I tend to change hardware a lot — with certain exceptions. My fickleness has tapered a little, but I still like to experiment with new-old machines. For reference, or just to show off, this is the hardware I’m using now. These will change from time to time, and I’ll try to keep updating this page, rather than adding posts.

There’s generally no note of operating systems, because everything is probably running some shade of Ubuntu, Crux or Arch, and that can change from day to day. Oh, and one last thing — I am exceptionally uninventive when it comes to machine names: I christen each one with the serial number off the bottom. Boring, huh? :|


Dell Inspiron 8000
: cc99p01



  • 1Ghz Pentium III (Coppermine)
  • 512Mb Crucial PC133
  • 64Mb Nvidia Geforce 440 Go NV17
  • 60Gb 7200rpm Hitachi HTS721060G9AT00 (internal)
  • 120Gb 5400rpm Hitachi HTS541612J9AT00 (modular)
  • NEC ND-7550A 8x dual layer DVD+-RW
  • MiniPCI Intel PRO/2200BG and antenna
  • 2x USB 1.1 ports, rear
  • 1600×1200 UXGA LCD
  • ESS Technology ES1983S Maestro-3i PCI Audio

Heavily modified from the original specs, this machine has been in my family since it was first purchased in 2000. I added the video card, modular hard drive and faster system drive and also purchased an internal wireless card with antenna for it.

I replaced the screen, which had a strange little white line of pixels across the bottom. I cleaned it inside and out, added an HP optical mouse, and I usually connect to the Internet through a wired connection, but I also have a wireless card I sometimes swap out. It also has a built-in modem, firewire, S-video and a whole rank of other things I’ve just never bothered trying.

With this video card, the machine is fast enough to handle Compiz/Fusion (without too many doo-dads), and play most games at native resolution. This machine will probably keep me busy well into the next decade, if the innards continue to perform.

I’d recommend one of these computers in a heartbeat — particularly the later versions, the 8200s. These are among the most flexible, expandable and versatile computers Dell ever built. Expansion bays and other hardware are compatible all the way back to the Pentium II models (the CP series). If you want a laptop you can adjust to your needs, without sinking $1200 in one, this is a great way to do it.


IBM Thinkpad iSeries 1200
: 1161-41j



  • 550Mhz Celeron (Coppermine)
  • 192Mb PC100
  • 4Mb Silicon Motion, Inc. SM712 LynxEM+
  • Japanese keyboard
  • 20Gb 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive HTS548040M9AT00
  • LG CRN8241B 24x CDROM
  • 2x USB 1.1 ports, one side and one rear
  • 800×600 SVGA LCD
  • Intel 8440MX AC’97 Audio

I got this machine at the outrageous price of roughly $100 at a secondhand store in Japan — and I’m completely in love with it. In contrast to the above machine, this one is almost completely stock. The only change is the hard drive — the original was a 5Gb 4200rpm Travelstar that sounded like a dental drill any time the power was applied. Blech!

The LCD is really the only downside — 800×600 is almost annoying these days. I would love a proper 1024×768 screen, but this machine is such a doll as it is that I’m not at all inclined to change it out. All the buttons, the pointer stick, the mouse button cluster and the keys are in perfect shape — even the key labels in hiragana and katakana are still there. This is a beautiful machine as it is, and doesn’t need me micromanaging it to make it work well.

I’d also recommend one of these machines, although it’s probably not for everyone any more. For day-to-day use, most people will probably find the porthole screen a major inconvenience. And without a proper operating system, a 550Mhz machine (and a Celeron, at that) is going to drag. It’s definitely not too slow, although it would be if it were not properly looked after.


Fujitsu FMV-5100NU/W:
FMV-5100



  • 100Mhz Pentium (classic)
  • 16Mb PC66
  • Chips and Technologies F65548 1Mb video card
  • Intel 430MX chipset
  • Japanese keyboard
  • Samsung MP0402H 40Gb 5400rpm hard drive
  • Asix AX88790 wired PCMCIA card
  • 800×600 LCD
  • Sound (as yet untested ;) )

After about a year of searching around for a pre-Pentium III laptop for experimentation, a co-worker provided me with this dandy little machine. It’s in amazing shape for something that dates back a dozen years. Short of one loose key cap and a column of green pixels, there’s really nothing wrong with it.

