what do i do with 3 old computers?

[Nab]

i have 2-3 old computers lying around doing nothing...they are pretty old....none of them is greater than 300 mhz. I was wondering what i could do with them. i read the earlier thread about a firewall, and i liked the idea. How would i go about setting that up? if i use one comp on that, what can i do with the other one?

 

[Lonyo]

Firewall, Linux playbox and an mp3 server for a different room.

 

[Nab]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Firewall, Linux playbox and an mp3 server for a different room.

i'm planning on setting up all the computers in one room and what is a linux playbox? another question....how would i set up a firewall? sorry about the newb questions...first time i'll be setting up a network.

 

[pitupepito2000]

I would suggest you to put linux on them and you can have them run applications and things like that. There are things like linux terminal server project, that will let you use old computers as thin clients and run applications on them. You can use the computers as routers, firewalls or many more things. Open Source Operatings Systems and projects will amaze you once, you try them.

I hope this helps,
pitupepito

 

[bocamojo]

You might check floppyfw. It's a router / firewall that fits on a single floppy. Here's the link: floppyfw . Note: you need two NIC cards in this box for this to work.

You could also:

build a standalone MP3 player / file server. Checkout this article from techtv: MP3 player

use it as a backup server (if it has the hard drive space). You can image your other systems and copy the images to this machine.

Build a Beowulf Cluster (sounds hard, but might be worth trying, if you have the spare time): Link:
Building a Beowulf Cluster Link 2:

About Beowulf Clusters

Use it for home automation. The ActiveHome kit from x-10 only requires a 386 or higher and win 3.1 or higher. The software is about 50 bucks, and can control your lights and appliances, etc.

 

[chocoruacal]

Here's a wild though....donate them to a local school, church, charity.

 

[shock311]

Originally posted by: chocoruacal
Here's a wild though....donate them to a local school, church, charity.

thats a good idea, I'd do that

 

[tm37]

I use Clark Connect 1.2 and it runns pretty stable for my mom on a 166 with 64MB of ram. She uses it ONLY as a router Firewall. They have a shared drive to dump stuff on BUT they rerally don't use it.

I really like the Clark Set-up over my old Netgear Router I had it seems to do alot more. And once it was set-up it was alot easier to configure open ports and stuff.

 

[Nab]

alright...one of the computers is going to be a firewall, the other is going to be a mp3 servers the last i'm not sure of yet....