Looking for suggestions: a new no-Internet box

[Cancer]

I want a new box that will I never, ever, not even once, connect to the internet.  Period.

 

Background:

My main machine at home now is 20 years old or so, and there's a fair chance it'll die the next time I boot it up.

 

The machine is literally a castoff: it was bought new by a friend in the late 1990s, then given away by that friend in early-to-mid 2000s; I think it had been a Windows NT machine in that previous life.

 

He was happy not to have to pay a recycling fee to get it off his hands.  Yes, he scrubbed off all the sensitive information that had been on it first, but since he knew something about my habits he didn't break himself trying to get it really clean.  I said I'd never hook it up to the internet, though at the time I had some vague intentions of setting up a stand-alone LAN in my basement.  That never happened.  

 

So, since the day I got it, the machine has never been connected to another computer or any kind of network in any way.  It's all been files moved on or off via floppy, CD, or thumb drive.  It physically never has had wireless hardware on it, though there is an ethernet jack in the back that is probably full of dust and cat hair now.

 

The box sat idle in my basement for a while.  At one point I tried installing some version of linux on it.  This being the mid-2000s, I was installing from a set of CDs.  I beat my head against a wall for a while, as I could not find a graphics driver that it (1) the OS would recognize and (2) would work on the hardware.  Since I explicitly intended to do image manipulations with it, that was a dead stop.

 

I had scavenged a set of Windows 2000 OEM disks that my employer was literally throwing away.  So, I again typed FORMAT C-colon (the actual character sequence C and colon gets turned into an emoji) from a Win98 boot floppy on that old box, and then installed Win2k.  I downloaded a major service pack for that OS, moved it over on a burned CD, performed that upgrade.  Worked fine.  The disks I had scavenged also had Visual Studio and SQL Server on it, which I also installed, and played around with to develop and maintain some skills I never actually used in gainful employment.

 

Over the years I've installed some freeware (python, OpenOffice, a handful of other miscellaneous stuff, including an Adobe Reader version that doesn't need a live connection to function), again via disks (and later, thumb drives); ditto a couple of paid-for things that don't need a live connection either (Campaign Cartographer, the junk on the CD that came with the camera I bought back in 2006, etc.).  A bunch of my teaching files (assignments, exams, and so on) are on it; it's been my home work box for more than a decade.  And I have a couple of literally 1990s vintage games on the machine that I still play, standalone single-player turn-based-strategy things.

 

I find I like it that way.  No antivirus needed.  No subscriber fees.  No officious software vendor pulling strings where I can't see them.  Apple and its iTunes can go have hot unprotected sex with a rusty chainsaw, because NFW will those ever see this machine of mine.  

 

Yes, I do want a Internet-live machine.  I have a home wifi network that the other machines in the house talk to.  I have a tablet that does that.  But I also want a machine where it will literally live in my basement forever, never see the light of day, eat the dogfood I give it and absolutely nothing else, and so on.  Call it a "purdah machine".  Files will go onto and off it through thumb drives that get carefully selected stuff put onto those via other secured machines.  And if something gets on it through corrupted files on my thumb drive, well, I've typed FORMAT C-colon  before and I'm willing to do it again.

 

Now with the hardware well past the end of its intended life, I need a new machine.  While I still have those old OEM disks, I expect a new set of hardware will at the very least require drivers that aren't on those 20-year-old disks, and likely will have other features entirely unsupported by Windows 2000.

 

AFAICT anything from Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and just about every other major software firm operating now -- including more or less all games these days -- have to have an always-on live network connection, and refuse to run without that.

 

I think this is likely to mean I want Linux machine on which I install and configure the OS myself, again from non-live media.  Though if I can purchase a ready-built desktop box that can live forevermore with no 'net connection, that would suit just fine too.

 

Casual web searches haven't found me what I want, and I suspect that is intentional; after all, it seems very likely that present commercial outfits would prefer it if I maintained a live human child in my basement in those conditions than any machine.  They think it's their divine right to stick their ... whatever ... in every box whenever they want and hold my machine for ransom if I don't stick money in their cakeholes.

 

So I ask here: Advice on where to look, what to get?  Or are my options now to go look for a fifteen-year-old machine and install from my old OEM disks on that?
 

[Pattern Ghost]

If you don't want to be nagged constantly, you definitely want a Linux distro. If you're buying used, you can probably get a refurb machine that used to be on corporate lease for a good price off an auction site or even Newegg or Amazon. Brand doesn't particularly matter on desktops as long as you avoid Acer and its sub-brands (Gateway, eMachines if it's still alive). Just make sure the model you get is Linux compatible (and if it's a basic PC, it should be, barring something weird). Personally, I'm liking Mint for the UI and usability.

 

Or, you could build a budget machine from parts. If you haven't done it before, there are a bazillion YouTube how-to videos available. It's pretty simple.

 

But to be honest, even with Linux, the software you install on the machine may still insist on being connected to the internet during setup. Most companies these days assume an internet connection.

[clnicholsusa]

I've got four working PC's, sitting idle, loaded with Debian, all hardware functioning. I picked them up by visiting a nearby industrial park on a day when the county was offering 'free electronics recycling'. If you wait till a line forms, and then walk down the line with a cardboard sign that reads "SERVICEABLE COMPUTERS WANTED", you're likely to find some business disposing of last year's models.

I brought home six, had to gut two for spare parts, but the result was four working PC's.

Hope this helps, and if anyone can figure out a way to take any of these PC's off my hands (without ANY money involved, because these were literally liberated on the way to the dump) I would be happy to have them gone (the ones I use are a little newer).
 

[Enforcer84]

yeah get a linux box

[lemming]

While having an internet connection will make life easier to install, you could do  a linux install via USB.

 

And while I'm sure you can do it all yourself, I'm currently in the Seattle area.