Main > Everything Else

How to turn an old "junk" PC into a nice workstation

<< < (2/9) > >>

ChadTower:

That is definitely good stuff. 

Last year I built my mother a 366 with Win98 so she could learn Office apps for her job.  Put Office 97 on there for her, set her up with an ISP and all that.  It was good and the machine was running well.

I specifically instructed her not to install anything without asking me first. 

A week later I get a call, the machine takes a half hour to boot, won't dial in, Office doens't work anymore.  She got an AOL install disc in the mail and installed it... it completely crippled the old box, introduced 10 or more driver issues, and was basically way too pervasive and new for a 366.

I could only imagine what would have happened with a Linux box.

abrannan:
The nice thing is that with Linux, you could have denied her the ability to install anything from the CD.  Disable CD booting in BIOS and the system becomes fairly bulletproof against the casual user. 

ChadTower:

Well, clearly, the install would have failed because it's Linux and not Windows.

But in any case, CD booting isn't in the BIOS and she probably knew enough to double click the "install" icon rather than using the autorun splash.

Matthew Anderson:
Shoot I was cruising the web from my p2-400 with windows98 yesterday....

And if you come and visit and want to go on the internet you get to use my pentium 233 mmx with windows 98 running on my wireless network (hardware firewalled). Runs fast enough once firefox is running.

Personally I was hoping to see a candy apple red pc, with lots of neon.

But thanks very much for the tutorial, I just might try it soon!

leapinlew:

--- Quote from: ChadTower on November 07, 2006, 09:53:29 am ---
That is definitely good stuff. 

Last year I built my mother a 366 with Win98 so she could learn Office apps for her job.  Put Office 97 on there for her, set her up with an ISP and all that.  It was good and the machine was running well.

I specifically instructed her not to install anything without asking me first. 

A week later I get a call, the machine takes a half hour to boot, won't dial in, Office doens't work anymore.  She got an AOL install disc in the mail and installed it... it completely crippled the old box, introduced 10 or more driver issues, and was basically way too pervasive and new for a 366.

I could only imagine what would have happened with a Linux box.

--- End quote ---

ahh... imagine that. Looks like me and Chad are brothers.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

Go to full version