So Nikki’s laptop is dead until we can get it serviced.  This will involve dealing with big box stores and “certified” repair centers, and shipping it across country.  The idea of this does not wow me.  So, in the meantime, she’s using my laptop, and I have thrown together a desktop system or two.

A little while back, I received a Dell and a Compaq desktop from my good friends George and Trase.  The machines were given with the intention that they go to use for something that wasn’t sitting in their garage collecting dust.  Into my SETI@Retirement Home project they went.  As they’re Pentium 4 boxen with a decent amount of RAM, I pulled them out and re-worked them.

The Dell takes a particular kind of RAM which is far too expensive to upgrade, so it ended up with Edubuntu, and is pending a setup in Hunter’s room.  The Compaq took normal RAM for its type of motherboard, and I had a gig lying around, so I upgraded it from 2x256mb to 2x512mb, and added a 256mb Nvidia AGP video card.  Ubuntu seems to like the card just fine, and in between job hunting and chores around the house, I’m updating the kernel so that EVE Online will do something other than freeze and stutter under Wine.

I did miss the feel of my first-generation Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.