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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
An Anonymous Coward writes "Out in Oakland, CA a group is taking donated PC's and breathing new life into them with Linux. They turn around and donate the computers to schools, build POVRAY render farms (with MOSIX) and generally promote Linux."
I hope IBM or microsoft don't file any anti-law suit against them !!
That's a pretty neat program - reuses the old tech, trains the unskilled volunteers in an up-and-coming technology (Linux), AND produces more Linux-skilled workers, increasing Linux's mindshare.
Sounds good to me.
This is probably illegal if any of the donated computers had Windoze.
It takes a fair bit to impress me, but this article does. "ACCRC is a self-sustaining, self-funded organization that trains unemployed, unskilled volunteer workers how to build and maintain Linux computers" They must get their money from somewhere to be able to afford a 38,000 square foot complex. Good on them.
Linux cluster is 30 Athlon 850MHz PCs and up to 350 recently refurbished PCs that are Pentium 166 or better
I sure hope the 850 MHz Athlons weren't donated by anyone....until this week my main home machine has been an PII 300. If the Athlons were rescued from landfill that makes me feel _really_ inadequate.
That's assuming we believed any of that FUD.
Maybe we should start buying the Wal-Mart OS-free machines. I'd love to see Microsoft try to take Wal-Mart on over that.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
There site navigation is totally borked so here are all the links on the site I could find:
Home
About
Donations
Internships
Press
as does my inability to close italics properly :)
I think one of the greatest benefits of this program will be to get Linux into schools - showing a whole generation that there are alternatives to M$.
I thought this sounded familiar... seems there are many groups working in this worthwhile way. Google directory links a few here.
If you don't live in the Oakland area there may be a group near you who you can either volunteer to help, or donate those old PCs gathering dust in the attic.
If you can't find anyone near you, why not go it alone? I installed Linux on an old box and gave it to the neighbours kid, with a bashed up old 15" monitor from the local tip.
Incidentally, Johnathan and Alan show that nothing is too old or useless for us. if you have anything strange or odd that you don't know what to do with. Give it to us.
I hope my wife doesn't see this site. she will try to donate my he-man figures.
"We recently turned down donations of an aircraft carrier and a 727", says executive director James Burgett. "But we are ready to handle a 727 the next time one is offered."
C'mon, guys...we were this close to having the Linux Air Force!
"Roger, Blue Leader, this is Blue 6...I'm taking another pass at Redmond." "Stay on target, Blue 6, stay on target..."
Carousel is a lie!
Who knows? Maybe the law of supply and demand will triumph once again and, given over-supply of Linux people with implicit shortfall of Windows newbies, demand for Linux will increase!
before I had to go back to italy to serve the army. It was an excellent opportunity to learn, I was taking care with other people of the beowulf cluster - and the rendering speed was impressing, around 12 seconds to render the 'famous' pvm x-vase when the cluster was around 60 nodes.
:)
the interesting part was that there were little optimization on the network and on the linux - it was a standard redhat 6.2 kernel, and the computers were just put on a shelf, connected, booted with a floppy that got the image from the network and self-installed the machine, rebooted, and you had a node ready for rendering.
on the other hand, the people working there were the most easy-going and honest I've seen so far - there were no hypocricy going on, and basically there was a place for anyone in it - still without too much trouble.
just wanted to share that with you guys, in case you wondered if such a non profit company was really working - it is. definitively.
anyone wanting to start something like that in norther italy?
cheers
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
As a former educator who worked in a "resource-challenged" school district, I applaud these types of programs. Unfortunately, often schools like the one I worked in would get money thrown at us for certain tech projects, but since there was often no follow-through or training, the money was pretty much wasted, or used for other purposes deemed more important by the school administrators.
It seems this organization not only refurbishes the computer, but also trains people to do it as well. If Linux is ever to get a foothold in schools, it will take a lot more effort than just donating X number of computers with Linux preinstalled. The community will have to invest time in making sure those computers are filling the need and that people on site are trained and commmitted to maintaining them.
Linux and public schools seem like a match made in heaven. Even though Microsoft gives a lot of lipservice (and money, you do have to give them some credit) to supporting schools, it still doesn't make sense to spend that kind of money on Windows licenses. One could make the argument that exposing students to an alternative like Linux will improve their technology skills (they're still gonna get the Windows exposure, no matter what's used in the schools).
Just my 2cents.
I remember when I was in elementary school; we went on field trip to the local computer recycling plant. Once there, they brain-washed us into believing that if we recycled computers, instead of making new ones, the world would be a cleaner place.
