Hey, Don Gould wrote: > http://www.gnome.org/~gman/img/july/freegeek.jpg > > Could we have 30 of those to build our node network?
Yeah, that was an amazing place - stacked high with heaps of computers and laptops everywhere. Everyone who drops off a computer gives a $10 donation, and then the computer goes through a process of being completely stripped down into all it's component parts. Things like network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, motherboards etc, all get put into these *huge* bins for further testing, and then the rest of the computer [depending on need] is disassembled more so they can separate out the aluminum, gold or otherwise for recycling. Then they start the process of educating people how to spot different cards or chips or whatever, separating them out, then teaching them out to test them, before finally working on assembling them again. Most of the machines that are built are usually decently spec'd out machines. A volunteer has to build 5 of them, and then the 6th one is the one that they get to take home. Of course, most of the machines come installed with Ubuntu [was Debian previously]. They get support for a year or two after that. If they want to install something like Windows, usually a hacked copy, they're on their own. There are a few places around the US, but Portland is by far the biggest - I'd encourage anyone in the neighborhood to drop by and get a free tour ;) Glynn
