Donated computers for Head Start get new life.

By word of mouth I heard the local head start program had about 30 older computers donated to them from another division of the state government. The computer had been wiped clean, so they were just sitting in a room waiting for somebody to do something with them. They had the desire to use them but with no OS, no disks and no accompanying material of any kind those in the program were at a lose of how to put them to use.

I offered to help out and the next thing I know my living room is packed full of old Dell OptiPlex GX1s and a few GX400s. MY plan was simple, load up a Linux distro or two and see what worked best on this older hardware.

Tried out a few different distros Xubuntu and DSL and many others. Finally I settled on Puppy Linux 4.2. And I gotta say it’s one amazing distro for older hardware. Beyond recognizing all the hardware right off the bat using their built in wizards. Along with the tiny footprint of puppy Linux it was a perfect fit for the old GX1s.

Many installs later head start now has room full of secure computers with modern OS’s browsers and software. All of which runs faster and smoother on less resources then they ever did when they were new with windows 98. As for the few P4 GX 400s that were mixed in? Puppy Linux as well, because hey it works and works well.

To head start enjoy the new computers. And to everyone who puts time and effort into Puppy Linux or any FOSS project, thank you! I’ve benefited greatly from your passion, just like millions of others. I may not be able to contribute code but I’ll spread the word wherever I can.