
An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation - capgre
http://symplepc.com/blogs/news/16853255-symple-introduces-the-89-planet-friendly-ubuntu-linux-web-workstation
======
egd
They're cheap enough that my first thought was to pick up a couple and figure
out what I'd do with them later, but the disadvantage here is that they're
older boxes, which means they're going to be energy hogs (for the performance
point, at least).

That's what makes the eco pitch interesting - they're reducing e-waste, which
is good, but energy efficiency on newer boxes (especially if you just need
minimal performance) is worlds better than what these are offering. On the one
hand, the recycling is great, but on the other hand, it's like putting a 1953
Chevy back on the road - sure, we didn't have to manufacture another one, but
it still might not be the best thing for the environment.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This has been one of the most amazingly non-intuitive things for me over the
years. That operating a computer that is older can be so much more inefficient
than operating one that is newer, that it isn't worth it. Literally the best
thing you can do is crush the chips and mine the result for gold, silver, and
the few rare earths that are left over. That at least puts a finite limit on
the energy consumed over it, and the value returned from it.

~~~
DanBC
Not sending it to places like the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana
is a benefit. I'm not sure how to weight each thing - the increased CO2
emmissions are bad; not poisoning poor people who do things like burn the PVC
insulation off cables to get the copper is a good thing.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Certainly agree with that sentiment! We are getting to the point where it
makes sense to have 'disassembly' robots, this paper
([http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108001056))
looked at that (it wasn't the focus per se but an example). I can clearly see
that 'anti-factories' where raw materials are recovered and unrecoverable
materials made inert will be a thing.

~~~
e12e
Still, the market isn't going to solve this on it's own. Other peoples
children are going to be cheaper than robots for the foreseeable future. In
fact, poisoning the local population could be considered a minor issue
compared to contaminating the water tables. Sick people die, but a
contaminated water table keeps killing people for generations.

I think strong local regulations, as well as an emphasis of recycling locally
is the best short-term solution. It does expose the actual cost of recycling
(safely) -- but also cuts energy to shipping, and can be used as a stimuli for
a more re-cycle friendly value chain (eg: make sellers of electronics take the
bill for recycling, and demand local, safe recycling) -- which in turn puts
pressure on suppliers to deliver items that are cheaper to recycle safely.

~~~
ChuckMcM
We may have sufficient regulations that the market can push it over the top.
After all if you can create a facility that converts ewaste into resalable raw
materials you can both sell the service to municipalities who are required by
law to dispose of their ewaste safely, and the raw materials to manufacturers
as a recycled product. That combination might get you into an internal rate of
return to make it worth while.

~~~
e12e
The real challenge is the globalization (and accompanying fragmentation of
regulation) of electronics production. One might recycle heavy metals locally,
but you'd have to get it back into the production pipe-line -- which generally
means shipping it to China. And being able to compete on price with heavy
metals from various more-or less horribly run mines around the world. One
obvious alternative is to produce electronic components locally (again). But
realistically, doing that cheaply enough (and well enough) is going to be a
challenge.

In this sense I think Tesla is a very interesting company (even if I don't
think much of the cars themselves, from an eco-perspective -- cars is a
horrible means of transportation, even electric ones).

------
Animats
There's an outfit in Oakland which does this.[1] They're a computer recycling
center which assembles working systems from the recycled ones. They currently
offer minimum specs of at least 2GB of RAM, 80GB HDD, DVD-ROM and 17” monitor.
They install Linux XUBUNTU 14.0.1. The machines are free to schools, non-
profits, and low-income people.

There was a similar organization in Berkeley which installed Windows. They had
a deal with Microsoft which allowed them to do this. But I think that ended
with Windows XP.

[1] [http://www.ewastecollective.org](http://www.ewastecollective.org)

~~~
jstanek
There's an organization in Minneapolis which does a similar thing. It's called
Free Geek Twin Cities, and they recycle old PCs and put Ubuntu on them. It's
about $40 for a computer, or one can earn one by volunteering for 24 hours. I
used to volunteer there when I was less busy.

~~~
johnpowell
When I first moved to Portland I volunteered at Free Geek. But it was mostly
because I didn't know anyone and it seemed like a good way to make like-minded
people.

It worked.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
You tried making people and it worked? Did you use the standard trick for
making people, or is this more revolutionary?

------
listic
I wonder how anyone makes use of Ubuntu for even just 'web work' with just 2GB
RAM. The browsers are becoming ever more bloated; I know I had swap issues on
my non-SSD laptop before I upgraded from 4 to 8. Right now it uses 3.3 with 9
Chrome tabs open, an IM client, gedit and terminal.

