Computer Stuff

Some years ago i was an avid user of OpenBSD, but it always ran somewhat slow on my rather old computers compared with Linux (yeah, i know why but that doesn't make it much better). The BSD's generly had my interest and besides OpenBSD, FreeBSD (and it's various spins) there is also another BSD that - at least in rumours - is perfectly able to run on a toaster:

My intended target for this installation is an HP 7800 "Convertible Minitower" system i rescued from an abandoned office at work. It's in itself a fascinating story: In the company where i work we have somewhat of a habit of not throwing old electronics away, so we now have a really interesting share on old computers dating back to the late 90s in storage... or standing in office rooms that have not been in use for years. This particular system is quiet beefy for its era:

The installation was rather uneventful and every bit of hardware on this system was correctly detected. I opted to start the X-Server on startup, added a user for myself and downloaded the pkgsrc sources but also enabled support for binary packages.

After the first reboot i began configuring the system and installing additional packages.

I decided that i will go with a lightweight as possible set of applications, i also stayed on the standard CTWM windowmanager (but did a few little tweaks for a eye friendly optic).
As a base i settled on those applications:

• ROX-Filer
• Dillo Browser
• Claws-Mail
• mpv mediaplayer

So far, after about a couple of weeks i settled completely in. Everything works like i want, the system feels incredible nimble and just... right in a way. I hope i will soon find the time to upload a few hints regarding the configuration, localisation and so on.