Compaq Contura Aero

My really old comments on installing Linux on the Compaq Aero have ticked up forty-six hits in the past few days. I think it’s odd because I haven’t touched that page since 1999 except to reformat it in 2000. Normally, the whole collection of install notes gets one or two hits a month. Maybe the web spiders are busy again. It’s possible a bunch of people picked up Contura Aeros from salvage or auctions. It was never a great machine but it was very portable which made it nice for configuring routers or sniffing a hub. Oh, and for the person currently offering one with a reserve and a ‘buy it now’ price of $120, the clue phone is ringing off the hook: That’s a usednten-year-old 486 (throttled with a 16-bit CPU bus) with a passive-matrix screen and barebones features. It’s just this side of being a doorstop, sane people sell them for $20!