It's unfortunate, of course, because 4GB of older DDR1/DDR2 memory would be
much more tough to find/expensive than 2.

~~~
gtk40
I regularly use a netbook with 1GB of RAM (Dell Mini 9). It's on #! (I know, I
might need to look for an alternative), which uses Openbox, but I have no
problems with web surfing as long as I max at about 5 tabs. I also don't use a
lot of web apps. With HTML5 video, videos work well enough. I can even run
Eclipse if nothing else is open without too many problems, although for
development work on it I'm usually using RDP.

Edit: I'll add I use Firefox on it. I find on Windows and Linux that Chrome
takes up quite a bit more RAM than the alternatives. I use IE11 on my Windows
machine with 4GB which I am using now, because Chrome would eat away my memory
with the same usage.

~~~
listic
Well, _they_ don't use #!

~~~
gtk40
I guess that's true, although in theory it would be quite easy to install a
lighter WM and/or DE. I don't know why they picked Ubuntu default and Unity.

------
jkot
I am concerned with energy consumption of this device. Pentium 4 class
computer consumes 40 watts while idle. ARM cpu would work just as fine
(Ubuntu).

I think this devices should not be called green, unless they disclose power
efficiency rating.

~~~
narrator
40 watts while idle = 28.8 kwh a month so 13.5 cents per kwh = $3.88 / month
to run. Rasberry Pi B+ uses 1.21 watts while idle so about 11 cents /month. So
a Rasberry Pi will pay for itself in about 10 months.

~~~
mark-r
Given that the Raspberry Pi costs half as much to start, even adding a case,
you're ahead on day 1.

~~~
narrator
Throw in a used 19" LCD that uses 32w (<$30 on ebay) and you're still ahead.

------
udev
Amazing price point.

Are the computer parts refurbished? Otherwise I wonder where do you get 2GB
RAM, 80GB HDD, and other older components at good prices these days?

Usually, parts get cheaper as the become replaced by newer versions, but then
become expensive again.

~~~
proveanegative
>Amazing price point.

Is it really? It seems in line with eBay/Craigslist prices for similar
hardware, expect for the "remanufactured" part.

~~~
zerohm
Try getting all those old parts to a facility, test them, assemble a
consistent product, and get it out the door. Their efficiency in doing that is
their value proposition.

~~~
proveanegative
Just to be clear, I didn't mean the price point of the parts if you bought
them separately and assembled them yourself. (My bet is they'd cost you more
that way, if only because of the shipping/gas expenses.) What I meant was the
price you'd pay when buying a P4-era PC whole when it is sold as working by
the previous owner or a small reseller.

I agree with you on the testing; if it's rigorous enough that will likely the
biggest sale point.

~~~
keithpeter
I take the point, but suppose you were a school after 30 boxes to run in a
computer drop in room in the café?

One quote from the company and a definite (back to base) guarantee would be
more acceptable to accountant than lots of small transactions on ebay/local
suppliers.

------
q2
Focus on environment friendliness is laudable and required. But it seems this
is similar to other vendors such as Dell for example.

recycling: [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-
rec...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-
recycling?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1)

Packaging: [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-
pac...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-packaging-
and-shipping?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1)

>>> Symple PC runs the open source Ubuntu Linux operating system and doesn't
require you to give your data to a company you may or may not trust.

How is this possible? It has ethernet connection and so it is possible to
connect to internet and thus same as any other interconnected device. How this
machine will be more trustworthy than other PC's/phones?

>>> cost of $89

Following dell[1] at 500 GB hard disk is at $229. It can work safely for at
least 2 years and if we go by advanced replacement warranty of in this case,
symple comes to around $170. So price-wise it is not much different but
configuration of 80 GB HDD is just too small.

[1] [http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-3646-small-
desktop/pd?oc=f...](http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-3646-small-
desktop/pd?oc=fddont7101h&model_id=inspiron-3646-small-desktop)

~~~
zevyoura
I believe the part about not sharing data is in comparison to Chrome OS.

------
patcheudor
"Data control by large corporations and government agencies is a tangible
concern. Our Symple PC represents another, environmentally intelligent and
privacy-aware path. It is one of the most planet-friendly PCs in the world.
The case is made from recycled ABS plastic, the parts are recycled..."

Hold on, hold on. They are directly marketing this solution to call centers,
non-profits, etc., claiming it's "privacy-conscious" yet it utilizes recycled
components which by their nature are from unknown sources. There is no chain
of custody for recycled components. As such, do they have a lab which is
verifying the firmware of any of those recycled components haven't been
tampered with in a way which will result in a breach of privacy? If they do,
that's cool but I'd think it would add significantly to the cost. This has
been a major challenge in the re-use space for years as it's possible to
tamper with firmware on motherboards, hard-drives, and network cards in a way
which breaches privacy, independent of the operating system. I get the whole
reuse thing, it's cool, but I'd be very cautious about making binding claims
as to either the privacy or security of devices using recycled components
which can be re-flashed.

