+1!
I wouldn't laugh. you said somewhere you're using 64-bit to build... i'm still using 32 bit hw. the codeaurora and cyanogen build systems need patched to use 32 bit, but aosp gingerbread built on 32 bit fresh-out-of-the-box.
I haven't pulled any 64-bit machines off the curb yet. in the last 20 years I've paid maybe 400$ for hardware and 2 of those machines burned out fast. here in the central usa, fools throw away perfectly good (older) computers all the time. I've run linux (and m$winXP too) on a 100MHz pentium 1 with 64MB RAM. it doesn't take much (but I imagine compiling would be pathetically slow on something like that.)
point is, older hardware is cheap or even free if you keep your eyes open.
There is a reason they throw it away... It's not feasible to have repaired.
For me to come to your house and fix something significant, chances are it will run about $100 for labor alone. If you need a hard drive and a re-install of Windows as well, well then you would be looking at anywhere from $200 to $300 depending on the drive and if you have a working copy of Windows. Would you dump $300 into a 4 or 5 year old desktop? Heck no! You go to the local store and buy a new one for $350 that screams compared to your dinosaur (or a used, but newer one than you have).
Instead, they go buy a computer and pay me to come transfer the old info over. In the end, they pay a bit more, but they get a new computer as opposed to throwing money at a dog. I often take the old ones as a form of charity, if it's worth doing so. I rebuild them in my spare time and sell them at cost to people who can't afford a new one. A slow computer is better than no computer, though a P100 will be way too slow for a build box, that first build could take 24 hours or more on something like that.
Anyhow, because of this, I see a lot of spare hardware. At this point if it's not at least a P4 or 64bit AMD, I won't even take them anymore. Same goes for crt monitors. The memory on those old systems is getting expensive and no one wants crt monitors.
After a few other ideas, I installed VirtualBox with 32bit Unbuntu on my file server which is headless (no monitor), I control everything through remote management systems. Once I had it all setup and it was on my normal network as if it was a normal computer, I shared the directory for the build and enabled the SSH server (SSH allows you to run terminal commands remotely). In the end, it's like working straight from my main computer, Putty (SSH program) simulates Terminal and the mapped/shared drive acts like it's on my computer, however the work is being done on the virtual system on my file server.
This isn't without some downsides though, VirtualBox doesn't run as fast a as a normal computer, especially on my file server which was built mostly for storage and low power (25 watts or so depending on load), but it works, doesn't add another computer and costs me nothing extra. Best of all, I can work from my main desktop but not use it's resources.
Edit:
First build took 3 (!) hours, second took 8 minutes, so I think I will be sticking with this. I may add more memory though, see if that speeds it up.
LeslieAnn...I like your build and look very much and in limited testing this is what i have found so far....
Love your large battery indicator but the contrast betwwen the green color and the battey % number make it hard to read....and during charging i don't know by just looking at it how charged the phone is....also...the stock e mail pop 3 program fc's all the time on me....I have deleted it, reinstalled it as app only and then tried with app + data and it always fc's..... everything else I have tried works well from a clean install. I'm not going to do another clean install of the os to see if it repeats the problem, I installed maildroid which is working fine....
{cut}
I have a new earbud headset I can donate and mail to one of you if it would help or if you would like. Thanks again for all your time and effort....Two thumbs up
!!
The color changes depending on charge, green means you have something like 70% or more, then it starts to change to other colors, so really, the percentage isn't as important as long as it's green. I agree, it's not a greet color, but like I said, it changes as it dwindles down.
The email is a known issue, it just needs to be changed with another version a few pages back. I'll probably have a corrected version up soon.
Donations should be sent to Blarfie as he does the heavy lifting on this.