I have been working hard at it but I still have much to learn about using Linux on old PCs so forgive these naive and rambling questions.
I recently updated e-smith to 4.1.1 with no problems on a Dell P90 using a CD I burned. However I couldn't install e-smith on a Dell P200 with the same CD. Turns out the Dell P200 didn't like the fact that I burned the CD at 2x speed. When I re-burned it at 1x it worked.
During various attempts to figure out what was wrong I discovered I could move the drive I had installed on a Dell P90 to a Dell P200 and was amazed it works! Even more surprising I plugged the drive into a 486 machine and, while it took several minutes to get through 'Configuring kernel parameters', it eventually booted to the e-smith console. I don't understand how Linux can be that flexible.
I am hoping to one day become a partner; my questions for the forum have to do mainly with logistics:
1. Does i386 binary compatible mean that I will be able to move an installed drive among various Intel compatible platforms in the '386' family? Intel, AMD K..? It would be neat to temporararily plug a disk into a prospect's computer to quickly verify his hardware compatibility yet be able to revert to his original setup. Think e-smith plug-fest.
2. Does the kernel 'figure out' what the connections are and adapt when you move a drive to a different machine?
3. Given I can work through the ISA NIC card configuration, is there a useful place in business for a 'Category 0' 486 machine as a limited spare or small office connection and e-mail server?
Alternately being paranoid about breaking things and being naturally resourceful (well...cheap) I feel this great need to scavenge old computer parts and save users time and money by providing them with a (nearly free) backup or demo machine.
4. If i386 binary compatible has a completely different meaning from my simplistic assumption, has anyone found a way to use the hardware compatibility list (or their own experience) to efficiently determine if a disk that e-smith installed on one kind of system can be used on another?
Stated yet more ways:
5. Is there a way to determine e-smith compatibility among combinations of compatible processor families and/or motherboards on install?
6. Can I use the compatibility list to safely install using e-smith on one box and move it to some other box with a different motherboard or must I exhaustively test each combination and if so, what tests would I run?
7. If I am able to move a drive to another machine AND e-smith starts AND runs without errors on startup AND I can back it up AND there are no complaints in messages does it mean I can have confidence it will continue? Or are there other things I need to look at?
Goals:
I am looking for a way to identify how others may have used 'obsolete' equipment as a ready to go backup machine with a standard drive as the only expensive part of the spare machine.
For example, I want to supply a spare computer (scavenged from an obsolete system) that has ISA NIC cards and a slow processor. This could allow users to quickly restore to the backup machine and continue to get mail and connectivity while spare parts were in the snail mail or help was able to arrive on-site. All this at the cost of an additional drive, some scrounged parts, an additional disk and then if a hardware failure occurs on the primary system, walk the user through the changeout and restore process over the phone. Transportation time and expense are a significant overhead that can be managed to the benefit of both installer and user.
I appreciate how fast the e-smith install process works on newer machines. However, from a marketing point of view a Spare Machine could provide yet another way to have peace of mind and good PR for the smallest office installations. The 'obsolete' machine also might be used as a separate network for occasional laptop connectivity to the net and practically eliminate concern about internal security. Again, the goal is peace of mind and a fallback position for the business person.
Sorry I haven't been able to factor these questions better. Are my expectations for Linux too high?
Regards,
Paul Miller
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