…for the kids, that is. So far, the morning has been pretty good, a small tantrum from the oldest lad, but that was easily dispersed. As far as I understood, the Lady were taking both boys to kindergarten, and had the oldest tagging along to keep the youngest company while she goes to drop off the older lad. Then they’re going to walk to school to drop off the eldest. As far as I understood, the Lady is going to come back home, I’ll take care of the youngest lad for a while, while she then goes down to the storage to find the old PC. I asked her to do that, because…well.. with my luck, I’m sure there’s going to be spiders all over that thing. And I’m not dealing with that.
I’m going to nick the power cable from the Lady’s PC while I work on it, easier than to search for the real one at first. She’s not going to use it anyway, and if I stop to try to find the cable first I’m probably going to end up not even starting. The first thing I’m going to do, is to scour the harddrives for any files I want to save, like old documents, pictures, moviefiles or anything of the likes. Then I’m going to completely wipe it. I’m going to lose the Win10 copy of it though, which sucks a bit, but I wasnt planning on using Windows on it. I’m semi-certain that that old PC is too rusty for something as fancy as that, so I’m going to install some Linux. I want to look around for some fun things, maybe Pop!_OS, Elementary OS, or Linux Mint. My go to usually is Ubuntu, but I want to try something else for a change. I love Ubuntu, but I’ve used that linux for a decade or so now, and I haven’t really looked into any of the others, so I might take that for a swing today.
Speaking of computers, I saw a custom made PC on twitter yesterday. It was gorgeous, specs pretty much greater than mine, included a wireless charging pad for both mice and smartphone, and there were some pretty neat aestetics on it. It had a walnut shell, custom made plates with engravings, a medieval looking metal enclosed torch lit up by red LEDs, as well as an integrated 12 inch statue of a medieval looking knight at the front. To access the insides, there was even a hook-lock on a hinged sidepanel, and to view the insides the other panel was tempered glass! It was SWEET! It was also in a giveaway, and entering gave you a change to win it. I’m unsure what timezone the giveaway ended, but it ended 1s before midnight to my birthday. It would be a REAL sweet birthday present if I won that thing. It’s only me and 25’687 others in that giveaway right now….
If I ever get enough time and money on hand, delving into the whole Custom PC making would be great fun. Imagine building a decked out PC, latest CPU, GPU, lots of RAM, large SSD, adding things like wireless charging pads, and other fun things, and then build it all straight into a computer case that is modelled after something awesome, like a game, toys, or something else entirely odd. I mean, you can build a computer straight into a desk – a legitimate desk. I once saw a computer case that looked like a wooden podium with a bust. The wooden podium held the power supply and motherboard, and the bust itself contained the water cooling and graphics card and SSD’s through extensions. It was just beautiful.
Although, to get started with something like that takes a lot more than I have. I dont have the tools – and they’re expensive – nor the material or skill to do it. I mean, not counting the expensive computer parts themselves, custom making the frame to mount it all, or getting the extension cables are also a lot of money involved. Not to mention the hardware to build the case itself. I think we can easily expect hundreds and hundreds of dollars – not to get started, but each case.
On the other hand… it would be so awesome to be able to make a custom PC for someone like that – someone might want to have an inconspicious PC mounted onto their monitor, someone might want it integrated into their desk, someone might want a piece of art like the one I talked about earlier with the medieval stuff, and someone might want a PC that looks like something else, like a large model car. I once saw a PC case that looked like the skull from Hellraiser! Oh, to have that as a line of work..
Update: It boots!
Granted, I had to go scour my storage for a graphics card since that was missing. I think that we used my old graphics card from my PC for the Lady’s PC, during the time we had to send back a graphics card that was damaged. Her original one broke, so we bought a new one, but that one didnt work, so in order for her PC to have a graphics card at all, we used mine from my PC. When the good one finally arrived, we just never put my old one back in place, but put it in the box the new one arrived in and just forgot about it completely. The newest files in this thing is from 2013. EARLY 2013. It’s THAT old. The fact that it boots at all is a wonder. Oh – it was also a Windows 7 Ultimate, not a Win10. I never updated it during the whole upgrade offer!
It also had an SSD for system drive, which is impressive in its own right, since it’s so old. It also had 2TB HDDs filled with stuff, so now I know where all my music went.. oh iTunes, you fickle little bitch. No joke, for some reason I never got clear on, once in a time I had an iTunes library filled with music, that, after like 2 years of not using it got completely wiped. Apple never told me why. Atleast I found the drives I saved the music to.
So.. now to the fun part. To wipe this thing and install some linux. I think I’m going to start with Ubuntu. It’s easier for me, since it’s more familiar, and I’ve got a bootdrive for it already.
Update:
Well, it’s up and running Ubuntu now. It seems pretty good for its age, most likely due to it running Ubuntu and not Windows. It doesnt overheat so far, despite it being so old and it being so hot in the apartment. So long as I find the actual powercable to it, all I need is to assemble the PC with the projector I have, plug in the wireless keyboard and mouse and we’ve got ourselves a working media center! Just goes to show how great old PC parts and a (very) little bit of know-how is! We’ve got us an actual home cinema – with dedicated parts – for the winter now.
It doesnt even need a LAN cable, since it do have a DVD-player as well, and with the two 2TB HDD’s, I can download stuff to a USB drive and move it over, or even connect something through one of the USB ports, like casting to the PC from a cellphone or such. Ofcourse I could use an ethernet cable to it, just to connect it to the rest of the home network, but I dont need to.