New Job for an Old Cube?

On Aug 27, 2007, at 8:42 PM, David Weintraub wrote:

> So, what would be a good use for an old system. What have you guys
> done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to trash? Is EyeTV a
> possibility? Backup Drive? Spooler of some sort? Should I try loading
> Linux on it?

EyeTV: the three models shown as available in the US have Built-in
USB 2.0 port as one of the system requirements, and G4 (or later) as
another (the Home Run specifies 500 meg G4; the other two don't
mention speed). (Hmmm...is the Cube G4 or G3?) I think EyeTV is out.

Backup Drive: 20G is too small. External drive via Ethernet might
manage. Does it have Firewire (I forget)? If so, it's Firewire
400. Slow backups.

Spooler: Should work, if you need a spooler of some sort.

Linux: Should work, if you want Linux. Probably would help with the
spooler. Probably YellowDog, although I think there are alternatives
now.

Spare Mac: It will continue doing whatever it has been doing, or a
convenient subset.

Desk or other ornament: The Cube is certainly ornamental. Seems too
bad to reduce it to that. But that wouldn't preclude the "spare Mac"
possibility, or, perhaps, a small (20G) slow (firewire 400) external
drive if booted into target disk mode. Until someone picks up the
"ornament" to admire it.

Clearly, I don't have any *good* ideas. (I nearly bought a Cube in
the fall of 2000 to put beta Mac OS X onto--I decided against it.
The Dual 533 I bought in February 2001 to be ready for Mac OS X 1.0
(also essentially beta) is still my primary machine, although I have
two newer ones.)

   --John

David Weintraub wrote:
> I finally replaced my MacCube. Now, comes the question: What to do
> with the old Cube? It is still a pretty good system. I'd call it
> slow, but my other son has a brand new Windows Vista, and speed wise,
> the Cube is pretty compatible with that. It has a massive 20 Gigabyte
> hard drive, 512Mb of memory, and a 400Mhz processor. The Airport card
> doesn't work (I had to use the Ethernet port).
>
> So, what would be a good use for an old system. What have you guys
> done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to trash? Is EyeTV a
> possibility? Backup Drive? Spooler of some sort? Should I try loading
> Linux on it?

If you want to try out Linux, that's a good way to do it, if you can
find a distribution that still supports PPC. Many have "live" CD's,
that you can boot into a working Linux installation to try out without
having to actually install Linux. Historically, Linux has done better
on older machines than their native OS, but whether that's true when
using current Gnome or KDE I don't know. I tried Ubuntu Live on my
Powerbook a while back, but it couldn't handle the wireless card, so I
couldn't try much. (But it looks like Ubuntu no longer supports PPC.)

I ran Linux on PPC from about 1997, when it was the only way to get a
buzzword compliant operating system for a Mac (and more importantly, it
came with compilers and development tools so I could actually run code
on my Macs). The Linux drive in my wife's beige G3 died a year ago, and
I haven't run Linux on a home machine since. At that point, all of the
rest of our machines were running Mac OS X, so I felt no need for Linux.

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

On 8/27/07, David Weintraub <davidweintraub.name> wrote:
> I finally replaced my MacCube. Now, comes the question: What to do
> with the old Cube?
>
> So, what would be a good use for an old system. What have you guys
> done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to trash? Is EyeTV a
> possibility? Backup Drive? Spooler of some sort? Should I try loading
> Linux on it?

You can use it for darn near anything! I use my Cube as a file server,
backup server, guest machine, and all-purpose utility computer!

It works fantastically well for all these jobs, as it's low power and
quiet, so I don't mind keeping it on 24/7. (It also has an external HD
-- the Cube can't access more than 120 GB on a single drive due to
some limitation of its hardware -- which sleeps and quiets down when
not in use.)

It runs headless (I access it via VNC) with an old VGA -> old Apple
monitor interface adapter that fools it into thinking there's a
monitor -- otherwise it won't display video, even over VNC.