The original 810Mb hard drive had a complete installation of Windows 95 on it, and for a little while I set that aside as a precaution against ruining the systems I built. However, I decided later that I didn’t need that escape route, and so I’ve used that, as well as some larger, faster drives, to host Linux systems.

Otherwise it is as much of a learning experience as anything I’ve encountered yet. Sixteen megabytes of memory is almost impossible to work with, and couple that with a 100Mhz processor, and anything you do — except booting up — takes an disproportionately large amount of time. But it’s fun to experiment. ;)

As far as recommending this machine, I don’t think I would. It takes a special person to appreciate a unique and unusual item like this; if you stumble over one in the dark and you’re an experimenter, take it home. If you’re not, leave it alone in the dark where you found it.

79 Responses to “Hardware”


  1. 1 pasquale 2007/12/01 at 3:11 AM

    lol japanese buttons :D (or another similar language?)

  2. 2 Matthew 2007/12/01 at 3:45 AM

    My machines live in the LoTR universe… they are named for characters… my main machine is frodo, laptop is gimli, server is strider… etc!

  3. 3 Danny 2007/12/01 at 4:02 AM

    What commands or packages do you use to find all those specs? Or do you go the the OEM website?

  4. 4 K.Mandla 2007/12/01 at 8:19 AM

    Some is OEM info — I still have a lot of the original packaging for the Inspiron, for example. Otherwise it’s just lspci -vvv and dmesg output, coupled with a quick Scroogle search. I know Windows can give the same information, but for some reason I always find it easier to detect the guts of a machine with the Linux CLI. :)

  5. 5 johnraff 2007/12/01 at 2:28 PM

    Can’t see any RAM info.
    I thought that was more important than CPU or anything, really…

  6. 6 K.Mandla 2007/12/01 at 8:07 PM

    ACK! :shock: How could I have overlooked that?! :oops: Thanks for the catch.

    As far as the importance of RAM to system performance, I leave it to you to decide. I’ve done my own tests, and I don’t have much faith in the common conception that more RAM makes a system faster.

  7. 7 johnraff 2007/12/02 at 11:42 AM

    Yes I wonder if most people really need 1 or 2GB…
    Not enough RAM is definitely bad news though, and because it’s generally cheap these days you can see why it’s one of the first things people recommend for a slow machine.
    With 128MB on Xubuntu after a couple of hours of use I get plenty of this:
    “Switch between programs. Is there a lag? Is it stuttering? Can you tell it’s struggling? Is the hard drive access light flickering like a madman?” …yes it is! (my box’s RAM just happens to be an expensive kind, so no upgrade coming :( )

    btw, another hardware profiler you might not have tried is lshw (in the repos). It might offer a different slant from lspci

  8. 8 Matthias 2007/12/04 at 7:10 AM

    Well, i understand your concern about people who think they need 2gb of ram and x ghz cpu, but
    - some of them play games (this is also why they don’t use linux) which consume a lot of memory
    - some (try to) use Windows V**** which needs 1gb ram for booting properly…

    My Scenario:
    I use Ubuntu 7.10 with Gnome on a Compaq Evo N610C (2 ghz P4; 768mb ram)
    - Gnome + Amarok 150mb
    - Firefox with some tabs + 120mb
    - sometimes Eclipse for C++ + 90mb
    - sometimes Virtual Box + 450mb (depends on OS)

    Normal usage means about 350mb of ram consumption which I think is ok for a “full featured” desktop, but in worst case it means a lot more.

    But I remember other times, where I used Slackware with EvilWM and did almost everything on the commandline.

    I think i’ll dig out my old Notebook and try to “keep it simple” again ;-)

    Thanks for your great blog.
    Matthias from Germany

  9. 9 K.Mandla 2007/12/04 at 8:41 AM

    You’re right Matthias. And that was always my capitulation: If you need the memory because your workload calls for it, then it’s important. Too little memory is a hindrance if you’re doing everything you mention.

    But does adding memory arbitrarily make your computer faster? Not in my experience it doesn’t.

