PM »

Right. Tried installing Ubuntu tonight. It's 3am and I've given up. First attempt I made a selection about partitioning the hard drive that it didn't seem to like, at least it waited about half an hour and then told me it couldn't load 'kernel i386'.

So I tried again, and selected another option. This time it ran through all the primary install, told me to remove the cd and rebooted. Then it went on to install 'other packages' and froze whilst trying to install 'apmd'.

Someone may have some idea what is going on, or I need to do a lot of reading tomorrow. After I force myself awake.

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle · « **Reply #14 on:** February 06, 2006, 06:21:38 PM »

See??? That's the thing with alternative OS's. I hate Redmondware as much as anyone else, but AT LEAST they've gotten to the point where install and config is reasonably straightforward.
Still a ways to go.

RadioFreeSeaLab · « **Reply #15 on:** February 07, 2006, 01:33:17 PM »

Install and config of Linux, especially Ubuntu, is usually straightforward. You might have an odd bit of hardware.

Iain · « **Reply #16 on:** February 07, 2006, 02:50:17 PM »

Dasmi - done lots of learning today. After much not having a clue, I found half of one and managed to check the integrity of the ubuntu cd I had made. Although I burned it at 4x, which should have been slow enough, one of the files (the i386 file referred to earlier) was invalid.

A new day will bring a finished knoppix download (just to see it) and another attempt to burn a ubuntu cd.

It also seems that my best option on this old system is to use what is being referred to as Xubuntu, ubuntu with the XFCE window manager, which is less needy. That requires me to get the server installation done, and then get the the thing on the net, and then download XFCE, all via the command line. Frightening.

Iain · « **Reply #17 on:** February 08, 2006, 04:59:42 PM »

Ok, so it is 3am again.

New cd still did not solve all the problems. After several attempts to do a normal install and it crashing on 'configuring apmd' I decided that there was some conflict. Looked up to see what apmd is, and figured I'd get by without it. Now to learn how to install stuff myself. Did a basic server install, and then did some forum research and some guesswork and managed to get a basic GNOME install done. Then figured out synaptic and now I have a working Ubuntu install, minus 'apmd'.

Sort of pleased with myself.

Wireless networking next, and then fun with other windows managers can begin.

S_O_Laban · « **Reply #18 on:** February 08, 2006, 11:14:11 PM »

Interesting thread.... reminds me I have an old Toshiba 520 laptop sitting in a closet at home. I'll have to get it out and see if I can get it running.

News:

Author Topic: Reviving the long dead laptop (Read 3064 times)

Guest

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle