A Different Take On PC Manus' 'Recycling' Schemes

Timex writes "Linux Devices is reporting that the COO of Linux startup Symbio Technologies, Roger Del Russo, claims that the recycling programs of Dell and HP are nothing more than a means of getting older systems out of use, to be replaced by newer systems. Mr Del Russo then makes the case for putting the older systems to good use as thin clients, using the Linux Terminal Server Project."

Comments

Teaching Old Systems New Tricks

[LaBlueCow]

Well, in Soviet Russia... wait, no, I refuse to make such a stupid comment... :)
Seriously though, this sounds like it might be a decent idea. There's nothing wrong with using old systems for something... how many people out there run their old 486DXs as firewalls or NATs, honestly? Probably quite a few...
And, if ANYthing can turn an old system into something new and useful, it would have to be Linux. For all the griping about it, it's far superior to any Microsoft product when it comes to custom built applications (not the program types, thats another story) for hardware... way to go!
Oh, and I think this MIGHT be a FP... not sure :)

"Recycling"

[6Yankee]

A former colleague of mine tells me there is now a skip in the loading bay, full of Dell desktop and laptop machines. These are going back to be "recycled".

They could have sold the laptops two or three times over, but these machines must go back to Dell because "they're 70% recyclable". As this chap pointed out, surely if they were sold they'd be 100% recyclable. Which does indeed beg the question, is recycling really the aim here?

Re:"Recycling"

[Halfbaked Plan]

The majority of people can and have figured out how to plug the various cords in and get an old system up and running. It isn't a 'rare priesthood' who would recycle these systems. It's regular folks who don't have a computer. It's kids who might have a family system available in the rec room but not one they control themselves that they can make their own mistakes and learn from using.

I see this sort of top-down recycling program as a tendency (won't go so far as to call it a conspiracy) to keep 'free' computers from being out there where idle hackers will put them to use. A big part of how Linux got it's start, (almost the contrary of the bloated big monster machines required to run the current linus desktops) is because there were lots of free systems out there to give Linux a trial platform. I and I'm sure many others, first learned networking stuff with an array of old castoff 386sx boxes.

Charity is also an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey.

Don't forget about charity; I volunteer for an organization that cleans up old PCs and gives them to needy families with children in school, and there are hundreds of organizations out there that do similar things. We won't take trash, but an old Pentium is often a fine system for word processing and basic web mojo, which is what most needy recipients would be doing.

Remember these words

[jb.hl.com]

If a corporation says it's doing something altruistically (open sourcing shit (MS), recycling PCs to "save the environment") it always has other interests to serve.

If that sounds cynical, I'm sorry. But it's true: corporations work for profit, and as far as I can see the only reason a corporation would want to recycle PCs is to get new ones out on the market. NO OTHER REASON.

We've been doing this since March

[slasher999]

I'm not going to go posting a link here and bring the Slashdot effect down on my own company, but we started a buyback program in March (long before we knew about Dell and HP's plans - maybe they stole them from us!) for exactly this reason - get the old stuff away from the users and replace it with newer hardware. For us, the aging Pentium and Pentium 2 systems, most of which are still running Windows 95 or 98, are a support nightmare. The systems are not under warranty any longer, components are no longer available through distribution, and we don't have time to be searching ebay looking for a used 266MHz CPU. Besides, our customers tend to look at us funny when the bill ends up showing 4-5 hours of labor because of the cost involved in finding and obtaining old components. It's just not worth being in that market when a quality business class machine runs just under $1000 US.

As for thin client, it's a solution some of our customers like. However, it doesn't resolve the old hardware issue. Instead, it actually adds to the problem be extending the life of systems that were never designed to last more than 3-5 years. In the past week we have had a customer complain that their last 200MHz machine just died, another client complained that their last machine with ISA slots died and now they can't use their first gen ATI AIW ISA card, and we had a call from a client that couldn't figure out how to get their new (USB only) printer working with their 6 or 7 year old desktop (with no USB).

Supporting this old stuff for the SMB (small/mid-sized business) clients is a nightmare. We spend a lot of time convincing customers to "recycle" about 1/3 of their PC hardware per year so that all of their hardware is covered under warranty and so we can support the most recent Windows operating systems and applications throughout their organizations. Having part of the office on Windows XP, part on Windows NT 4, and part on Windows 95, and half under warranty and half not covered under warranty just increases support and management costs.