How many running, usable computers are in your home?
Note that I don’t mean just your own, but also any that belong to others living in your household (kid’s pc, your spouse’s laptop, etc).
I suppose if you directly administer someone else’s pc directly (not as your day job), that might be worth a mention.
If possible, please post a line or two about what sort of hardware you’re running. I think this could be fun and enlightening (how’s that for an ambiguous statement?). 
Currently there are eight (8) computers runnable in our home. A Dell Dimension 3000 is our file/print server, main desktop is a Dell Inspiron 530. Then we have my Dad’s Macbook Pro, three Dell Latitude laptops (one of which is ancient and probably will be put out soon), and the latest addition, an MSI Wind U100 netbook (love this machine by the way, we’ll probably get a couple more (to replace the two most ancient Dell laptops)).
A few PCs we have semi-recently given away to friends include two Dell Latitudes (cheap, low power versions), a nice Dell Inspiron, and another Dell Dimension desktop.
So we’re a very Dell “shop” (I am the oldest of thirteen siblings; I think that qualifies as a shop) here; except for the Wind and the fairly popular non-pc. Though my Dad wants to add an iMac to the collection as well.
The plus side of that, the iMac outa keep my sisters off my machine!
On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:36:01 +0000, zak89 wrote:
> How many running, usable computers are in your home?
>
> Note that I don’t mean just your own, but also any that belong to others
> living in your household (kid’s pc, your spouse’s laptop, etc).
>
> I suppose if you directly administer someone else’s pc directly (not as
> your day job), that might be worth a mention.
>
> If possible, please post a line or two about what sort of hardware
> you’re running. I think this could be fun and enlightening (how’s that
> for an ambiguous statement?).
Probably 10 on any given day; 5 here at my desk alone, my wife’s laptop,
my stepson’s gaming system and his laptop, and a remote desktop in the
office that I use regularly.
There’s a couple in the basement that are in working order (older
systems, 486s and even a 386) that aren’t used any more, and a few that
have bits missing that are used mostly for spare parts these days.
Jim
Should have mentioned that we also have the stack of 486 pc carcasses in our basement. I suppose if I was ingenious enough i could probably get another box running with the various parts.
As if…
Dell optiplex with 2.X P4,2gb ram and 160? HDD, that’s my daughter’s pc. Running Suse 11.0
HP desktop can remember what model, 3.0 P4 1gb ram and 300 HDD, running xp my wife’s, trying to make her change to Suse 
And for myself laptop IBM T42, Suse 11.0
Please be nice to the earth and don’t try to make a cluster out of those 486s. One modern computer has the computing power of perhaps 100 486s, and only takes maybe 2-3 times more energy to run.
I have one workhorse, a dual Athlon-64, a Pentium-1 firewall, and I also work from a thin client. I suppose you could also count the wireless AP running DD-WRT that I sometimes use with my notebook as a computer. There are lots of other machines in storage, but they are not used in any regular fashion. One or two I use for testing OSes while the rest just satisfy my pack rat tendencies; many were rescued from the nature strip. Occasionally I put together a machine for a friend.
On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:36:01 +0000, ken yap wrote:
> Please be nice to the earth and don’t try to make a cluster out of those
> 486s. One modern computer has the computing power of perhaps 100 486s,
> and only takes maybe 2-3 times more energy to run.
Actually, 2 of my 486 systems (come to think, “both” is the correct word)
probably consume more power than my 64-bit HP workhorse - individually.
They’re Compaq Prosignia servers, both with RAID controllers in them.
There’s a reason they’re in the basement - can’t quite bring myself to
get rid of them, but generally don’t have a use for them, either.
Jim
zak89 wrote:
>
> How many running, usable computers are in your home?
>
> Note that I don’t mean just your own, but also any that belong to
> others living in your household (kid’s pc, your spouse’s laptop, etc).
>
Going off this I count 8 computers that run, 1 dead.
> I suppose if you directly administer someone else’s pc directly (not
> as your day job), that might be worth a mention.
