Repurposing computer equipment: Difference between revisions
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I have a standard procedure when receiving computers that are to be repurposed e.g. for family or school etc. | I have a standard procedure when receiving computers that are to be repurposed e.g. for family or school etc. | ||
Before assigning the machines to people I perform the following: | Before assigning the machines to people I perform the following: | ||
* grab my trusty live boot linux [[preparing a live-boot thumb drive||live boot]] thumb drive. | |||
* alter the BIOS / EFI settings to temporarily disable Secure Boot<ref group="note">On DELL F2 and Intel NUC holding down F2 during boot takes you to the BIOS. F10 on NUC and F12 on DELL takes you to the boot menu.</ref> | * alter the BIOS / EFI settings to temporarily disable Secure Boot<ref group="note">On DELL F2 and Intel NUC holding down F2 during boot takes you to the BIOS. F10 on NUC and F12 on DELL takes you to the boot menu.</ref> | ||
* live boot Ubuntu Linux <ref>download ubuntu https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop</ref> from a ThumbDrive <ref group="note">I have PXE boot working in my laboratory and will be able to launch live images from there instead of media boot. My collection of images are not quite there yet and in this case PXE network booting would need to be enabled in the laptops.</ref> | * live boot Ubuntu Linux <ref>download ubuntu https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop</ref> from a ThumbDrive <ref group="note">I have PXE boot working in my laboratory and will be able to launch live images from there instead of media boot. My collection of images are not quite there yet and in this case PXE network booting would need to be enabled in the laptops.</ref> | ||
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* live boot of Linux (e.g. lubuntu as it seems to have latest drivers) | * live boot of Linux (e.g. lubuntu as it seems to have latest drivers) | ||
** phoronex test suit | ** phoronex test suit | ||
=preparing a live-boot thumb drive= | |||
A live boot thumb drive can be constructed via: | |||
* downloaded live-boot image e.g. lubuntu <ref>ubuntu https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop</ref> downloaded from https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop | |||
and written with dd | |||
dd if=lubuntu.img bs=512M of=/dev/<thumb-drive-device> status=progress oflags=sync | |||
or with Rufus <ref>Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/</ref> see reference for instructions. | |||
=notes= | =notes= | ||
Revision as of 10:13, 20 August 2025
Repurposing and recycling e-waste is good for the planet, and the pocket.
I have a standard procedure when receiving computers that are to be repurposed e.g. for family or school etc.
Before assigning the machines to people I perform the following:
- grab my trusty live boot linux |live boot thumb drive.
- alter the BIOS / EFI settings to temporarily disable Secure Boot[note 1]
- live boot Ubuntu Linux [1] from a ThumbDrive [note 2]
- install lz4 a block compression algorithm
sudo apt update sudo apt install lz4
- plug in a large external USB drive.[note 3]
- identify the computer disks with
lsblk
- map the drive partitions to text file for later use
sudo sfdisk -L > /media/user/transfer-disk/2025-09-19-hostname-fdisk.txt
- backup the computer disk drive images for NVME disk
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=512 | lz4 > /media/user/transfer-disk/2025-09-19-hostname.lz4
- backup hard disks drives e.g.
dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 | lz4 > /media/user/transfer-disk/2025-09-19-sda.lz4
- alternatively backup partitions such as the boot/efi, os e.g. Cite error: Closing
</ref>missing for<ref>tag downloaded from https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
and written with dd
dd if=lubuntu.img bs=512M of=/dev/<thumb-drive-device> status=progress oflags=sync
or with Rufus [2] see reference for instructions.
notes
- ↑ On DELL F2 and Intel NUC holding down F2 during boot takes you to the BIOS. F10 on NUC and F12 on DELL takes you to the boot menu.
- ↑ I have PXE boot working in my laboratory and will be able to launch live images from there instead of media boot. My collection of images are not quite there yet and in this case PXE network booting would need to be enabled in the laptops.
- ↑ I prefer an ext4 formatted NVME disk caddy I purchased from Ugren and a 2 TB NVME M.2 disk for performance and size.
references
- ↑ download ubuntu https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
- ↑ Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/