~~~
Shank
No offense, but tampering with firmware on motherboards, hard drives, and
network cards to breach privacy sounds more like NSA/EquationGroup/TAO, not
parts recycling centers. Unless you're implying that we should be checking
every component for NSA tampering, I'd need some solid statistics to back up
the idea that firmware backdoors are suddenly commonplace from
refurbished/recycled computer parts.

~~~
patcheudor
NSA/EquationGroup is just in the news right now. There have been growing
concerns about UEFI for years as well as a lack of reporting. Note this from
Dick Wilkins UEFI report:

"Examples come from Intel, Microsoft, Mitre, NIST, Linux distros and others.
Some are public and some are available only under NDA via direct
communications with the involved companies."

Is it likely to be seen in the wild often? Likely not, but that's not the
point. If it's seen more than once, then you have a problem if you build an
entire business selling "trusted platforms" based on recycled equipment. At
that point, expect your claims to be busted. What happens the first time
someone actually finds a confirmed trojan in a firmware component of a product
they sell? It doesn't matter if it is legitimate or a plant, it will
reverberate through the news cycle like Lenovo-Superfish and the damage will
be done.

This isn't to say this business model is a bust. Just be very cautious about
claiming it supports privacy. There are plenty of educational scenarios where
hardware which has been compromised would be of no issue.

[http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/2014_UEFI_...](http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/2014_UEFI_Plugfest_06_Phoenix.pdf)

~~~
tbob22
Any time I buy a used board I check the board carefully for any kind of
modification or odd looking solder joints and re-flash the bios/uefi with the
latest version.

Of course something could still be modified, but so could a board direct from
amazon or newegg I suppose.

------
sjs382
At what point is it more planet-friendly to manufacture a new energy-efficient
underpowered low-end PC, rather than repurpose an old power-hungry low-end PC?

~~~
TheCowboy
It's a good but difficult question to answer if one wants to break into the
details of it.

The process of manufacturing all of the components likely results
externalities that are represented in the price. There is also the cost of how
the disposed machine is processed.

You can also factor in the user behaviors. My grandmother probably is not
going to leave her desktop powered on for longer than the 1 hour or so per day
that she might use it. People here, myself included, are probably used to
running their machines 24-7.

There's also the perspective that if this machine is going to a 10 year old
kid, that it's a machine s/he can break and it won't be a big deal. This can
be a significant advantage for a low income home.

------
sktrdie
There are android mini pcs with Android OSs, much larger selection of
apps/games, for less than half that price. They can easily be found for ~$35
[http://www.laptopmag.com/android-sticks](http://www.laptopmag.com/android-
sticks)

~~~
bpicolo
Saying Ubuntu has fewer "apps and games" than Android is both meaningless and
false.

~~~
jkot
Some of those sticks run Ubuntu as well.

------
kogepathic
From the photo it looks like they're using BTX motherboards (unless as the
fine print states, the final version is different).

Also I hope that they're aware of which Intel chipsets contain PowerVR
graphics and steer clear of selling any systems with those.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_process...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units#PowerVR_based)

~~~
dangerlibrary
For those of us who don't know: why would they need to steer clear of PowerVR
graphics chips?

~~~
JosephRedfern

        from disclaimers import IANAL
    

I'm not sure, but it could be something to do with:
[http://libv.livejournal.com/26972.html](http://libv.livejournal.com/26972.html).

Basically, proprietary PowerVR graphics chip driver source was leaked. Anyone
who has read the leaked code is considered "tainted" and is unable to
contribute to the open-soruce, cleanroom implementation alternative PowerVR
drivers.

It generally makes it difficult for ANYONE to develop open-source PowerVR
drivers, as their lawyers could argue that they had seen the leaked source
code and copied it (regardless of whether or not that fact is true).

~~~
fifthesteight
holy hell an active livejournal link. that's amazing. i thought G.R.R.Martin
was the only remaining user.

------
dankohn1
I have started switching our customer service staff to Chromeboxes
(specifically, the Asus model below). However, we've found that 2 GB does not
provide acceptable performance once you open more than half a dozen tabs.
We've been upgrading all machines to 4 GB and have found that performance is
significantly snappier than the low end Windows boxes we were using.

And, of course, we love not having to worry about upgrades, anti-virus,
backups. etc. Even the Symple would require us to manually upgrade the Ubuntu
OS eventually.

