[SGVLUG] I can't send email (but now I can).

[David Lawyer]

> 
> On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 07:38:48PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> > much skill would be needed.  And a lot of people who can't afford to
"not much skill" is what I wrote
> > buy newer computers have the needed skills for this if only the
> > documentation and configuration programs were better.

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 10:22:13PM -0700, Dustin Laurence wrote:
> Write it, offer it to Debian.  It's free software, so you're free to
> fill the void you personally care most about.

This happens all the time, but shouldn't.  Someone suggests something
that is needed, but someone else tells the suggester to go ahead and
do it themselves.  It may take 100 times of long to do it than suggest
it, but suggestions are needed too.  If the suggester had time to do
it, he/she would probably note that.

> > high).  So I believe there is a huge, but mostly unrealized, market
> > for installing Linux on old computers to be used as desktops, both in
> > the US and elsewhere.
> 
> Computers several generations newer than a 486 sell for very little on
> ebay, so there is your golden opportunity.

The problem is that as one steps up from 486 to Pentium I to Pentium
II, etc. the electric energy increases.  An old rule of thumb was that
each watt cost $1/yr.  That's assuming it's on all the time.  So an
old free computer that uses say 200 watts will perhaps cost $200 for
electricity over its remaining lifetime My computer history has been
to keep computers for about 10 years and perhaps use them 10% of the
time.  So that's equivalent to one year of full-time use.  In addition
to the actual cost of electricity there is the social cost (which
includes global warming costs).

> I agree to an extent, but documentation won't help that.

It sure would.  I just looked at the obsolete documentation LDP has
about email.  Good documentation for the novice would help a lot, but
it doesn't seem to exist.

			David Lawyer