KK4AMI
06-29-2012, 05:22 PM
The best thing about volunteering for an organization like Computers for Kids is all the junk I get to work with. Businesses give us most of our donations. Yes we have a lot of old Dell Desk Tops that were the king in 2003, but they can be made to work and we use them, but borrring! Every once in a while we get an unusual (Mac, HP, Toshiba) system that comes in from some private user.
Being a light week, we had all our repairs and refurbs done, so in order to avoid stuffing envelopes for the Organization, I decided to build something with Linux installed. We are limited to building licensed WINXP units only for the kids. I found a new looking CPU (Gateway DX4720, Year 2008 in the pile and noted that the operating system was VISTA. Great we can’t and won’t touch vista with a ten foot pole. I cleaned the CPU, wiped the 640 Gig SATA drive and tested it. Looked good, so time to gather the peripherals. We had a great flat screen (Dell 23 inch Monitor). The monitor had a DVI-D connector though, which I couldn’t use with the Gateways NVIDA GeForce 7100. No problem I thought. I went through all the crappy Dell business video cards until I found it! Not top of the line, but far better then anything I ever owned, an EVGA NVIDA GeForce 9400 GS with 1 Gig memory and a DVI-D connector! Ya! I even found an old surround sound speaker system.
I put that all together and then I had to decide what to use for an operating system. I chose to go with Fedora 17 (Latest and Greatest, right). I couldn’t get it to load for trying. After spending hours on the internet, I learned I had a “noapic” issue, so I learned how to modify the Grub file? Sweet Jebus, it all works. I ran a number of HD video commercials through the computer and surround system. I’ve never seen video (1920x1080) or heard sound reproduced like that before, at least not on the 12 year old crap I own. Best video was that Absolut Vodka video with the racing mechanical dogs.
Moral of the story, all the kids that saw it wanted it, our Boss said no, it’ll start a fight with the kids. She told me to put it up on the shelf until she figures out what to do with it (Probably take it home). I can’t believe somebody got rid of this thing. It’s a great media and 3D rendering computer. It’s old 2008 technology but still far better technology than I ever had to deal with or own. It must be nice to be able to throw stuff out like that, wonder what he has now? So far Fedora is running on it like a greased pig. Good Bye MicroSoft!
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/gateway-dx-4720-03/4507-3118_7-33317067.html
http://www.cnet.com/graphics-cards/evga-e-geforce-9400/4505-8902_7-33282604.html
Being a light week, we had all our repairs and refurbs done, so in order to avoid stuffing envelopes for the Organization, I decided to build something with Linux installed. We are limited to building licensed WINXP units only for the kids. I found a new looking CPU (Gateway DX4720, Year 2008 in the pile and noted that the operating system was VISTA. Great we can’t and won’t touch vista with a ten foot pole. I cleaned the CPU, wiped the 640 Gig SATA drive and tested it. Looked good, so time to gather the peripherals. We had a great flat screen (Dell 23 inch Monitor). The monitor had a DVI-D connector though, which I couldn’t use with the Gateways NVIDA GeForce 7100. No problem I thought. I went through all the crappy Dell business video cards until I found it! Not top of the line, but far better then anything I ever owned, an EVGA NVIDA GeForce 9400 GS with 1 Gig memory and a DVI-D connector! Ya! I even found an old surround sound speaker system.
I put that all together and then I had to decide what to use for an operating system. I chose to go with Fedora 17 (Latest and Greatest, right). I couldn’t get it to load for trying. After spending hours on the internet, I learned I had a “noapic” issue, so I learned how to modify the Grub file? Sweet Jebus, it all works. I ran a number of HD video commercials through the computer and surround system. I’ve never seen video (1920x1080) or heard sound reproduced like that before, at least not on the 12 year old crap I own. Best video was that Absolut Vodka video with the racing mechanical dogs.
Moral of the story, all the kids that saw it wanted it, our Boss said no, it’ll start a fight with the kids. She told me to put it up on the shelf until she figures out what to do with it (Probably take it home). I can’t believe somebody got rid of this thing. It’s a great media and 3D rendering computer. It’s old 2008 technology but still far better technology than I ever had to deal with or own. It must be nice to be able to throw stuff out like that, wonder what he has now? So far Fedora is running on it like a greased pig. Good Bye MicroSoft!
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/gateway-dx-4720-03/4507-3118_7-33317067.html
http://www.cnet.com/graphics-cards/evga-e-geforce-9400/4505-8902_7-33282604.html