Don't believe it!! Computer recycling plants destroy the environment! C.R.P.'s routinely dump more effluents into the atmosphere and water table than most large industrial plants!
The truth must be told!
We do that
here and
here.
-... ---
Just curious, but what the heck do they update it with? I tried "reviving" an old pentium 133 with 32 meg ram....every installer I tried complained that there wasnt enough ram, and that they require a minimum of 64megs. Although...i did not try slackware which might be what I need. hmm.... okay I think I answered my own question, so thanks! =)
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
I don't like that taste, yes linux is far more efficient with resources than win2k or xp. However only making it public by allowing it to run on lame machines also makes a bad reputation.
One day one student will say, "all linux boxes I worked on were lame-ass". Because they runned on some old Pentium 166, while the windoze of course just had to have the new 1.5 GHz processors, with 40x cdrom speed.
I remember a friend telling me that installing his linux told so much longer than the winxp. Of course! He installed linux on an old PC with a quad 4x speed cdrom, but winXP on one with a 32x cdrom. Now who wonders....
Same with people "trying" linux they give it a 512MB partition on the harddisk and nearly no swap drive, while windows is allowed to take the other 20GB. Now who wonders why you have that less hard disk space available on linux... (or just run it in some linux emulator at all)
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
This article was on linuxjournal yesterday.. and now it's up at /. ???
Boy.. talk about slow newsgaring...
For what it's worth, the centre is running on volunteers. If you happen to live nearby why not go and help a hand... i would like to know what their "bussiness model" is. Here in the Netherlands we do not have something similar while we really could use one.. Perhaps something to start up here as well...
is that the schools will be charged by microsoft for the computers because they are capable of running windows.
Oh well.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
When Linus built the kernel it was so he could run it on a 386. Now that ability of running on old, available, otherwise defunct hardware is going to make Linux permeate the world.
:)
Total world domination is just around the corner
Q&A #1 from MS's donated computer FUD...
"Q. Why should a donor include the operating system with their PC donation?"
"A. It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC."
Bullshit! This is just MS FUD twisting the language of their EULA, which they assert is a legal document. True, per the EULA, you cannot move an OEM license to another PC. But that has nothing to do with any legal requirement that the license must transfer with the PC.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
You hook up 10 486dx2's to make a povray render farm. It consumes 10 times as much power to do the same job as a modern intel chip. Not only did you waste your time, energy, and networking hardware; you just contributed to the fact that you local nuclear or coal power plant has to chug that extra electricity,
just to help you "reduce, reuse, and recycle".
Does that make any sense?
Some time ago I thought about taking older computers from the University and turning them into machines for the unfortunate in my town. The only problem I had was that Windows 95/98 costs money and normal people might not be able to use a Linux box. However, with the features X has nowadays and the idea of maybe giving them to schools instead of (or in addition to) just people/families in the city, I think it could work. Now if I could just get startup money... HAH!
(this is the correct story for this reply, btw)
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2
Can you Imagain a beowolf cluster of... wait they did that...
Can you imagina a beowolf cluster of 727s?!
I like replies better than Karma, even if they are flames, because that tells me I got someone thinking.
They're called Computer Angels
Blog
Reduce and Reuse. Those are the hard ones, but they have an effect. Nobody likes reducing or reusing, however.
Most brainwashed green people who recycle assume it goes away magically when they put it in the dumpster. They fail to take into account all the energy and oil that needs to be used to truck the recyclables around; the subsidies that need to be given to make it viable; the fact that nasty chemical and industrial processes need to be used to reclaim materials (paper is the best. breaking down processed paper is nasty, check out a pulp mill). The end result is that you've consumed more energy in recycling the good than producing a new good, and it's the energy consumption on this planet that's a problem. Beer bottles, on the other hand, are more than viable to recycle. Wanna know why? Because they're not melted. They're just cleaned, i.e. reused. If you had to melt them, it'd be cheaper to make new ones.
If you care about the environment, find a way to stop commuting and work from home. Not driving your car a few days a week will have an order of magnitude more effect then recycling plastic bottles.
Not that it matters, have a look around, wonder what happens when oil gets scarce, and how hard people are working on fusion. Note to americans: $2/gal gasoline prices are not sustainable, dependance on foreign oil reserves is not a good thing.
..don't panic
www.povray.org
If you want to see some example of what can be done with Pov-Ray, check out my site at docbrown.net and click on "Portfolios"-"Renderings".
