The harsh reality about aging computers
In preparing for Software Freedom Day (September 19, more details in this post), my dad and I began evaluating the stash of donated computers he has (he’s waiting on a call from the local Computers for Kids program donee), and installing Ubuntu on them to be demo machines. As we began installing Ubuntu, we hit a snag: Ubuntu 9.04 will not install on pre-2000 computers. Version 8.10 wouldn’t install either. There were only three, and one of them was only 366 MHz, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway since they each had at least 256 MB of RAM.
I have a friend with a warehouse full of computers that he donates to another giveaway program. He gets donations, like my dad, evaluates them, categorizes the parts, etc, and puts together systems with Windows XP on them (from TechSoup). He told me last year he isn’t accepting any more computers with less than 1.0 GHz processors, because current software has too many problems with slower computers.
Well, yeah, you can get software to run on the older machines (see some previous posts), but increasingly, it’s a question of why? I did it for the challenge. But for machines going to others to use, why make it a challenge for them (unless, of course, they want that)? For the Ubuntu folks, anything older than 2000 just isn’t worth the effort anymore. For my warehouse friend, 1 GHz is the cutoff (which is post 2000).
On one hand, culling the older ones makes it easier for us. On the other, my conscience cringes at adding to the number of computers and parts to be recycled (and the decidedly un-green effect most of those recycling shops have). But that’s the reality: software installation and maintenance on dinosaur machines is a beast few are willing to wrangle with.