>
I have access to directly administer at least 29 other computers if
needed but only really 5 on any type of regular basis. The others are
friends computers/servers.
–
Sounds like you are planning a burglary.
Anyway, I have a white box P4 as my main machine, a Dell 8250 for my wife, an old HP with a Celeron and 256 MB that I use as a lab rat (currently running 11.2 Alpha0 and KDE 4.2), an identical machine hooked up to the tv in case I have to jump on the web while watching a program, and two HP tablets.
So, 6.
4 at home (2 desktops, 2 laptops - all Mac)
Prexy wrote:
>
> Sounds like you are planning a burglary.
>
Mine are mainly from people getting new computers and handing me their
old ones because they have nothing they can or want to do with them. My
friends on the other hand like to get a computer for 1 specific task.
It is a waste if you ask me but they aren’t mine so I just stay out of
it.
I mainly have 1 desktop, 1 mac and 1 thinkpad.
–
One. I don’t need more.
DON’T TELL THAT to my wife. Else she may pull out the spousal veteo on my planned new destkop PC purchase … … instead tell her 6 is NOT enough ! …
OK, we have 6 PCs (with openSUSE) in our immediate family:
I plan to purchase a new Desktop (which will be the 7th PC) , probably with an Intel Core i7 processor … and put it under my desk, and use a 3-way KVM switch with my other two PCs …
OK I’ll try not to lie to her 
So why do you use so much computers. I find my PC enough + 1 or 2 lappys maybe but not more.
Its sort of self evident (if one has my view point ). My wife wants her own desktop PC. So do I. That makes 2 PCs.
We have an old family laptop for travel. That makes 3 PCs. But that laptop is very old, and the wife was monopolizing it 100% of the time at her office, so we decided we needed a new laptop for our vacations and my business travel, which we purchased in December. That makes 4 PCs.
Then my wife’s old PC (from 9 years ago) is still alive. She found it too slow some years ago, and stopped using it 4 years ago when I purchased her a more powerful replacement. I upgraded the hard drive and maxed out its RAM (to 1GByte) to keep it alive, and I use it as a test PC (called a “sandbox” ) where I can play with new OS and stuff, without impacting my main PC. That makes 5 PCs.
The 6th PC is really my mother’s PC, located in Canada (while I live in Europe). But I maintain it for her, and between her support calls, and my keeping the latest Operating system fixes, I access that PC every 2 or 3 weeks across the ocean via vnc, nx or ssh. … and that makes 6 PCs.
Now, aside from the new laptop (purchased last November) the remainder of the PCs are very very old, with the most powerful (my athlon-2800) being purchased over 4 years ago. So I want a new PC with more cpu, ram, better graphics, larger hard drive … etc … And that will be PC#7 (unless we give away one of our older PCs - but no one wants old PCs (except me)).
6 PCs at home, 2 friends, and at work more than its worth going into.
PC1: Pentium 4 2.8 2GB RAM 1TB disks, OpenSuse 11.1 Gnome 2.24
PC2: AMD 3000 something 1GB RAM 40GB disk, OpenSuse 11.1 KDE 4.2
PC3: Pentium 4 1.8 1GB RAM 40GB disk, WinXP Pro
PC4: Dell Inspiron 1300 Pentium 4 2.0 1GB RAM 40GB disk, Windows Vista
PC5: Dell Latitude D630 Dual Core Pentium something, 2GB RAM 60GB disk, WinXP Pro
PC6: Compaq Presario AMD 64bit something, 1GB RAM 40GB disk, WinXP Pro
7:
Firewall with smoothwall
Server with mail and file sharing
2 Workstations
Notebook
2 linux satellite receivers
12 Destop PCs (11 on Opensuse, 1 on Vista)(all PCs Intel Q6600 Quad processors with 1GB DDR2, 250 GB Disks, dvds,19" lcd monitors, Vista Box has 2GB Ram), one Laptop (core-2 duo, 17", vista), 2 PS3’s