What do I do with an old laptop?

[Liam Proven]

On 2/21/06, Carthik Sharma <carthik at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a very old, Compaq Presario 1245 laptop, with a AMD-k6 333Mhz
> processor and 128 MB memory (4 gig HDD). Most importantly, perhaps, it
> does not have a ethernet adapter on it. It does have a PCI card slot,
> though.

If you want to use it as a general-purpose Linux laptop, it sounds
ideal as a host for Ubuntu Lite:

http://www.ubuntulite.org/

I really doubt it has a PCI slot; I think you mean a PC Card (i.e.
PCMCIA) slot, maybe, if you're lucky, a Cardbus slot (the 32-bit
version of PCMCIA, comparable to PCI.)

If it has Cardbus and doesn't have USB, bung a cheapo USB card in
there to easily add a network, wireless LAN, optical mouse, whatever.
USB2 if you can afford it, and USB2+Firewire for the best combination,
offering fast external storage as well.

If it doesn't have Cardbus, just old 16-bit PCMCIA, then an Ethernet
card is your best bet.

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