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Posted by : Eric Foster-Johnson

As new versions of Windows force hardware upgrades to run the latest releases, what can you do with your old PCs? Run the Linux operating system on them, that's what.

Linux requires fewer hardware resources than Windows XP, so Linux will work fine on many old systems. Even more recent desktop systems will run great with Linux.

There are more reasons than ever not to recycle your old computer. Older systems make good servers or firewalls, for instance. Or, you can get really creative with your old PC: Armed with a TV-capture card, you can turn a Linux PC into a personal video recorder (PVR), like theTiVo Series2 DVR--only without the TiVo service fees.

TiVo systems, in fact, actually run on the Linux platform; you can even download the TiVo source code at the company's Web site. The TiVo source code won't be as much use as you'd think, since the TiVo applications were designed for the dedicated TiVo hardware. But it's still an interesting page to visit if Linux interests you.

Converting an old PC into a PVR is easy if you have a large enough hard disk and the aforementioned TV-capture card. In general, this isn't the most cost-effective approach, seeing as how most PCs cost more than PVR hardware. But that's only if you buy new. If you have a PC that's sitting around collecting dust, it generally doesn't cost much to add a TV-capture card, such as Hauppauge's WinTV PVR-250 or the Iomega Buz.

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