I restored a Dell Optiplex GX1 (built in 1999) with Debian 12 32 bit.
I am impressed at how well it runs! It has 640 Megabytes of RAM, the Pentium II 350 MHz processor. I believe it has a Cirrus Logic CS4281 sound card. I have to log back into the machine and check! I used sox to play some ogg files and it barely touched the CPU. I would think this should be expected because it's a discrete card. I think the nice thing about having a physical machine is actually connecting to hardware like a sound card. I know you can pass through the sound card to a VM, yet I have not done that yet. :-O
I installed Java and LibreOffice dev package and hacked some automated LibreOffice stuff using the Java API. I have found getting the LibreOffice SDK a little bit challenging.
This is sort of an unfortunate development, because I will probably keep this server around for a while.
I tend to accumulate "stuff" and my resolution for 2023 has been to clear out some of the accumulation.
Well, maybe I will sell it or probably turn it into the recycling yard soon.
Brian
It looks like it lists for around 150 dollars on ebay. The thing weighs quite a bit.
On Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 10:55:33AM -0700, Brian E. Lavender wrote:
I restored a Dell Optiplex GX1 (built in 1999) with Debian 12 32 bit.
I am impressed at how well it runs! It has 640 Megabytes of RAM, the Pentium II 350 MHz processor. I believe it has a Cirrus Logic CS4281 sound card. I have to log back into the machine and check! I used sox to play some ogg files and it barely touched the CPU. I would think this should be expected because it's a discrete card. I think the nice thing about having a physical machine is actually connecting to hardware like a sound card. I know you can pass through the sound card to a VM, yet I have not done that yet. :-O
I installed Java and LibreOffice dev package and hacked some automated LibreOffice stuff using the Java API. I have found getting the LibreOffice SDK a little bit challenging.
This is sort of an unfortunate development, because I will probably keep this server around for a while.
I tend to accumulate "stuff" and my resolution for 2023 has been to clear out some of the accumulation.
Well, maybe I will sell it or probably turn it into the recycling yard soon.
Brian
Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
I used to have a 386 as a gateway/firewall box. It's nice to get some use out of the old stuff. I have an original Compaq sewing machine.unit. You remind me that I should do something with it. It ran when I put it away.
rPi's are sort of fading in my world. I can get a refurb laptop for almost the same price, at the end of the day. So, unless I really need the small form factor or the I/O features, I'm going that way. Sonic Pi is still nice.
-Gary
On Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 10:55:33AM -0700, Brian E. Lavender wrote:
I restored a Dell Optiplex GX1 (built in 1999) with Debian 12 32 bit.
I am impressed at how well it runs! It has 640 Megabytes of RAM, the Pentium II 350 MHz processor. I believe it has a Cirrus Logic CS4281 sound card. I have to log back into the machine and check! I used sox to play some ogg files and it barely touched the CPU. I would think this should be expected because it's a discrete card. I think the nice thing about having a physical machine is actually connecting to hardware like a sound card. I know you can pass through the sound card to a VM, yet I have not done that yet. :-O
I installed Java and LibreOffice dev package and hacked some automated LibreOffice stuff using the Java API. I have found getting the LibreOffice SDK a little bit challenging.
This is sort of an unfortunate development, because I will probably keep this server around for a while.
I tend to accumulate "stuff" and my resolution for 2023 has been to clear out some of the accumulation.
Well, maybe I will sell it or probably turn it into the recycling yard soon.
Brian
Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
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Brian E. Lavender -
Gary