Backups are handled via ChronoSync for my Macs and SyncBack on my
wife's PC. Then I use Interarchy to sync the most important items to a
remote server for off-site backups. Having the server on all the time
means that this slow remote sync (which can take a day or two if
there's a lot of changes on one machine or another) isn't a problem,
as the server just sits there working away until it's done.

As a file server, I keep files on there that me and my wife share (a
full library of all our MP3s, financial records, etc.). I offload old
files from my laptop to the file server that I don't always need
access to so as to keep my MacBook's limited drive space as free as
possible for iMovie and other projects that need a lot of space.

It would work quite well for print serving, too. If/when I get a color
printer, I'll probably put it into use as such, but for now I have a
networkable laser printer so that isn't really necessary.

It also handles weird tasks for me like keeping my DynDNS up to date
and anything else that requires a regular connection to a foreign
server. At one time I ran web sharing on it (with some customization
to the Apache configuration) and ran my own blog off the Cube complete
with MySQL, PHP and all the trimmings!

Lastly, when I have guests, I plug in a monitor (that lives in a
closet the rest of the time) and they can use it for web browsing and
a little MS Word via a limited access account that doesn't have rights
to access the backup drives or anything.

All of this is handled via MacOS X (it's running Tiger and does fine,
even with a meager 256 MB of ram) and it's built in Windows/Mac file
sharing, etc.

--Nik

>So, what would be a good use for an old system. What have you guys
>done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to trash?

I use my old G4 Cube for two things:

1. It sits behind me at work running Neon Software's CyberGauge (now
owned by SolarWinds <http://neon.com/CGmac.shtml>)to track bandwitdh
usage in (near) real time on our boundary routers. Given that it is
unlikely that you are running a BGP connected network with gigabit
circuits, that may not be too useful for you.

2. It runs MacOS X Server.
This allows me to have a convenient VPN tunnel point that is
completely under my control. This way, when I travel and I'm on
networks that I can't (or shouldn't) trust, I can use the MacOS'
built-in VPN client to tunnel back to my office and channel all my
network usee through a secure, encrypted connection that I "own"
both ends of.

--
Chuck Goolsbee V.P. Technical Operations
_________________________________________________________________
digital.forest Phone: +1-877-720-0483, x2001
where Internet solutions grow Int'l: +1-206-838-1630
** celebrating thirteen years of service 7/12/1994 - 7/12/2007 **
12101 Tukwila International Blvd AIM/iChat: chuckgoolsbee
Suite 410 http://www.forest.net
Seattle, WA 98168 email: cgforest.net

At 2:03 AM -0700 8/29/07, <tidbits-talktidbits.com> wrote:

What have you guys > done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to trash?

My old Dual G4 sits down in the basement and is hooked, through a variety of ducts, to our living room television. It thus serves essentially the same purpose as an Apple TV, though without some of the flashy add ons and software. It's very convenient for digital movie files. We used to have it in the media center underneath the TV, but the internal fans spooling up sounded like a 747 taking off. -- David J Silbey History Alvernia College

1st - go to www.cubeowner.com for all kinds of ideas for your Cube. some are works of art.

2nd - I've upgraded mine to 1Gb of memory, 120Gb hard drive (maxed out), 20" Cinema Display w/ new video card, and I am about to change over to a 1.8Ghz Sonnet Encore processor. The system bus is 100mhz and faster processors are not worth it. Runs OS X 10.3.9 w/ Airport b card.

3rd - why do it? because I can and it has cache'.

4th - other mods are waiting in the curtains.

david.silbey wrote:

> My old Dual G4 sits down in the basement and is hooked, through a
> variety of ducts, to our living room television. It thus serves
> essentially the same purpose as an Apple TV, though without some of
> the flashy add ons and software. It's very convenient for digital
> movie files. We used to have it in the media center underneath the
> TV, but the internal fans spooling up sounded like a 747 taking off.

