[plug] PLUG library/burner/demo machine - passing around the begging bowl

[Cameron Patrick]

Hi all,

At the last committee meeting, we discussed the idea of PLUG obtaining
a small machine with a big hard drive and burner as a supplement to
the PLUG library (a resource which is poorly advertised, uncatalogued
and under-utilised - we're working to fix this too).  The idea is to
have copies of the latest versions of popular distros available, so
that people can burn their own discs at meetings or installfests, or
install/upgrade/slurp directly from it over the network.  It will also
be able to serve as a general-purpose portable "demo machine" for
showing off Linux to people.

The plan is to have PLUG pay half and PLUG members chip in the other
half.  To this end, I'd like to call for donations.  We're hoping to
raise around $400-$500 here - not much if a bunch of people give a
small amount each.  The approximate cost of such a machine would be
$600-700.  It'd come to around $900 if we buy a small LCD monitor for
it too (which would be nice to have - lugging around a monitor isn't
much fun).  The more people donate, the better the machine we can get.

People who would like to chip in should either reply to this message
or contact the committee at <committee at plug.org.au>.  Payments don't
have to be organised just yet.  You don't have to be a PLUG member to
donate, but membership is dirt cheap at $10 so if you're not a member
we'd encourage you to join at the same time :-)

To give an idea of the kind of machine we'd ideally like to have:

  Case - micro ATX desktop                         $110
  RAM - 512mb                                      $ 65
  CPU - Sempron 2400                               $ 95
  Motherboard - A7V400 MX                          $ 80
  Hard drive - 250GB IDE                           $160
  DVD burner                                       $ 75
  Gigabit ethernet                                 $ 25
  Monitor - 15" LCD                                $280
  Keyboard and mouse                               $ 60
 Total:                                            $950

Note that these prices were obtained from the web sites of retail
shops around Perth - they are certainly not the absolute cheapest but
should be a decent approximation.  Our treasurer Mark Gaynor assures
me he can get somewhat better prices from wholesalers.  Suggestions
for changes to the above specs are welcome (preferably off-list unless
your comments are significantly relevant to Linux).

Regards,

Cameron.