donated computers lab setup

[Norm]

Geoffrey Leach wrote:
> On 12.27 13:59, Tom Poe wrote:
>> I recently received 10 computers from an organization that wants them 
>> put to use.  They're PI and PII boxes, which surely can be useful in 
>> many ways.  First thing, though, I need to see how many actually 
>> work.  Then I need to have a barebones OS to put on them.  If the 
>> drives work, they'll be really small.  Any suggestions?  Anyone doing 
>> something similar?
> 
> There are a number of distos designed to minimize disk requirements. For 
> example, http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/. If the BIOSs support booting 
> from CD, I'd try that with a live CD -- Knopix, for example.
> 
Not only is it a waste to turf an operating piece of electronics but 
also it is good for the environment to keep old computers out of the 
dump for as long as possible.  Between the heavy metals in the computer 
and toxins in the plastic, used computers are one of the worst things to 
put in a land fill
I have refurbished several computers and turned them over to 
economically disadvantaged persons.  I use a variety of distros from RH9 
through Ubunto 6.10 and of course one version or another of Fedora.  In 
all cases so far I have set the box up as a basic desktop, on occassion 
there are a few driver issues and it is easier to find a distro that 
works rather than work through the driver issue.  A
s a general recommendation I recommend testing the box with a live CD to 
see if it will run that distro. I have found that frequently the older 
boxes appear to have a problem displaying the graphics during a live cd 
boot, as long as the CD is spinning it is a bit of a wait (go for 
coffee) but they usually finally make the grade and when installed on 
the hardrive they still appear to have a problem but there is only time 
to make the coffee  before it completes its boot.
If I had a group of ten I would consider setting them up in a thin 
client configuration and donate them to a charitable organisation that 
had a computer that could be reconfigured as a server for the thin 
clients, haven't tried this yet but it is similar to another project on 
my todo list.