[http://www.amazon.com/Asus-CHROMEBOX-M004U-ASUS-
Desktop/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Asus-CHROMEBOX-M004U-ASUS-
Desktop/dp/B00IT1WJZQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1425322129&sr=1-1&keywords=chromebox)

------
happycube
IMO the cutoff needs to be Core 2 Duo tech (even Celeron versions) or any
AMD64 chip.

Pentium 4 Prescotts, which their spec implies could be used, are awful and
inefficient chips. (Heck, I told people not to buy them when they were _new_!)

~~~
polshaw
Agreed, the late P4's check the box when it comes to performance, but they are
right at the worst point possible in terms of power consumption, the next gen
(I would include CoreDuo, or P4 era A64) are vastly more appealing because of
that.

I'm sure there are many of those CPUs involved in some of these PCs; why not
offer a CD+ (or even 'no P4') guarantee for +$10 or so?

~~~
yuhong
Or at least Cedar Mill/Presler, which is an easy drop-in replacement in most
LGA775 motherboards. It is unfortunate that Conroe is not.

------
p1mrx
Hopefully they're not selling the Athlon XP series. While they seem like
perfectly-capable x86 CPUs at first glance, they're no longer compatible with
software that requires SSE2, like Chrome and Flash.

------
sliverstorm
On the subject of power-efficiency... if you do not need high performance, the
power-per-performance improvements in modern chips are not important, and you
are missing out only on power-per-time thanks to huge leaps in idle power.

So, what if you put a classroom full of students on dumb terminals all
connected to one or two of these? In other words, isn't it true that the more
maximally utilized these old boxes are, the less their idle power deficiencies
matter?

------
smhenderson
All the specs say "or faster", "or more", etc. but I can't see a way to change
the specs on purchase. Their common questions does have this question:

"Can I upgrade the hardware in it?"

with the answer being "Absolutely, hack away! We have had folks put solid
state drives in, or take the drives out all together..."

So maybe they just mean it's capable of being upgraded but they don't do it
for you at point of sale.

~~~
Sanddancer
They're a remanufacturer, and probably work with a lot of off-lease computers
and the like. The $89 price point suggests they're taking 7-8 year old dells
and the like, testing them to make sure they work, and putting them in a
snazzy new case. So, some machines may be loaded with new ram, some may have
faster processors, etc. It's a bit of a lottery, but with a nicer warranty
than the 90 days you get with most off-lease stuff.

~~~
smhenderson
Thanks, to you and jonrx both. I did not get that from my quick perusal of
thier site.

------
vittore
Funny we where doing something similar but giving it away for free to school
kids in Trenton.

------
cubano
While I like the direction they are taking, I am still kinda scratching my
head at the use cases.

Seniors who need a basic websurfer with malware proctection?

[edit] I guess third-world users too, but like others have remarked, the power
consumption is pretty brutal.

~~~
robotresearcher
From the first paragraph of their blurb:

"Symple PC gives classroom labs, non-profits and call centers a..."

They are aiming it at cost-sensitive groups that need to buy a bunch of
workstations.

~~~
gtirloni
Those people have all the incentives of scale to want low-power computers
instead.

------
aruggirello
Love the concept. BTW I'm about to start a new linux-friendly hardware shop
here in Italy (more geared towards laptops and desktop workstations - any
suggestions?) - it's refreshing to see Symple did this!

------
erose
Add the fact they they have to be shipped to the long, long, list of the
reasons this is a bad idea. I'm surprised so many people were fooled by the
marketing materials.

------
stcredzero
You can also pick up a Thinkpad T400 laptop on ebay for about that amount.
(Has absolutely crap video hardware, but plenty good for web development and
educational purposes.)

~~~
mediumdave
I have a couple T61s from Ebay that I got for my kids. I've been using one of
them for some development work, and I've been surprised at how well they work
for that purpose --- as in, I could easily use one for my day to day work. Put
an old SSD in one, install Linux, and you have a _very_ nice machine.

~~~
stcredzero
I bought a Thinkpad x220 tablet off ebay as a "poor man's Cintiq" and put an
old SSD in it. The thing is like a developer Swiss Army Knife. I can use the
very nice keyboard for real programming work. I can use the Wacom stylus for
pixel art and graphics. Makes me think that Apple is aiming at dominating the
common-person's "workstation" form factor, while Lenovo is aiming more
squarely at guys like us.

