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Refurbishing PCs For Charity?
Used PC Guy asks: "I'm trying to run a program to recycle PCs for charity to give to underprivileged kids. Trouble is, these kids have never seen a PC. What should I teach the kids if they're about 14-21? Should I teach Windows, Linux or both? What hardware should I be requesting, and what's the best way to test the influx of hardware that's coming in quickly, efficiently and reliably to make sure won't need servicing within another 6 months?"
It is my sincere hope that you are re-incarnated as a begger's child in a third-world hellhole where your only hope of escaping a life of desperation and despair is to learn a skill, and the only computer available to you costs $999, holds you hostage with DRM so that you must pay more money for every word you read and every sound you hear from it, and needs electricity which your village doesn't have.
Check, another MS shill flaming FUD upon anything that isn't Windows. Duly noted. If Windows had succeeded in their bid to provide the software for the $100 laptop, you'd be waving your pompoms cheering it on.
Picture this instead: boy born in ghetto in the early 70's. Boy grows up poor, not a lot to do, but desktop computers come out and he manages to get his hands on one that somebody tosses out. He's intrigued; this is before Microsoft, when all computer systems were open and came with programming tools installed. Eventually, he cruises the public library grabbing every book he can get his hands on about computers. Pretty soon, he's the neighborhood nerd, and gets computers free for the price of fixing them, and even gets paid for the occasional job. When he discovers Linux, that's just a normal continuation of his previous experience. Eventually, he has managed to educate himself to the point where he can get full-time jobs that would normally require degrees, but he can just demonstrate that he knows his stuff, or get a ground-level job with looser requirements and then work his way up to the position he wanted. He is able to do this several times, before at last ending up in the console of the operations center of one of the world's largest multinational financial institutions. He is the only one there *without* a diploma, and the college graduates keep getting handed to *him* to train! He pulls that stint for nearly a decade, managing to finally retire from it to start his own online business, a Linux-focused site supported by web/graphics design jobs, minor local programming/support jobs, and the occasional advertisement. Nobody has ever once asked him about Microsoft Word, but if you ask him nicely, he'll produce a similar program for you in one of the dozen programming languages he knows by now.
I'm just positive you're saying that's impossible. It damn well is...for you! But it's a TRUE STORY, THAT KID IS ME, AND YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING BASTARD, COULDN'T STOP ME!!!
And I'm not done with you at all. Now I devote every moment I can spare to contribute back to the community which gave me so much. And it's worth it just to spite you, to educate as many other underpriveledged as I can, to reach out and lift up those people you're trying to beat down just like you(or people like you) tried to beat me(or people like me) down! It's WORTH it to see you in a flop sweat, kissing your Microsoft stock value goodbye, as one more user discovers the truth about Linux behind all the bullshit you spew about it!
And I used to use a Commodore 64 with a 1mhz processor. People used to drive cars without power brakes, electric start, etc. What's your point? That you can use the 10 year old software designed for the 10 year old computer? I guess, but the world has moved on since then. Can you learn how to program and about networks on a 10 year old computer? Sure. Are most of those kids going to be interested in that? Hell no.
AccountKiller