This is a ramble - like a rant, but not angry.
K - for anyone who doesn't already know this, my family is totally crazy. My dad just built a new vet clinic and moved the computer from his home office to the new clinic. A while ago, he'd suggested that I set up my mom's computer to fetch his email. So my mom decided that I would set up one of the old computers I had stuffed in a closet in place of my dad's displaced laptop because "he doesn't share well". She didn't tell me this straight away of course. Here's how she broke it to me:
"Can you come with me this afternoon to get a computer desk?" It turns out that someone has an old crappy one they're selling for $25.
"What do you need a computer desk for? Don't you have some kind of table you could use? You have a laptop. You don't need a 'computer' desk for a laptop. Any old table will do." But to keep her from getting upset and because I didn't have anything better to do, I went with her to get the desk.
On the way she mentioned something about me setting up some computer - first I'd heard of it. With a little persistent questioning, it eventually became clear to me that she intended that I'd set up one of the old junk computers in the closet for my dad to check his email. And this is why she wanted the computer desk - so I'd have some place to set up the old behemoth desktop.
So I venture into the aforementioned closet to see what I've got in there that might be half decent for email and maybe a little web browsing with some modern web browsing software (Firefox). I have a 500 MHz PIII IBM something or other that Tim was using for a packet sniffer at one time. This is the fastest thing in there and not too bad - I know it would run windows XP and Firefox, but I have something more open source in mind.
First I gotta fiddle with the hardware to see if I can even get it to boot. I had to put the fan/LED/speaker/button module back in because I'd taken it out a while ago to use the fan for something else. And I had to solder a few of the fan's wires back together. And I have no idea what became of the power button itself. So I yanked a button out of another old computer, but it's the wrong size to fit in the button housing, so I have it hanging out the floppy bay opening, dangling on the wires. Before I rigged up this switch, I'd test started the PC a few times by touching the bared power switch wires. I had to guess which ones they were because it's not using the standard colors or plugs and I have two pairs of bare wires - the other is from one of the front panel LEDs which I used for something else. But I guessed right the first time and now I have a real switch rigged up. I'd considered just leaving the bare wires hanging out, but other people might want to start this puppy up and might not understand or be comfortable with the touch the 2 bare wires method.
I'd envisioned a multiheaded setup, but the only extra video card that would fit appears to be shot and one of the two monitors may be shot (the thing was always questionable). So I'm stuck with a single monitor for now. The mobo, cpu, ram, and hdd all appear to be operational. I threw in an old DVD writer drive (it was the first DVD writer I ever bought).
It's already got some linux distro installed on it, but I've long since forgotten the login password and it's got some router/firewall setup junk in there that I'd rather not mess around with. So I've wiped the hdd and am currently installing a brand new linux disro (gentoo in case you care (PS. gentoo is for ricers)) It's a good thing I put that DVD drive in there because I didn't want to hunt down my blank CDs - while my blank DVDs were quite handy. So I burned the 64MB minimal install disc image to a DVD. The gentoo installation process generally takes a few days -especially if I compile everything on the 500 MHz PIII with 256 meggaram. I might do a distcc and compile everything on my Core 2 lappy if the distcc ain't too tricky to setup - I've never distcc'd before.
Way back when I was still figuring out what monitor/video card combo would work, my dad came in and asked what I was doing. I told him I was setting up a computer for him to check his email. He said he could check his email just fine at the clinic and he'd never use this one. So I said, "well, hell, I got this thing out and running, and now we got this computer desk that shouldn't stand empty - so I may as well get it all setup. I'll use it from time to time if nobody else will."