  10. 10 anomy 2008/04/04 at 1:37 AM

    try 500Mhz w/32MB ram (4MB used for video)

  11. 11 Greg 2008/10/05 at 3:44 AM

    I recommend uploading pictures to imageshack instead. I was browsing a forum in which i have submitted screenshots 2 years ago. All imageshack links still work. All xs.to links are broken. :)

  12. 12 zmjjmz 2008/12/20 at 8:00 AM

    I have a slightly better specced laptop (40MB RAM, 233MHz PII) but the motherboard doesn’t support hard drives of size >8GB (found out the hard way).
    I’m just surprised that you managed to get a PI to use a 40GB HDD.

  13. 13 K.Mandla 2008/12/20 at 8:21 AM

    That’s too bad. Will it not boot at all with a sizable hard drive in it? Or is it just that partitioning trick that it needs to get started?

  14. 14 kludge 2008/12/31 at 1:25 PM

    typing this on an eight-year-old a21m. ram up’d to 512, hdd up’d to 160 gb. arch linux. this baby screams, even after dropping it three feet while the hard drive was spun up. yeah, thinkpad’s are freaking indestructible. except for the slightly flaky acpi, this is the perfect laptop.

  15. 15 JoshMiller 2009/02/06 at 11:46 PM

    Holy crap, I’m totally ripping off this page with my hardware. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.

    PS, nice collection of fun varied equipment. Reminds me of my mess of almost but not really worthwhile hardware.

  16. 16 mrreality13 2009/04/01 at 8:15 PM

    im not suprised .
    I’ve walked a few puppys my self and 90% of the time it just works,only on towers(no lappys like you) from a older hp with a
    p2 @333mhz/128 up to a ibm net vista with a 2.0 ghz 1 gig /ati 9250.
    And a fair share of amd’s as well,
    taking puppy’s for a walk continue to impress so far one of my favourite breed’s is this one

    Puppy Ferrary 4.1

    http://puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/puppy-ferrary-41

    I have been reading your blog for a long time now and have picked up quite a few useful things here and really think you would like this one.

  17. 17 Tundro Walker 2009/05/09 at 12:43 PM

    Hey K,

    I’d like to know what Linux distro you’re using on your 100mhz. From the screen shot, I see icons and a pop-up, but not sure from there. I’m trying to get an old Omnibook 800CT 166mhz/32mb running Linux. I tried DSL, but it’s not cutting it (distorted X desktop & PCMCIA wireless card not working even though it’s on DSL’s “just works” list.)

    • 18 K.Mandla 2009/05/09 at 9:57 PM

      These days it runs console-based software on Crux, without X. It can’t handle the “standard” framebuffer support that Linux has, so everything is running boxed at 640×480 on an 800×600 screen. But it zooms along with only about 8MB of its 12MB taken up, so I don’t complain.

      Crux was the only thing I could strip down enough to boot, and still be usable. Nothing else would even start, with perhaps the exception of Slitaz. I’d use that over DSL any day of the week. … ;)

  18. 19 h4mx0r 2009/06/01 at 7:47 PM

    I christen each one with the serial number off the bottom. – Genious idea! I must try that, hate thinking of names.

    Also I must add in some situations adding memory does indeed boost the speed of a system. multi core systems usually have a memory bank per processor or in order to utilize certain faster memory transport standards, like I think ddr2 you need least 2 sticks for some sort of system. And then theres those old rdrims I think they’re called and they need blank ram sticks to terminate the empty connectors so minds well just get a regular stick of ram.

    It’s not the “amount” of memory but the “quality” of memory that makes the difference. Got to reach that insane front side bus speed. Same goes for the cpu its not about x ghz here but how many transistors the cpu has to utilize. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore’s_law)

  19. 20 h4mx0r 2009/06/04 at 5:05 PM

    hmm that 100mhz laptop has about the same specs as what someone reported using to run a game called “tremulous”. They recompiled the source stripping most graphics and optimizing it. Actually I think it was 32mb requirement and they had an actual graphics card perhaps :/ Still not bad.

