Linux for written-off PCs
Novell Cool Solutions: Question & Answer
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Q:
I can buy a written-off PC (X86) for a very low price (from the corporate office). But the disk is formatted ? blank (for licensing reason): it's just hardware. Can I install SUSE 9.3 right out of the box on that system?
A:
You definately can. At Computerbank, where we refurbish written off PCs with Linux for the "digital divide"; donating companies like yours either wipe the hard drive or get us to do it for them. In any case, Linux uses a completely different hard disk formatting scheme than Microsoft. It's faster, more robust, usually journalised for fast recovery from power outagages, and rarely, if ever, needs defragging. (I have an old 486 that has been running on Slackware since about '96, which gets used at parties and visits by the rellies and it is only 2% fragged). Which all means that SUSE or any Linux version, will format or reformat the hard drive or your chosen partitions as part of its installation process. Stomfi.
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