Linux Format forums

wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:08 pm Post subject: £98 Linux PCs

Martha Lane Fox has just Announced an initiative to sell £98 Linux PCs refurbished by Remploy.
Let's hope that it is not another well meant but badly implemented scenario.
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Rhakios · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:06 pm Post subject:

I occasionally read articles from the Helios project, which distributes refurbished Linux PCs in the US. What is sometimes saddening is how often people try to install Windows on them and completely eff up an otherwise fully functioning PC. I foresee the same thing happening all too often if this idea actually comes to pass in the UK.
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johnhudson · LXF regular Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:37 pm Posts: 767

I see the target is just 8,000 in the first year which will hardly make a dent in the numbers without computers.

wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:49 pm Post subject:

It is only a pilot, let's hope that it does go well
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CJLL · LXF regular Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:22 pm Posts: 193

I've tried Ubuntu on old hardware, it really doesn't work very well, and I hate to think a lot of people's first experience of Linux will be a very very poor one!
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towy71 · Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:22 pm Post subject:

wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:31 pm Post subject:

Well, XP on old hardware is just as bad, but I know people who make a good part-time income from putting together Bootsale parts to build PCs with XP, just to be used for email, IM and web.
Anyway, who mentioned Ubuntu?

For the proposed use, anything that can match an Atom 230 with 1 GB of RAM will work fine.
Our Netbooks and the Kitchen PC (all Atom based) run Ubuntu fine.
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heiowge · Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:32 pm Post subject:

I tried it on my mum's eeepc. That had 900Mhz of processor and 1 Gb RAM. I got it to run, but XP ran circles round it for speed. The PCs mentioned sound lower spec than the eeepc used, so I can imagine having severe problems.

Have they considered Linux Mint LXDE or Puppy or the like?

CJLL · LXF regular Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:22 pm Posts: 193

wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:58 pm Post subject:

Probably the half gig of RAM or the motherboard chipset drivers.
Our netbooks have Atom 1.66GHz processors Intel GMA gfx, 1.5Ghz of ram, and 8 or 16GB SSDs. Running Ubuntu Netbook Edition, they start up in about 11 seconds, shut down in 5 , and are nice to use.
The Kitchen PC is a similar Atom processor, Intel GFX and an 80GB 2.5" HDD, 2GB of ram, runs Full Ubuntu fine.
My wife's PC has a P4 @1.7GHz, 768MB of ram, ATI GFX card, 160GB 3.5" HDD and runs Full Ubuntu with no problems.
Our other PCs are far higher spec, but to be honest, not noticeably faster.

I did notice a huge boost when I upgrade my Netbook from 512MB to 1.5GB, perhaps the GFX using some of the memory slowed it down.
It ran windows7 just about usably ( I tried it as an experiment when I increased the SSD from 8 to 16GB), but there was no room for anything else, and it paged incessantly, not good for an SSD.

I would be surprised if the PCs in question were slower than 900MHz, My wife's PC is nearly 8 years old, and was not exactly cutting edge then.
It did have XPMCE on it for a short while, but it was soon moved to Linux.
It ran Opensuse for years, only recently moved to Ubuntu, and I added an extra 256MB stick which made a big difference in performance terms.

Edited to correct age of wife's PC, I didn't realise it was that old!!
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wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:09 pm Post subject:

Just reading my own post, realised that most of our computing experience is on roughly 1.7GHz single core processors, and until I need to do some photo editing, or writing with a nice big screen and a proper keyboard, that is all we need!
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