[luau] A Mission For Luau

[al plant]

"R. Scott Belford" wrote:
> 
> Several weeks ago I spoke with Jon Fujiwara at the University of Hawaii's College of Business about taking all the computers they trash and doing something with them. The idea came from observing this heap of hardware that sat under a staircase for weeks while everything good was pilfered. Eventually it was all trashed. I am convinced that a lot of that could have been used. Jon tells me that the few charities who accept hardware only want stuff "fast" enough to run windows. This leaves a lot of "trash". Charles described to me another pile of pc's outside of UH's Physics department. I think that if we want to positively influence the community's impression of Linux/*bsd, the conversion of old PC's for the poor and disenfranchised (of which we have much in Hawaii) should become our mission. It would create great press for linux in general, and it would generate networking opportunities for you guys who want it. Perhaps a non-profit company could be created to facilitate th!
 is. I have
> a second phone line that could be used to field interested calls. I am sure that we all have space to store some hardware; I have a large garage I can donate. You each could help hunt down "junk" from our local universities, etc.
> 
> Every day there is good stuff going to waste here. There is a tremendous digital divide on the islands. I would imaging many of Sandi and Dustin's neighbors in the Kahaluu area could benefit. There are churches, senior citizens, etc., that are waiting for your efforts and creativity. We as the local linux community can do something about this that demonstrates our capacity to affect real social change with this open source linux thing.
> 
> I have been waiting for when I had time to delve into this to post it to the group. The post below that I saw on Slashdot is inspiring. Here in the land of Aloha we can do something special. Let's find a way.
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/25/0515220&mode=flat&tid=99
> 
> An Anonymous Coward writes "Out in Oakland, CA a group is taking donated PC's and breathing new life into them with Linux. They turn around and donate the computers to schools, build POVRAY render farms (with MOSIX) and generally promote Linux."
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YES!

I have purchased old 486 boxes to use as routers/firewalls
and loan them to customers who use UNIX and Linux ( along
with M$ in some cases ) in small business LANs and who use
my DSL or dialup services.


If you can get hold of them before they are stripped that's
great and there are a few of us who can help to have an
install session to put Linux or Unix on them for Schools and
others to use. This is a good idea. I newbies have a good
Unix or Linux box who needs M$. 

 Aloha! Al Plant -Webmaster http://hawaiidakine.com
Providing FAST DSL Service for $28.80/mo.  Member Small
Business Hawaii.
Running Caldera Linux 2.4 & FreeBSD 4.4 UNIX 
Support Open Source in Business and Computing. Phone
808-622-0043