Second life for a Compaq Armada m700, part 1
by Volker Weber
Today we stayed at a friend's house much longer than we expected. What a wonderful afternoon and evening. :-)
When you talk about computers and stuff you sometimes end up with something to fix. In this case it turned out that they had a Compaq Armada m700 sitting in the basement as a paper weight, since they were no longer able to even install Windows on it. It gave them a blue screen somewhere in the second installation phase after Windows 2000 started up from the HD. So it reboots into the same installation phase, bluescreens again. Ad infinitum.
To start off: I like Windows 2000 a lot. It does not force you to "activate" it like Windows XP, it still has the clean user interface, it has an NT foundation and it hardly ever crashes on me at all. But still, this was a tough nut to crack.
So, my first reaction is: Install Linux. See if that works. I took the machine back home, put the first Fedora Core CD in and let that run a default install. Worked like a charme. Within less than half an hour the disk was partitioned, operating system and applications installed. Ready to roll. Works without any difficulties at all. So whatever happens next, I can go back there any time.
Now, I am not force feeding Linux onto anyone who has not asked me for it. I am now trying again to get Windows 2000 going. XP is not an option, as the machine is only licensed for Windows 2000. I am now breaking my rule that I am not going to help another person with Windows. Simple reason: I won't have to support it later. :-)
I will tell you later how everything went.
