how to make use of your old pc

How to make use of an old PC?
Old PC = Low Resource PC
Example:
Pentium II 400Mhz 190MB RAM 6GB HDD
Celeron 600Mhz 190MB 64MB Agp
P3 833Mhz with 128MB RAM
P2 455Mhz
AMD 333Mhz K62
P3 993Mhz 128MB RAM
Everybody seems to have an old pc lying around their house abandoned but not disposed. If it's still working you should use linux with that PC. Remember that putting another suitable Linux Distro into it does not makes the matter worse. Linux actually cares about your PC. At boot time Linux can detect whatever problem that your PC might have. You can read the messages that appear on your screen while boot time. And then can rectify the problem.
Desktop Environment
Linux depending which distro you are using have various dektop environment that you could choose to suit your computers. Desktop environment is the look and feel of your desktop powered by the X engine or so called the 'X' Server. X is what makes a Linux PC boot to a desktop from a terminal. Popular desktop environment for an old pc are LXDE, XFCE, Openbox. Other than those two there are GNOME, KDE and Enlightenment. Some of them relate to Windows Manager like the JWM, XWM and IceWM were also popular if you have really-really low graphics support like 2MB only.
From http://distrowatch.com you can see Puppy Linux is ranked for best top ten Linux distro. At the time of writing Number 8th. On the chart, right side of the page. I always love puppy linux to be introduce to and old pc for it's superbly universal versatile linux distro as far as lo-resource PC is concerned. You can boot to Live CD do what you have to do with your PC copy valuable document, edit your partition, format C: drive to be flag as boot, go online, listen to music and play some games all in the same time with this puppy.
Live CD
Using a Live CD is easy. No need to install if you don't want to. Rule of thumb: Change your boot priority inside BIOS so that CD/DVD boot first.
Change the sequence at boot time, CD/DVD drive will be the first priority than Internal HardDisk.
Rearrange your boot sequence so that CD/DVD would be higher than Local Hard Disk. This means you can boot to a Live CD.
For a low-resource Old PC there are many alternative ways to complete your task.
Internet
In Linux the easiest way to get online is by using wired network. I like to use it because I could always get my connection to the web even if I'm distro-hopping.
Most importantly, Internet web surfing. If you think an old PC with a broadband connection is a complete waste of time, think again. In Linux we have not one or two but a lot of Web browsers to cater your taste. In this case I would like to inform that the webrowsers are specially customise to be very lightweight, compact and fast. You can say goodbye to Firefox because it is still a big browser unsuitable for old-system. I would suggest Midori, Netsurf, Dillo, Seamonkey and Links2 as an alternative browsers.
I also has become very fond of another web browser which is geekier than the above, it is call Elinks. Elinks combine speed and simplicity into a very bad internet connection situation. Elinks-browse the web in text mode. As the name implies you can only see the text appeared on a webpage with a blank background. This is what I use if I have a very slow connection to the internet. Neither internet traffic congestion nor out of 3G coverage can stop me from browsing the internet. :)
Computer Games
Playing computer games is a must for many people. Old PC can also be a gamer PC in a way. Head on to Puppy Linux forum at Murga-Linux.com and get yourself a GamesPup alpha 216 pupplet for free. Download it, burn it and play it on your Pentium 133Mhz 64MB RAM. I've done this to a relic PC from one of my customer. There are also old text base games from UNIX like moonbuggy which has a nostalgic feeling thinking about the past. These games can also be found in Vector Linux repo. I also would like to suggest Absolute Linux for your old PC which is a Slackware base. One of the oldest Linux distro in history and still alive and kicking. Games like worms, arcade style, Doom, puzzles and cards are still playable on your old PC. Happy fragging.

Sound And Multimedia
Playing mp3 on an old PC only if you have stereo jack. Usally sound output to speaker represented by green indicator. A lot of i386 does not come with intergrated sound. Add a soundcard for your PCI slot. It's kinda hard nowadays to find ISA slot soundcard. Problem arise when you want to play movies, if you are using lower than 300Mhz cpu speed. This will not happen if you add Graphic Card. You need lighter multimedia applications such as XMMS, Gxine, Audacious and Mplayer. The programs above are suitable for old PC. To play music you need to mount the drive partition. The easiest way is to use PMount Unmount Driver Mounter. But after a while I like to use the CLI. Command Line Interface. a.k.a. Terminal Emulator
azhar@azhar-desktop:~$
Now type this
$sudo mkdir /winxp
$sudo mount /dev/sda5
So now I've mounted my D:drive into linux directory /winxp
Now open your File Manager and look for /winxp in the system directory.
Find your mp3 and click any song to play it.
Having an old PC in the house without using it is a waste. Why not let your children expose to Linux from small. At least they won't bother your laptop aymore. Hope this helps.

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