DELL 4500s from the forest - chapter 3 : the install-partying

So that old DELL 4500s runs. I also found an recent (using systemd) archlinux live cd so I can enjoy a more modern driver set and OS utils. But it can't boot usb, so I'll have to find another persistant storage device, namely : a hard drive. No problem, I have a dozen hard drive sleeping under my bed. Except half of them are < 4G or SATA, all but one [ex IBM] Hitachi Deskstar 80GB (you know, the model just after the Hitachi DeathStar 60GB failure generators). One empty slot in the partition table, 7GB+ of capacity, perfect. That doesn't solve the boot issue, I don't have a spare partition for grub. I'll try to bootstrap the boot from the live cd. I'm in the mood for some serious bad idea attempts tonight.

DELL 4500s from the forest - chapter 2 : the booting [yes it does do run]

A while back I found a Dell 4500S (2002) in the woods. Today I decided to procrastinate (job search) by not procrastinating (geekery), so I plugged an old PSU (the original PSU looked busted) and push the dreaded button. For the record, I saw this machine 2 days before I finally picked it up, it was probably there for 2 full nights with rainy sessions. Anyway, #1 it boots, it's stable. But it's 2002 and usb boot is not included in mainstream BIOS, so I dug up an old Knoppix. And yay, hello KDE3.
For fun I hand-copied a weird ANSI C program as a benchmark Pi calculation in Emacs 21. Was fun to do except for the fact that my fingers have internalized 12 inches ThinkPad keyboards and I miss half my strokes. The bench was too old to be of any use, 0.130s to run.

#2 Out of curiosity I tried the original PSU. It's a slim design, very neat, with a low noise fan. Quite cool. It's almost silent compared to my crappy ATX one.

I need to test networking and a more recent distro. In the end I'll probably give it away to charity, it's faster than a raspberry pi so they may want it.

Oh, some last minute things: 'they' took the hdd before throwing it. The BIOS seems DELL specific, and includes a log store; last event is from 2002. Weird.

ps: shit, this thing doesn't even have an ethernet chip, and the only extension slot is a slim thing, I doubt I can fit one of my old pci wifi card. Knoppix is too old for usb wifi it seems. I need to burn an old Linux Mint on a cd, 2000 style.