-Ed
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
So I just loaded up /. for the first time in a while only to see the words "POVRAY render farms"
:)
:)
My heart swooned joyfully. There is still life in POV-Ray
Please note my name
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
that was one of the coolest places i've ever volunteered. i did it a long time ago before they moved to oakland, pre-render farm, etc...but it was still amazing. you walk into this big warehouse, full of relics from the past that you haven't heard of in the past 5-10 years. companies that had only one super-proprietary, really weird product before they went out of business, and it was sitting right in front of you. a total geek's heaven. it used to be that working for them, your payment would be "james, can i take this vt220 terminal home?" they liked it because you could off load all the stuff they couldn't donate, and you liked it because you'd end up with amazingly cool random junk!
it's still cool today, and i encourage anyone in the bay area to go volunteer for them on the weekends.
Reboot.ca and the Linux Volunteer Group have been around for quite a while.
They do good work.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
This is just a typical example of Microsoft being intentionally misleading. What the *law* says is that you can't donate your PC to the school with Windows on it and keep a copy of operating system for installation on another PC. Of course, in practice this is largely irrelevant, as Microsoft's agreements with computer manufacturers make it nearly impossible to buy a PC without Windows, so who would want an extra copy of an obsolete version? But Microsoft manages to explain this in such a way as to give the false impression that you (or the school) cannot simply erase Windows, destroy the license and the Windows disks, and install LINUX.
Define a "machine". I've got an official copy of Windows 95 that I originally had on a 486DX4-100. I upgraded it to a P233, changing the case while I was at it. The only thing that remained of the original was the hard drives and monitor. I then donated it to a school when I upgraded further. I paid for Windows, I'm keeping it. The school didn't want it, they already had loads of copies. They just wanted hardware. Having a finely tuned Win95 installation (oxymoron I know) was icing on the cake for them. Did I break this "legal requirement"? No. It was mine to do what I liked with and fsck off M$ if they think differently.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Nothing like being a bad neighbor to a group like this.
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Another site looks like they are doing this for even older machines to build Linux routers and firewalls for those who have broadband. Not a bad idea.
Portland Oregon has a great non-profit that does this sort of thing as well: Free Geek
"Jesus saves sinners...and redeems them for valuable coupons"
I found this page in there:
Gatorade is a bad neighbour.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
DIBS!!!! Turned it down?!?! I just dont believe that.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Recently a family-member donated her old PC to a charity organization. She kept lots of sensitive information on it, including most of her finances. To destroy the data, I formatted the hard-drive, overwrote the hard-drive once with random-data, then reinstalled windows. I wonder if the security experts on here believe this is sufficient for destroying data. And if not, what is sufficient?
this helps people who can't afford a computer very well.
Puscii is built out of old hardware like 486's, slow pentiums, sparcstations, old alpha's and even an ultrasparc. all machines run linux
people are very content with the service we provide.
the only thing which costs money is the coffee (30 eurocents)
for more info, please visit the website
http://squat.net/puscii/
have a nice day
BOFH_org
Yup. Check out Free Geek -- they're a non-profit organization in portland oregon that has a similar program. It's all volunteer-based, and volunteers get free salvaged/reassembled linux machines and training. All in all a very nice system.
:wq
Uses coal. If I remember correctly, it's the #1 fuel for power generating plants.
If you ever visit Orlando, drive east on SR-520 (the Bee Line). About halfway out, look to your left. That is a coal-fired plant.
Near Atlanta? Plant Wansly is coal-fired. So is McDonnough. I may be wrong, but all power generation plants in Georgia besides Votgle and Hatch I think are coal-fired. (Hatch and Votgle are nuclear)
Closer to where I live, between Cocoa and Titusville are two gas-fired power generation plants. Natural gas. To the south in Fort Pierce is a nuclear plant. Another nuclear plant is in Crystal River. FPL and other Florida generators seem to be more diversified in their fuel choices.
As for recycling, I do it because I pay to do it. Every month on my city water/waste bill is a line item for recycling. If I'm paying for the pick-up, I might as well make use of it. Don't get me started on the ethics of PAYING for a recycling service. It's obvious that it doesn't work if the pubplic has to PAY for the privelige of recycling!
as does my inability to close italics properly :)
;-)
as is your ability to form a grammatically correct sentence
People should not bow down to FUD. If they do, they deserve being fucked.
Perhaps bending over for FUD is a better description...
I'm insulted by your sig ;P ;)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
In the past the company I work for discussed that point with Microsoft who told them that the case was the definitive point that could not change. So all upgrades had to keep the same case. Everything else could change, but unless we wanted to buy a new license, the case had to remain.