    • 21 Mulenmar 2009/06/09 at 11:23 AM

      Well K.Mandla, you’ve inspired me. 8~) And when it comes to crazy computer projects, that is a VERY bad thing to do. X~D :twisted:

      I got a stripped-down IBM Thinkpad 600E off eBay — no battery, no hard drive (yet) and no CD-ROM drive (very unfortunate, will correct soon) — and an AC adapter to go with it.

      366mHz Pentium 2, 32MB soldered to the motherboard, and a whopping 1024×768 TFT 13″ LCD screen. This thing doesn’t even have an Ethernet port (PCMCIA adapter in the mail.)

      I’m going to try and set up a fully functional Crux system, with the PCMCIA ethernet working (and optionally a USB Belkin Wireless adapter) and everything. Probably not going to bother with a battery, at least for now, even though I need one to update the BIOS.

      And then…onward, to the crazy home network! 8~D

      • 22 K.Mandla 2009/06/10 at 7:29 AM

        Cool! Send up a flare if you run into problems. Worse comes to worst, you can always pull out the hard drive and install in another machine. I, unfortunately, have a lot of experience doing that. … :|

        • 23 mulenmar 2009/06/12 at 1:42 PM

          Thanks, I’ll be sure to ask. Unfortunately, swapping out the hard drive I managed to lay my hands on isn’t an
          option, as my other laptop is a Dell Latitude and uses ATA drives of some kind, whereas the Thinkpad uses
          the IDE interface…in this case, they don’t seem to be equivalent. 8~(

          So, until I can get this thing a CD-ROM drive, I’ll probably just continue playing with my trusty ol’ Dell.

          Or the 75mHz Pentium, 8MB ram Packard Bell a computer repairman gave me free, and I’ve affectionately(?) dubbed
          “The Snail”… :twisted: I’ll be shocked if even DSL will boot on that beast, let alone a decent Debian system.

          *goes back to “working” on crazy projects*

          • 24 lo0m 2009/06/18 at 4:34 PM

            hey, i have Pentium 133mHz/48MB RAM and it runs debian (lenny without X of course) at a decent speed… i see you have only 8MB but i think you could give it a try … i used the minimal netinstall cd

            • 25 K.Mandla 2009/06/19 at 9:36 AM

              I tried that actually, but the installer wouldn’t run on such low memory. I used the floppy installation method but the boot sequence failed. :( I might try it again sometime.

          • 26 mulenmar 2009/06/24 at 11:00 PM

            After a great deal of hair-pulling, and about four or five installations (and, I think by this point, six kernels) I’ve gotten most, if not all, of the computer working. I’m having some major problems with the Xircom adapter…at least, that’s what it says it is in lspci and on the little dongle…thing. The part that goes in the PCMCIA slot says “IBM 10/100 Etherjet”. Confusing.

            I’m trying to recompile the kernel (again) with module support, and yenta-socket and xircom enabled as modules, based off of your “NFS file transfers from the Crux live CD” entry. Will let you know if that works…not having much luck so far on that stupid adapter.

            • 27 mulenmar 2009/06/25 at 12:03 PM

              Well, that didn’t work, even though the Xircom adapter worked in the installation enviroment. ??? But Arch is running like a dream…now that I got the issue with a horrible near-ultrasonic squeal when the wireless adapter was plugged in. Disabling ACPI took care of that, btw, if you’ve (K.Mandla) have ever had that problem on your Thinkpad. Anyway, this computer has been quite an experience, and I won’t fill up your comments with it when I can go creat yet another linux blog. Oh wait, that name’s taken. :P May the source be with you!

  20. 28 kainah 2009/06/14 at 3:03 AM

    Well, I have such problem with my mother’s notebook (broken screen too, but it just stopped working one day. Everything else works fine). I think I will leave it as a home server, connecting to it with SSH or VNC… What do you think of the idea?


