Re: Ideas for and old laptop

[Tim Hart <codermsu@gmail.com>]

NAS with a 40gig 4200rpm drive over 10/100 ethernet? šeek. š

I've actually been thinking about this recently. šI have an old monsterous laptop (size) that I love the keyboard and screen for, but dont like the heat and noise produced. šBattery life is about 40minutes and I don't trust the hard drive much. š

So I want to ditch the battery, ran Cat5 to it and disable the hard drive too. šIdeally, I would boot from usb and VNC to a virtual machine running something minimal. šFrom that point on, I am not sure what specifically I would do with it, but mounting it somewhere in the kitchen seems like an option that would fill a need. š

That brings interesting issues to solve, like where to mount it, how to mount it, how to protect the keyboard from kitchen contaminations, keeping the screen clean, howto minimize the amount of typing and opening windows for looking up recipes or other kitchen related crap. šOh, and how to boot off usb with this older laptop. It might not even be possible, from what I can tell. šCan I load enough OS into ram to VNC from the hdd and then disable the hdd? š

Any input or other ideas for an old laptop would be cool as well.

tim

2011/3/30 Kevin Thomas <axel2078@gmail.com>

Turn it into a NAS using FreeNAS!

On Mar 30, 2011 7:07 PM, "Wolfgang" <wolfgangmob@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have an old laptop that is pretty much just sitting around and need ideas
> for what to do with it.
> specs:
>
> 1.6 GHz Sempron mobile (32-bit)
>
> 768MB DDR 333 RAM
>
> 40 GB 4200 rpm Seagate hard drive
>
> 10/100 Ethernet
>
> 802.11 b/g wireless (broadcom 43xx)
>
> DVD/CD Combo drive
>
> 2 USB 2.0 ports
>
> VGA out
>
> 1024x768 15" screen
>
> currently has XUbuntu installed
> --
> "You must control your future by taking command of your present, and fixing
> and learning from your past."
>
> "When history is forgotten people don't realize when it repeats."
>
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