Windows almost certainly defines 'machine' differently then most people considering how little you can change on a box running XP before it thinks that you're "stealing" from the Evil Overlords in the Lands of Redmond (where the darkness lies).
/. readers consider anything M$ likes to be of major concern.
Not that the majority of regular
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Reading from the previous post, his reads correctly....yours doesn't.
So sit down and shut up.
Actually we got approx 30,000 comercial packages of suse 7.0.
MS's definition of a "machine" in this context is very grey and not documented. At all. Intentionally. They want you to be scared and unsure and just buy another license "to be safe".
Was it an OEM or a retail box license? The install key to an OEM '95 license has "OEM" somewhere in it, usually following the pattern xxxxx-OEM-xxxxxxx-xxxxx.
OEM licenses usually come with a machine and are tied to that machine at purchase. You can upgrade that hardware all you want (probably best to keep a paper trail), but the license remains tied to that machine. If you give the machine away, your license to the OS is no longer valid. It is effectively transferred to whomever you gave the box, whether you told them about it or not.
Retail box licenses are completely different. As long as you only have it installed on one machine at any given time, you can move it from box to box.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
Well, i've been working at the ACCRC For over a year and a half now. It's a terrific place. Most of our volunteers come from the homeless shelter next to our building. It's amazing how much people can leanr when they're immersed in technology so completely.
A couple of answers to previously proposed questions. The Athlon 850's and motherboards for them were graciously donated by AMD for use in our cluster. They also gave us a good deal of PC100 dimms to help us expand the cluster. 3Com donated all of our switches and ethernet cards.
Microsoft has never contacted us, nor are they likely to. I find it highly unlikely that they would attempt to shut us down because we distribute Linux. SuSe Gave us 30,000 boxed copies of 7.0 in its various incarnations, and this is the OS we distribute. We'd love to get any other distributions we could, but for now, we will use SuSe because we have a buttload of it.
Now, some related links! Webcams In the Ministry of Truth, AKA the media lab at the ACCRC.
Buy Shit from the ACCRC here. Extremely disorganized, just like the warehouse is.
Anyone in the bay area is invited to come by and check us out. We are open from 10-5 weekdays and 12-5 saturdays. We invite anyone to volunteer, no matter what your skill level is. Also, if you would like to send us your equipment for a donation and a tax write-off, send it to our street address, not our post office box.
Thank you ve5ry much for all your enthusiasm. We need volunteers badly! Volunteers get digging rights!!!!
Don't Crease the Weasel!
The PovRay team are my heroes!!!
And, they are to release Povay 3.5 any day now!!! Release candidate 2 (RC2) is out!
Read more at www.povy
"I like to wear big boy pants."
the place i used to work at did much the same thing. problem was whenever we sent a school a machine with linux on it, the IT guy of that school would be on the phone with us the next day wanting instructions on how to put windows on it.
-sigh-
org org org
:)
check this place out...i'm just readying my first shipment of aol/msn/win3.11 install disks
j
At Computerbank Australia Inc, we take donated hardware and build Debian Linux boxes for donation to low income, disadvantaged individuals and groups.
http://www.computerbank.org.au/
Nothing - well thats something.
As the exec director of accrc and a punk from the late 70's let me break it down for you.
You are a poser and a waste of protein.
Please remove your head from your anus.
Might have been a good meeting room, though, or you could set up your Beowulf Cluster on a slightly larger Viking Dragon Boat than Mr. Beowulf himself used.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Computer Angels' volunteers and members are a diverse group including a chef, electronics engineers and technicians, office administrators, painters, teachers, artists, retirees and the usual suspects, i.e. programmers and those interested in tweaking computer hardware :) With so many different backgrounds, skills and time available makes for an interesting mix of ideas and projects.
Computer equipment that cannot be refurbished into a desktop Linux box, may be used for a firewall, router, or developing an electronics project using embedded Linux.
Many of our volunteers are hoarders and are very reluctant to pass *stuff* to the recycler - "_it_ might be useful for something", is the usual refrain. If it is unusual or antique we may have the opportunity to provide the Computer Museum with an exhibit.
Yes, we have FUN, and the best part is contributing and participating in a community that is enthused about Open Source, Linux and reduce/reuse/recycle.
ACCRC is terrific inspiration, and I can see that we are going to need a larger premises.
well look at http://www.freegeek.org/ for portland's one and only recycling experiment
Triggered by that and a couple of good experiences in the not so far past a question: ... ah ... a tech company
does someone know something like this in Germany? Or, if nothing exists, who would be willing to get something similiar rolling over here?
I'm based in Munich and working for
peb
on that flyby, the pattern is full...