  1. 1 And what exactly will sudo rm -rf do? « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2007/12/05 at 8:03 AM
  2. 2 Added Software page « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2007/12/12 at 8:51 AM
  3. 3 Whee! Crux at 1Ghz « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/01/15 at 11:13 PM
  4. 4 So long, you crazy kid « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/01/25 at 1:09 PM
  5. 5 Unraveling SCIM and UIM « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/02/19 at 3:29 PM
  6. 6 The lion in winter « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/12 at 8:55 AM
  7. 7 Clock skew errors; file modification in the future « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/13 at 10:49 PM
  8. 8 Maybe it just takes three minutes « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/15 at 8:17 AM
  9. 9 Adventures with cross-distro NFS « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/17 at 8:51 AM
  10. 10 Short jump to Hardy « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/18 at 9:36 AM
  11. 11 An interesting setup « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/18 at 4:12 PM
  12. 12 I like Brasero « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/24 at 10:20 PM
  13. 13 Part of the allure « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/27 at 7:39 AM
  14. 14 Wireless headaches « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/28 at 2:43 PM
  15. 15 Still a favorite « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/03/31 at 4:43 PM
  16. 16 SliTaz 1.0 on 450Mhz K6-2, 256Mb « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/02 at 9:10 AM
  17. 17 Hardy continues to perform, even at 450Mhz « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/03 at 10:52 AM
  18. 18 Hardy beta on a diet « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/04 at 8:20 AM
  19. 19 The downside of convenience « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/06 at 9:09 PM
  20. 20 Nothing lasts forever « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/12 at 7:47 AM
  21. 21 SCIM, Kazehakase and WebKit « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/13 at 8:15 AM
  22. 22 The curious looks « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/16 at 8:25 AM
  23. 23 Acidrip to the rescue « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/16 at 8:47 AM
  24. 24 Dapper to Hardy fails me « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/26 at 6:52 AM
  25. 25 Life at 800×600 « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/28 at 11:03 PM
  26. 26 KDEmod, once more and quickly « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/04/29 at 6:36 AM
  27. 27 Rescued « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/04 at 11:26 AM
  28. 28 Because I’m such a nice person « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/05 at 5:59 PM
  29. 29 Six in one, a half dozen in the other « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/08 at 10:54 AM
  30. 30 Wireless failures in Arch « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/09 at 9:13 PM
  31. 31 Debian on 550Mhz Celeron, 192Mb « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/09 at 9:35 PM
  32. 32 An XO-1 is really just a great big USB 2.0 port « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/09 at 10:24 PM
  33. 33 Ubuntu 8.04 on VAIO PCG-GRT100 « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/16 at 9:48 AM
  34. 34 よくできました! « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/18 at 2:37 PM
  35. 35 Angry enough to spit « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/18 at 7:32 PM
  36. 36 KDEmod and KDE « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/05/20 at 10:45 PM
  37. 37 CFLAGS shave 1.5 seconds off boot « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/06/06 at 9:53 AM
  38. 38 Howto: 16-second boot on 550Mhz Celeron with Crux « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/06/08 at 11:05 PM
  39. 39 Two out of three ain’t bad « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/06/27 at 10:05 AM
  40. 40 Stuck keys « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/07/07 at 11:20 PM
  41. 41 Finally, Grub to Gnome in under a minute « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/07/29 at 5:05 PM
  42. 42 Role reversal « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/08/08 at 7:35 AM
  43. 43 I grow old, I grow old « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/08/23 at 8:33 AM
  44. 44 Omigosh, suspend and restore works « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/09/20 at 8:43 AM
  45. 45 Updated and upgraded « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/05 at 7:52 AM
  46. 46 A minor network speed boost « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/09 at 10:22 AM
  47. 47 That rollercoaster sensation « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/16 at 8:24 PM
  48. 48 Success! Installing Ubuntu GTK1.2 Remix « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/16 at 9:43 PM
  49. 49 ext3, data_writeback and your fear of lost data « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/19 at 9:13 PM
  50. 50 Into the closet, into the ether « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/22 at 11:30 PM
  51. 51 So I tell myself, just don’t update « Motho ke motho ka botho Trackback on 2008/10/23 at 9:00 PM

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Welcome!

Some recent desktops


July 16, 2009
Openbox 3.4.7.2 on Crux Linux
1Ghz Pentium III 512Mb PC133


July 11, 2009
screen-vs on Crux Linux
550Mhz Celeron 192Mb PC100


Feb. 13, 2009
Awesome 2.3.4 on Crux Linux
100Mhz Pentium 16Mb PC66 120Gb

A recent game


Warzone 2100
IceWM 1.2.37 on Arch Linux
1Ghz Pentium III 512Mb PC133

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