Tinkering with computers
Computers hate being turned off. I setup my computer network today, and the first thing I noticed when plugging in germany was that it was very quiet. I opened the case and noticed that the CPU fan wasn't spinning. Some 3-in-1 oil started that spinning. But the power supply fan wasn't working so I opened it and noticed that one of the wires had come apart.
After fixing the fan, I booted it up and noticed that one of the hard drives was complaining. Oh dear, poor germany will have to be replaced soon. It's an old machine which has served me well over the years. Hmm, I've got spare 2GB and 18GB hard disk kicking about. I wonder if its IDE controller can see something that big. That would give this machine a little bit more life, I should think.
I did a little bit of research to see what would be good to replace it, when it eventually dies. Looking at the WRT54GS v2.2, I find that it only has 16MB of flash, which makes it a little on the light side for running a full-fledged distribution. Still, that's very impressive for a $200 router. I notice that the OpenWRT project is doing some nifty things with this hardware.
Or perhaps I could get myself a Micro II, which we make at Net Integration. It has plenty of storage for my needs. It does seem to be a little bit overkill for just a router. And then I'd have to choose whether to put Debian on it or experimental CVS versions of our software.