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Title: The Old Computer Challenge |
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Author: Solène |
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Date: 07 July 2021 |
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Tags: linux oldcomputerchallenge |
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Description: |
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# Introduction |
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For some time I wanted to start a personal challenge, after some |
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thoughts I want to share it with you and offer you to join me in this |
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journey. |
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The point of the challenge is to replace your daily computer by a very |
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old computer and share your feelings for the week. |
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# The challenge |
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Here are the *rules* of the challenge, there are no prize to win but |
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I'm convinced we will have feelings to share along the week and that it |
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will change the way we interact with computers. |
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* 1 CPU maximum, whatever the model. This mean only 1 CPU|Core|Thread. |
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Some bios allow to disable multi core. |
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* 512 MB of memory (if you have more it's not a big deal, if you want |
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to reduce your ram create a tmpfs and put a big file in it) |
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* using USB dongles is allowed (storage, wifi, Bluetooth whatever) |
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* only for your personal computer, during work time use your usual |
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stuff |
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* relying on services hosted remotely is allowed (VNC, file sharing, |
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whatever help you) |
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* using a smartphone to replace your computer may work, please share if |
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you move habits to your smartphone during the challenge |
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* if you absolutely need your regular computer for something really |
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important please use it. The goal is to have fun but not make your |
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week a nightmare. |
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If you don't have an old computer, don't worry! You can still use your |
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regularly computer and create a virtual machine with low specs, you |
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would still be more comfortable with a good screen, disk access and a |
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not too old CPU but you can participate. |
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# Date |
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The challenge will take place from 10Th July morning until 17Th July |
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morning. |
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# Social medias |
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Because I want this event to be a nice moment to share with others, you |
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can contact me so I can add your blog (including gopher/gemini space) |
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to the future list below. |
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You can also join #oldcomputerchallenge on libera.chat IRC server. |
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prahou's blog, running a T42 with OpenBSD 6.9 i386 with hostname brouk |
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Joe's blog about the challenge and why they need it |
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Solene (this blog) running an iBook G4 with OpenBSD -current macppc with hostna… |
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(gopher link) matto's report using FreeBSD 13 on an Acer aspire one |
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cel's blog using Void Linux PPC on an Apple Powerbook G4 |
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Keith Burnett's blog using a T42 with an emphasis on using GUI software to see … |
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Kuchikuu's blog using a T60 running Debian (but specs out of the challenge) |
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Ohio Quilbio Olarte's blog using an MSI Wind netbook with OpenBSD |
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carcosa's blog using an ASUS eeePC netbook with Fedora i386 downgraded with ker… |
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Tekk's website, using a Dell Latitude D400 (2003) running Slackware 14.2 |
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# My setup |
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I use an old iBook G4 laptop (the one I already use "offline"), it has |
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a single PowerPC G4 1.3 GHz CPU and 512 MB of ram and a slow 40GB HDD. |
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The wifi is broken so I have to use a Wifi dongle but I will certainly |
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rely on ethernet. The screen has a 1024x768 resolution but the colors |
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are pretty bad. |
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In regards to software it runs OpenBSD 6.9 with /home/ encrypted which |
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makes performance worse. I use ratpoison as the window manager because |
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it saves screen space and requires little memory and CPU to run and is |
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entirely keyboard driven, that laptop has only a left click touchpad |
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button :). |
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I love that laptop and initially I wanted to see how far I could use |
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for my daily driver! |
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Picture of the laptop |
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Screenshot of the laptop |
