This Old Box: All it takes is a busted laptop, $50 a month, and Linux
Level: Introductory
 

Peter Seebach (dwlinux@plethora.net)
Freelance writer
07 Jun 2005

People say Linux™ can make old machines useful. Can it really? In this new series, Peter Seebach takes a busted laptop and a US$50-a-month budget and builds a household appliance that actually does something worthwhile.
Editor's note: Welcome to the first of a new series of columns, Linux on board. developerWorks columnist Peter Seebach will look at Linux running on various kinds of hardware -- PDAs, embedded devices, or just ancient hardware no one thought was useful anymore. The series will alternate between looking at specific Linux devices and showing you in detail how to set up Linux on decrepit hardware that's past its reputed prime.

When people talk about Linux on old hardware, they generally mean hardware a year or two old, stuff that is still pretty useful. The hardware in question is in good shape, reasonably well maintained, and possesses decent specs -- perhaps it's even an old server. For this series, however, we'll be setting our sights a little lower.

Challenge number one
Enter, stage left, an old Gateway box (I mean no disrespect for Gateway). In October of 1997, I spent nearly $3,000 on what was at the time a top-of-the-line laptop. Boasting a Pentium® 133, 32 MB of high-speed SDRAM, and an 800x600 TFT LCD display, the machine had 1.15 MB of video memory -- just enough to allow 16-bit color at the 800x600 resolution of its on-screen display.

I remember being in awe at how fast this machine was, coming to it as I was from a 33 Mhz 68030 machine.

Well, that was eight years ago. A few years back, a glass of wine was spilled on it. Fans of 1980s B movies will be disappointed to learn that it did not attain sentience; all that happened was it needed to be repaired. Unfortunately, the CardBus slots have never been the same and are prone to errors. A run-in with an El-Al baggage handler some years back left it with a cracked and unusable screen. The only advantage it has is an additional 64 MB of memory, installed a year or so before the run-in with the wine.

By current standards, this machine is a toy. You can buy embedded systems from companies like Technologic with better basic specifications and additional features such as built-in Ethernet. It's not even fully functional anymore, to put it mildly.

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