TomS Words of Wisdom

Barry --

    There are a couple of flavors of Linux that will load and boot off a floppy and PCMCIA Ethernet cards are actually better supported then wireless cards.  So you should be able to boot of the floppy connect to the Internet via the Ethernet, then download and install just about any "distro" [distribution] you want to try.

    There might also be one or more "appliance" distros that could do something useful with your old computers. I'd start by looking at some of the rPath distros.  Perhaps you could mod the laptop case and turn it into a web connected picture frame?

    Linux actually does a decent job with more legacy hardware then you might think, especially if the HW was popular for small servers and/or with the geek crowd. For example Linux grew up on SCSI drives and have very good support for most SCSI devices built in.   Also if you're into tweeking drivers, with Linux you can always write or modify your own drivers. 

    I've got an old 486 file server in a beefy steel case sitting beside my desk waiting to have the new motherboard, processor , power supply, etc. installed. It's so old that it won't boot off the CD without a BIOS upgrade, otherwise it would already be running as my disk back-up server. 

    But like with an old jeep, even with Linux there is a point that the best thing to do with a system is take it to the recycler or post it on Craig's list.

TTFN
    Tom

Barry Briggs wrote:

Tom,

 

Did I mention this laptop does not have CD, ethernet or USB.  It has an PCMCIA (not cardbus)  I have an ethernet card that goes in the PCMCIA slot.  Normally I load things over the floppy or the ethernet port.  It does not have backup since the battery pack died a long time ago.

 

This is sounding more and more like a futile, time consuming job.  I have another big computer, but it is even older (P100) and has lots of strange hardware in it - SCSI CD, NEC 4 CD changer, backup tape drive (floppy) 720k 5 1/4 floppy, etc.  It was my web server running tiny until I ran out of disk space and bought a Fry's $300 wonder and moved to Apache.

 

Barry

 

On 8/22/07, Tom Sayles  wrote:

Barry --

   Laptops in particular tend to have more proprietary hardware and
software, so some of the custom designed devices might not work or be
fully supported.  If you have (or get) a wireless card with good open
source drivers for it, you should be able to set it up for lightweight
web browsing [don't expect to surf youtube] or maybe even as an
X-terminal.

   I've also heard of people having success using old laptops as web
server / internet gateway / firewall because they have a small footprint
and built-in back-up power.

   Assuming that the bios supports booting off a CD and that by modern
standards it's memory challenged, my first suggestion would be to try a
Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux live CD on it.

   Another fun item might be to try the OLPC os on it.

TTFN
   Tom Sayles

Barry Briggs wrote:
> Tom,
>
> I have an old (12 years) Sharp laptop that currently has windows 95
> installed.  It would make a good candidate for linux.
>
> Questions:
http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/USSHornetFlashlightTourAugust2007/index.html>
> Do you think there is any chance the old hardware would work with linux.
> If so, which version is my best bet?
>
> Any luck selling the old Jeep???
>
> Jon was just here and we took lots of pictures of the places we went:
>
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/USSHornetFlashlightTourAugust2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/RosicrucianEgyptianMuseum2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/HistoricCarRacesLagunaSecaAugust2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/CaliforniaRailroadMuseumAugust2007/index.html
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Barry