So what is the connection path (wires and protocol) to get video to the TV? And how do you control it? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

am 30.08.2007 11:00 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:
> What have you guys > done with old, replaced Macs that are too good to
> trash?

Well, I use an "old" PowerMac 6100/60 as my MP3 player hooked up to my
stereo. It now has 8 days of music on its HD... SoundJam MP set to "random"
I have different music after each start up.

The 60 MHz processor speed was quite enough to do the decoding of the MP3
data. However, for managing it via Timbuktu it was a bit slow, so I
installed a 400 MHz processor upgrade (cheap at ebay).

Udo

> My old Dual G4 sits down in the basement and is hooked, through a > variety of ducts, to our living room television. It thus serves > essentially the same purpose as an Apple TV, though without some of > the flashy add ons and software. It's very convenient for digital > movie files. We used to have it in the media center underneath the > TV, but the internal fans spooling up sounded like a 747 taking off.

So what is the connection path (wires and protocol) to get video to the TV? And how do you control it? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

You're going to go make me look at the medusa's hairball of wires sprouting behind our media center, aren't you?

The first thing that helped was that there's a duct in our house right behind the media center that leads down into the basement and immediately below where it comes out in the basement is a convenient spot for the Headless Dualie (as I call it).

I had upgraded the video card in the G4 a few years back, and the new one included an S-Video out port. So a twelve foot (!) S-Video cable runs from that to the S-Video-in port on the back of our TV (where it competes for space with the inputs coming from the ReplayTV [a Panasonic Showstopper, which has been running happily since 2001], and a DVD recorder). The sound is handled by an adaptor which converts the headphone jack on the G4 into dual audio outputs (what do you call those cables? I can never remember), that run up to the computer and into the audio-in ports. Switching inputs on the TV brings up the familiar OS X desktop, and we're good to go.

I have OSXvnc running on it, and used to control it over the network (it also has an Ethernet cable hooked into our router). So starting a program involved logging on via Chicken of the VNC and starting something up. That was a bit of a hassle, so in a stroke of genius (my own, he says modestly, buffing his nails), I ran a USB cord up through the ductwork and put a keyboard and mouse on the shelf underneath the TV. So now we can switch over to the computer, and use the keyboard and mouse to control it from right in front of the television.

The G4 has a DVD burner in it, and a VCR hooked up to it through an analog to digital converter. It also has a 250 GB external drive plugged in. It's turning into quite a convincing media center/backup device. The only major problem is that the dual G4s (450 MHz) don't have the horsepower to display much of the streaming video on the web without substantial delays.

cheers, David -- David J Silbey History Alvernia College

david.silbey wrote:

> The first thing that helped was that there's a duct in our house
> right behind the media center that leads down into the basement and
> immediately below where it comes out in the basement is a convenient
> spot for the Headless Dualie (as I call it).
>
> I had upgraded the video card in the G4 a few years back, and the new
> one included an S-Video out port. So a twelve foot (!) S-Video cable
> runs from that to the S-Video-in port on the back of our TV

Cheating. :)

Separate floors and a 12' cable works. Not fair.

David Ross

I use my old G4 Cube as a pseudo-file server (centralized document storage, not OSX Server), mp3 and streaming audio server, dedicated scanning station for an Epson 1640 doc-feeder scanner, and phone system/answering/fax machine using the most excellent Parliant PhoneValet device and software. I've enabled printer sharing for network-printing to USB-connected printers, and also set up a separate non-administrator account for guest access.

Mine runs our weather website <http://www.pcrguam.com/img/index.html> Headless, quiet, low-power, wireless. On 24/7/365. :)

Paul

We use our old cube a backup server for a mixed Mac/PC network, running Retrospect under Tiger, and backing up to an FTP server offsite...we run it headless and control it via VNC.

It also serves as our Seapine TestTrack and Surround SCM server for software development...without any GUI/graphics to burn CPU cycles on, these older machines show their style with surprisingly good performance!