I’m writing this entry on my new nerd box.
The other day I bought a surplus computer from the local school division. It cost me all of $35. It’s a 1.1GHz machine with a 20-GB hard drive and 128 MB of RAM. I brought it home, burned Xubuntu to a CD, and slapped in an extra 256MB DIMM and a wireless network card from my (dead) previous nerd box. My friend Kevin (who’s another computer geek) came over, and we fired her up. After a couple false starts (mostly involving the onboard video, which wasn’t capable enough), we got Xubuntu running.
Kevin had to leave, and I had some fiddling left to do (mostly with the wireless–I had to figure out how to enable WEP so my neighbours can’t leech internet from me, not that they would), and by 9 PM tonight I had it humming along just peachy freakin’ keen.
So the moral of the story? I’m awesome. Maybe as awesome as Xubuntu, though that might be pushing it.
The intent is to use the nerd box as a writing and surfing machine. From what I’ve seen so far, it should be more than capable in those roles.