So, I have two old computers laying around that I want to put to "good" use (instead of just throwing away), I was thinking of converting one of them to run a Linux firewall, like the "SmoothWall" program, or some other kind of system. Or, I was going to install LINUX and begin experiementing with the whole platform just to learn more about it all. But I was curious what other things could I use them for?
The basic system specs are as follows:

Computer #1:
Intel Pentium III @ 800Mhz
384mb RAM
10GB HDD
80GB HDD
Windows XP Pro
NVidia "Riva" TNT2 VGA Card (64mb)


Computer #2 (ancient Dell Laptop, takes about 15 minutes to fully boot...literally):
Intel Pentium II @ 433Mhz
64mb RAM
Windows 2000 Pro
Internal Graphics


I know the laptop is pretty much worthless, since the boot up time is pretty extreme, and annoying. So, I'll probably just throw that one out. So any ideas?

 

Update, it turns out the laptop is toast, and the desktop had its hard drives wiped, so now there isnt an OS on
the desktop and now I cant get my Linux OS to boot from the CD. On top of that the BIOS is either totally gone or not accesible so I cant even change settings to make it boot from a CD drive.

Any ideas?

 

Try resetting bios. There should be a jumper on the board to reset to factory specs. The battery on motherboard could be dead to. But I don't know if that would cause the problem you're having. I would find the jumper on the board and reset the bios to see if that does anything.

 

Good call, I went ahead and took out the CMOS battey to reset everything and now I can access the BIOS again. So, the plan for now is to install the Ubuntu LINUX OS and play around with that until I decide what I really want to do. I'm still taking suggestions and ideas though...

 

might have a little trouble running Ubuntu on the laptop with so little RAM. i believe the newest version (7.04) of Ubuntu takes 256k of ram. although i am not sure what older versions run on. if it was me i would probably sell both and use the money towards a newer system and install Ubuntu or Fedora on it.

one other suggestion is if you play a lot of online multiplayer games you could set up a dedicated game server and host your own LAN parties.

edit: also if you wanted to keep one for linux there are some distros that require less resources.

 

after you wipe it clean, you could donate it to Goodwill.

 

Throwing linux on it is definitely a good idea, do you have any prior experience with linux? From what I've heard ubuntu may not be the easiest to get started with. If you're sure that's what you want then go with it, if not this site could be helpful to you. It asks you a series of questions then recommends a distro based on your answers. http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?lang=en

 

https://dodgeforum.com/m_886719/tm.htm