------
batrat
10/100 Ethernet... why not GbE port? i would love to have something like this
in my homelab, but the Ethernet port (for me) is rather limited.

~~~
notatoad
Because they aren't setting the spec sheet, they're selling refurb computers
from it departments, and most of those were originally specced with 10/100

------
blueatlas
I don't see a WiFi option. My first thought was to use this for our stand-up
desks which may or may not be near a wired port.

~~~
eam
Based on the photo, it seems it has plenty of USB's, you can probably just
purchase a WiFi adapter.

------
BorisMelnik
very nice. would love to see an SSD option for slightly more, which would
decrease the size, power & shipping weight and speed up the overall benchmark.

------
jkot
And people pay $80 for this?

ARM device from China will be cheaper, smaller,more power efficient and will
run Ubuntu just as fine.

> 2.8Ghz P4 or better CPU (pentium 4 is very very green)

> 80GB SATA HD (spin it yeah, Ubuntu comfortably fits to 5GB)

> VGA port ???

~~~
pmontra
Plenty of TVs and monitors still have a VGA port, so that's not a surprise.
Furthermore this is basically a PC from 10 years ago and not a top notch one
(I'm looking to HD, CPU and network card - I had a laptop with 10/100/1000).
It's interesting that you can still run a 2014 OS on that hardware. There is
probably some value in using an Intel chip instead of an ARM one even if I bet
that most Linux software runs on ARM too (all my Linux boxes are x86_64).

~~~
melling
People never stop making excuses. VGA is dead.

[http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#videoVGA](http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#videoVGA)

~~~
Karunamon
End of life according to who? That's not how it works, one company doesn't
just declare something EOL and everyone else stops using it out of obligation.

VGA will stop being used when it stops fitting most use cases out there, and
not before. The connector standard is capable of 2048x1536 at 85hz, which,
making an educated guess here, is probably a higher resolution than the
monitor you're using right now. Most monitors and TV's sold nowadays are
1920x1080.

4K will probably be what finally kills it off (3840 x 2160), but I'd give that
another 2-5 years before the hardware reaches enough market penetration for
manufacturers to stop including the plug out of necessity.

~~~
vacri
VGA is terrible. The specs you just rattled off don't account for the innate
fuzziness of the analog signal. I've reduced a lot of eyestrain from various
people by confiscating their VGA cables and telling them they're forbidden
from using 'the cable with the blue ends'.

Yes, VGA still has to be used for devices that only accept VGA (like a lot of
projectors, very few of which can handle those specs), but apart from that, it
should be avoided because the image quality is just that bad.

~~~
Karunamon
Those sound like bad cables to me. I'm typing this on a 1920x1080 display,
connected via VGA, and next to that is an identical monitor connected over
DVI.

The displays are identically sharp and colorful. Nobody would be able to tell
you which is connected over which interface.

------
kolev
If had no fan, I'd buy one for my kids.

~~~
ashark
I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 2, a nicer case than I really needed, a 64GB
sdhc card, and a good power supply for not more than one of these cost. Going
with a smaller SD card and a less-nice case you'd easily save enough to cover
a breakout breadboard for the GPIO and maybe a couple of sensors.

Judging from its performance I suspect the original Pi would have disappointed
me and been nearly useless for anything I might wanted to do with it, but the
Pi2's a nice little device. It's silent and it sips power. The support and
software ecosystem around it is well worth a few extra bucks over similar
devices (the first time it saves you even 30 minutes of hair-pulling
frustration, which likely won't be long after you open the box, you'll be glad
you went with a Pi)

~~~
kolev
That's what I did, too. I want to create a Pi 2 blade server and use it for
local docker PaaS (for builds, running tests, etc.), but can't find a good
case for that. The dog bone one takes too much space and is too generic.

~~~
ashark
You mean the stackable dog bone-shaped ones? They don't look that big to me,
but maybe the pictures don't do them justice.

I'm not sure whether it'd be appropriate for what you want, but this is the
case I bought:

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ME5XUAG/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ME5XUAG/)

I'm happy with it, and I can't really imagine a case being any smaller and
still protecting the Pi while providing access to its various ports (including
the SD card). I'm not really into the see-through case thing, but I couldn't
find an opaque case I liked better for the same amount of money or less.

~~~
kolev
I mean something like this [0], but more efficient as you need an outer
enclosure only. Blade-server like would be idea (where the Pis are vertical)
with some more efficient Ethernet cabling to connect them to a switch.

[0]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYFAAPO/?tag=nikolay-20](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYFAAPO/?tag=nikolay-20)

------
3327
The case is way too big for what it is...

------
nsnick
So is this targeted at the third world?

------
Eleutheria
I bought a mac mini in 2011 and swore to god I would never buy a huge case
ever again for no reason whatsoever.

Sorry guys, make it smaller and I may bite.

