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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."
Using old PCs as Linux stations is a great idea, but when you include the $699 licensing fee it can add up quickly.
Trolling is a art,
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?
Recently, I set up a small Debian-based computer lab using LTSP at the school I attend. Currently, it only has the server and 5 thin clients, but it is astounding what can be done with this hardware:
Server: 800 MHz Pentium III, 1 GB SDRAM, dual 20 GB hard drives.
Thin Clients (all diskless and netbooting thanks to LTSP): 233 MHz Cyrix III with 64 MB RAM, 233 MHz Pentium II with 48 MB RAM, 333 MHz Celeron with 32 MB RAM, 300 MHz Pentium II with 64 MB RAM, 150 MHz Pentium MMX with 32 MB RAM (IIRC).
This setup can have 6 people (one on the server plus the thin clients) running Gaim + Mozilla + OpenOffice with very little slowdown. Rarely is it noticeable. And it is very easy to manage; since there is only one computer with Debian and all the data and whatnot on it, only one box has to be updated, had new users added, etc.
Total cost so far: $0, it is all just hardware out of my friend's basements and mine. The fact that no money has to be spent to get something like this to work (and work well) really shows that a new, shiny 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 is not needed just to check email and browse the web. The science department at this same school actually just recieved 24 new 3.2 GHz Dells, and the most that is ever done on them are Excel spreadsheets!
Imagine the money that can be saved by using old but completely useful computers instead of upgrading every couple of years when it is unneeded... (and spending more money on licenses for new versions of Office and Windows and etc.)
Of course they want you to upgrade, the question is what becomes of the old computers. My understanding is that the vast majority of computers donated are nearly worthless to schools because they cannot run any modern programs. These computers are only good as thin clients and most non-profits don't have a thin client setup. If his proposed arrangement takes off, NPO's could specifically say:Give us your old hardware. Until then, I'm glad OEM's are disposing of the systems properly (assuming they aren't just shipping them off to China or something).
> 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
Exactly what did he expect these recycling programs are for? Of course they're primarily a means to sell new systems!
If a company has a bunch of HP/Dell PCs that are about to reach their end-of-life, they can either arrange the disposal themselves or give them back to the vendor to dispose of. Many companies will offer the PCs to their employees for a very low cost, and some of these employees will take them, put Linux on them and give them to charity. Maybe the company has someone on staff that acts as a focal point for charitable distribution of these PCs (as well as new stuff); if so, that person may take on the role of coordinating that sort of work.
***If this is "all too hard" for the company, and they just want to get rid of the old PCs without being accused of screwing up the environment by dumping them somewhere***, they're free to give them back to Dell/HP who'll dispose of them. Some companies see this as a useful thing; they've got a problem (disposal of a bunch of PCs without screwing the environment) and Dell/PC will take care of the problem for them. That's called a "competitive advantage".
Here's news: there's no fleet of people at Dell/HP who call up every charity in the world trying to dispose of old PCs 24x7! There may be a few people who take the role on themselves, but there's no way a few people can dispose of thousands of old PCs on an ongoing basis in their spare time.
It's *not* trivial to donate these PCs; among other things, either they have to arrange for MS to transfer the OS licence to some unknown recipient (unlikely), or they have to arrange a workforce to format discs, install e.g. Linux on them and then train whoever it is these PCs are going to be given to. Strangely, neither Dell or HP feel it is their role to act as unpaid Linux trainers for the world's underprivileged! Finally, if a charity receives a free PC from Dell/HP, there's at least an implied support arrangement there - when that old clunker of a PC breaks down, who's gonna get called?
If Slashdot or any other organization wants to form a group of people who will take these PCs, reformat them, install Linux, donate them to the world's charities and provide support afterwards, I'm sure Dell and HP would be very happy to hear about it. After all, that group would then be solving a problem Dell and HP have - how to dispose of the PCs. Do that; the world will benefit from it and probably vendors other than Dell and HP will want to jump on board too. If not, then find something real to complain about.
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.
"wrong."
Every manager worth my salary (which is really setting the bar low) knows the axiom "it takes a lifetime to win a customer, a second to lose one." By doing things that are altruistic and aware of what their customers value, corporations can avoid protests and boycotts--and even "I'll go with your competitor, they anger me less."
There is a certain dollar cost that we subconciously attribute to our values, and if a corportation offends our values, we'll look for an alternative whose cost of switching is less than the cost of our values.
A great theoretical example of this is cars. Many imports sell for about $2,000 less than American cars--but the American cars still sell, because "buy American" has a value cost of more than $2,000 for a lot of people. (Not to mention a slew of other reasons that I'm purposefully glossing over.)
I think you are seriously uninformed about what thin clients are, how well they perform and peoples willingness to use them.
I am writing this post on my daily workstation which is a 150MHZ Cyrix chip with 64MB of RAM, no HD and a 100mbps ethernet card. I share a 1ghz AMD server with 5 other people here who are using similiar thin client setups. I have a sweet 17" BenQ LCD Panel and a sexy KB and mouse. I can't even see the actual computer I am using, which is really just a bunch of computer guts in a drawer (with no fans so it's totaly silent).
People come to my desk, look at my screen and say "Wow! Nice technology!". I open the drawer and show them what it is running on and they get seriously confused and start asking all sorts of quesitons.
The point is that thin clients work for todays technology needs. What people really want is a computer they can count on to provide the types of applications they need to use in a reliable manner. Thin clients fit that bill perfectly. Not to mention the whole office is a breeze to administer, practicaly zero administration actually.
No Need to run PINE or a terminal, I run KDE 3.2.2 with Mozilla, OpenOffice, Evolution, Gimp, etc. etc. I can site down at any terminal in my office, log in to my account and get work done.
People come in off the street to use our public internet terminal and deal with Linux just fine. They feel they are using the latest technology because the LCD Monitor looks so jazzy. And frankly, they are using the latest technology because thin clients are the future.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Yeah the charity will love that.
"Here's a computer. It doesn't have windows or anything that will serve your purposes. But it has a command line. Here, I'll show you how to use Lynx..."
Ten minutes later the person at the charity makes a phone call...
"Hey, Jonny, do you still have that windows 95 cd? Some guy wearing a penguin shirt just dropped off a computer that is completely useless to us."
You can't just donate a computer without a GUI and expect people to use it. Even the simplest uses of a computer of browsing the web are nearly impossible. Lynx? Is this what you're recommending? This thread is talking about donating the pc to a charity, not for some beowulf cluster in your basement to compile gentoo on.
- The client broadcasts for IP and other info using PXE or Etherboot.
- The client downloads the net bootable Linux kernel.
- The kernel boots and mounts a read-only root FS over NFS.
- The client self-configures and starts XFree86 v. 4.3
- XFree86 connects to a second computer and the entire session is exported to the thin client.
There is no apparent difference to the user. They don't even understand that they are working on the server at this point. With a Gig LAN card on the server and 100Mb on the clients, the session lag is unnoticable.BTW, this is a true thin client, unlike Winterms or the Linux equivalent. Exploit in the kernel? Just drop a new one on the server and update the name in DHCP (or make a symlink), and, presto, all the hundreds of clients have been upgraded with no downtime the next time the are cycled. There is no need to burn flash on hundreds of clients. Any application holes can be filled in the time it takes to patch the server, with no reboots required anywhere, and no tech to be onsite at all.
In short, though you seem to think so, nothing in the user session is running locally and the user is not limited by any old hardware. The clients can be used for another fifteen years with no penalty is they don't fail. Upgrade the software, upgrade the server hardware (or cluster), and you've got faster, better user sessions for free.
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