London-based Charity gives 40, 000 PCs a fresh start .... (an Ubuntu opportunity?)

[Jeff Waugh]

<quote who="John Levin">

> Not many (I was there a year or two back). There were a lot of
> less-than-100mhz boxes, which were generally stripped for ram etc, a
> decision having being made to supply 100mhz / 32mb ram boxes as minimum. A
> lot of the machines are very (in computer terms) old, being cast-off from
> large organisations (universities and companies) when upgrading en masse.
> That's not done very often per organisation. Don't underestimate the
> persistence of Windows95! (I got a machine today with win95/32mb - I'm
> going to try an install on it, just to see what happens, but I know I'll
> have to bump the ram up.)

These are perfect, as-is, for thin clients. Most of the computer recycling
projects I've been involved with have set up old boxes as thin clients, and
had sponsorship (or a small amount of money to spend on) a big server to run
them all.

I have the sneaking suspicion that LTSP style stuff will be a high priority
goal in the hoary+1 development branch. :-)

- Jeff

-- 
GUADEC 2005: Stuttgart, Germany                      http://2005.guadec.org/
 
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