[dba-Tech] R.I.P. Guinevere

[Arthur Fuller]

My ancient HP Millennium computer appears finally to have bitten the dust.
She has performed superbly for -- I can't even remember, now, something
like 20 years. Since I bought her, I've done a couple of upgrades (replaced
the motherboard, added a hard disk, and of course the usual OS upgrades.)
Now she powers on and I can hear the fan running, and the hard-disk light
blinking, but nothing else happens.

I'm going to try a couple of things over the weekend. First is to see if I
can boot from an Ubuntu disk, and if that works, then I'm totally prepared
to make her a Linux woman, Since I no longer write code for a living, but
just as a hobby, most of the Linux stuff I do is just simple email and
browsing.

The ethical dilemma I'm facing is that to repair her might cost more than a
refurbished desktop from my favourite store. I just recently purchased a
refurbished Lenovo for my best friend Audra's birthday, and her boyfriend
kicked in 50%, so net, net, net it cost us each about $60.

I'm torn between emotion and economics. It might ultimately be cheaper to
replace Guinevere, but that sounds more like a Trumpism than I'm
comfortable with. Until recently, she has performed admirably. Even despite
her mere 4 GB of RAM and about 500 GB of disk storage, she has performed
very well and I don't want to pull the plug.

The computer I work on every day is called Avalon. And I also have a tablet
called Lancelot. You may be able to guess from whence these names derive.

What should I do about Guinevere? Emotions or economics?

-- 
Arthur