[TriLUG] Penguins in the desert

[Douglas Ward]

We are limited to the machines over there and the several that we will be
taking with us. I haven't seen the ones that have been donated over here but
I hear they are fairly good machines.

On 10/12/05, Barry Gaskins <barry.gaskins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think Douglas said that he will be limited to using all of the old used
> hardware that will be available over there. I would not be suprised if
> that
> turns out to be 100 MHz pentiums with 128MB or less (or even 386 or 486
> machines). They may not even have USB connectors and even if they do then
> the BIOS will probably not be able to boot from it.
> My best advice would be to see if they can give you some idea of what some
> of the system specs would be before you leave and for you to burn some
> CD's
> of some Distros that will work with those systems. If they are really low
> end systems then forget about some of the latest flashy distros with all
> the
> bells and whistles. Look at low resource distros like DSL (Damn Small
> Linux). If you cannot determine what the specs are on the machines before
> you leave then burn a dozen different CDs of a whole range of distro's
> that
> have different system requirements. Otherwise you will get there with the
> distro that you prefer only to find out that the old machines they have
> will
> not even boot up the install CD.
> Find out as much as you can from the people over there about what you have
> to work with and burn as many CDs as you can before you leave because once
> you get there you will probably not have a high speed connection to
> download
> iso images and a nice CD burner and a bunch of blank CDs.
> - Barry Gaskins
>
> On 10/11/05, Lee Fickenscher <elfick at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Oct 11, 2005, at 9:16 PM, Aaron Joyner wrote:
> >
> > > There have been lots of good suggestions in this thread, but don't
> > > neglect to consider sand, dust, and dirt, and their devastating
> > > effects on computer hardware. Particularly in a true desert
> > > scenario, where you have people walking in and out from the sandy
> > > ground (if not sand storms actually blowing sand into where the
> > > computers are housed), this is going to result in a much higher
> > > maintenance schedule. You'll want to train a couple, or at best
> > > maybe a half dozen people, on how to properly disassemble and clean
> > > a computer. If they just know to blow the sand out from the inside
> > > of the case and how to lubricate and replace cooling fans, you'll
> > > be a *lot* better off in the long run.
> >
> > How about a semi-sealed diskless system using a non-conductive liquid
> > coolant?
> > Something like:
> >
> > http://techreport.com/etc/2001q4/comdex/koolance2.jpg
> >
> > Have it boot from flash and use a USB flash drive for removable
> > storage. :)
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