What Linux distro to use for old Intel machine, that fits on CDs?
raylopez99
a year of trying.
Maybe three's the charm?
Here goes again...
I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
have loaded Linux on one of them.
The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
popular video card, forget the brand.
What Linux distro to use for this configuration? I can, using another
PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
CDs to make installation easier.
In case you're wondering why I want to switch to Linux: though the NT
system is functional, it's slow, and rumor has it that Linux is 'virus
free' (or nearly so) and faster. Presumeably since Linux is virus-
free I would not need antivirus (AV) software. Is this true?
Eliminating AV software would free up RAM. Again, this system is not
for a power user. I myself am a power user, would never think of
switching to Linux. But for this lightweight user, perhaps Linux
might work for them.
Any ideas welcome. Be advised that I also needle the posters at
comp.os.linux.advocacy, but this is not a flame. I really have not
been able to get a straight answer on this issue.
Some common mistakes made by respondants: they recommend their
favorite distro without checking the min system requirements; they
recommend something they've never tried (Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, and Damn
Small Linux seem to be a favorites--but I need somebody who is very
familiar with a distro before I install it and find out it won't work
on this archaic system); and they assume that I have fast internet
access on this machine. Also, some spiteful types from
comp.os.linux.advocacy (avoid this group like the plague unless you
simply enjoy flaming for its own sake) recommend distros that, when I
research them, find they won't work on this machine specified above,
so, please cite your choice with a link if possible.
Thanks for your attention.
RL
RonB
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
> The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand.
>
> What Linux distro to use for this configuration? I can, using another
> PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
> CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
> a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
> CDs to make installation easier.
Last time this question was asked I pointed to Vector Linux. I have used
Vector Linux -- not on a machine as old as yours, but one close to it.
Vector Linux Standard defaults to the Xface desktop -- a nicely implemented
version of it -- so it is not weighted down by KDE or Gnome. You can buy a
CD if you want for $25-27.
I don't use Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware software on my Linux computer. I
originally installed AVG but, since it found nothing, I uninstalled it
considering it a waste of time and space.
Vector Linux's website below:
The Standard 5.9 edition requires 128 Meg of RAM and... ah... 2.6 Gigs.
So I guess you would have to go with the Light Edition, which requires 64
Meg of RAM and a 2 Gig hard drive.
(Hell, send me an email and I'll dig up a "huge" 6 Gig hard drive and send
it.)
--
RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"
Benjamin Gawert
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
Maybe then this time you should take the time and at least check what
you really have? "...about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or
maybe it's 225.." and "...It has a late 90s but
popular video card, forget the brand...." is worth nothing. There is no
PentiumII 200MHz, so either it is a Pentium 200 or a PentiumII with
higher clock speed. If it's a Pentium then you won't have much fun
running Linux on it, too (except maybe for use as a router or file
server). Same about memory (exact size and type), the mainboard and also
the gfx card. You also want to check the gfx card because it won't give
you much fun if it's not supported by Linux.
If you expect people to help you the least thing you can do is to
provide accurate details.
Benjamin
Andrew Halliwell
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
Here we go....
over a dozen posts all with valid straight answers...
Warning to non-COLA members...
Lopez is a waste of space. An utter waste of skin.
He's always pulling this trick, asking for help on a simple install and then
utterly ignoring anyone who offers advice and complaining that no-one helped
or no-one would give him a straight answer.
He does it every few months.
--
| spi...@freenet.co.uk | |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't |
| in | suck is probably the day they start making |
| Computer science | vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge |
Andrew Halliwell
> If you expect people to help you the least thing you can do is to
> provide accurate details.
Yeah, like THAT'LL ever happen...
I think he makes the specs up as he goes along, sometimes.
(to be fair to linux though, I doubt there's a video card THAT old that'll
cause problems)
--
| spi...@freenet.co,uk | "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | |
| in | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |
| Computer Science | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |
SomeBloke
Don't waste your time Ron. Like you I also recommended Vector and was
completely ignored. Lopez is a waste of space, a complete idiot who brags
about how much his Microsoft shares are worth. Like we care!
Mark Hobley
> There is no PentiumII 200MHz, so either it is a Pentium 200 or a PentiumII
> with > higher clock speed.
It runs Microsoft Windows 2000, so it must be a Pentium II
> If it's a Pentium then you won't have much fun
> running Linux on it
I use Pentium 120s here, and they work fine. It depends really on what
you use them for, I suppose.
> You also want to check the gfx card because it won't give
> you much fun if it's not supported by Linux.
Yeah, this is important. You will not be able to use "Windows
Acceleration" without a supported card, and you will be limited to using
800x600 SVGA mode. However many popular cards are supported, but you
could really do with finding out what type of card is installed.
If it runs Microsoft Windows 2000, you may be able to look at the system
properties to find this.
I use Debian on my computers, but I have upgraded all of my hard drives
to at least 20Gb in size. (Many modern IDE drives have a capacity
limiter jumper, restricting their capacity to 32Gb, making them useable
in older machines.)
If you want to stick with a small 2Gb drive, I would suggest Puppy
Linux.
Regards,
Mark.
--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.
BubbaT
> Benjamin Gawert <bga...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> There is no PentiumII 200MHz, so either it is a Pentium 200 or a
>> PentiumII with > higher clock speed.
>
> It runs Microsoft Windows 2000, so it must be a Pentium II
>
Do not waste your time speculating. Belarcs advisor runs on any WIndows
platform down to Win98. Simply ask him to save the4 output and post it.
Robert Heller
>
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
>
> Maybe three's the charm?
>
> Here goes again...
>
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
> The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand.
>
> What Linux distro to use for this configuration? I can, using another
> PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
> CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
> a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
> CDs to make installation easier.
Visit www.cheapbytes.com.
You can get CentOS 4.<mumble> on CDs. This should work just fine.
>
> In case you're wondering why I want to switch to Linux: though the NT
> system is functional, it's slow, and rumor has it that Linux is 'virus
> free' (or nearly so) and faster. Presumeably since Linux is virus-
> free I would not need antivirus (AV) software. Is this true?
> Eliminating AV software would free up RAM. Again, this system is not
> for a power user. I myself am a power user, would never think of
> switching to Linux. But for this lightweight user, perhaps Linux
> might work for them.
On that sort of machine, you *won't* want to use a heavyweight
GUI/Desktop -- you don't want either Gnome nor KDE. Go for a
lightweight setup: fvwm for example. This will probably mean you won't
get all of the pointy-clicky goodies you might be used to.
I use a *very* plain X11 setup: just fvwm in MVM mode. One desktop, no
start menu, no desktop icons at all: I use FVWM's 'IconBox' and a home
built 'session manager' / menu launcher program written in Tcl/Tk. I
start most applications from a shell xterm window. This is very
lightweight and works well on older / low-powered (slower, low amount
of RAM) hardware. I refuse to use new, bleeding edge hardware -- I'd
rather just 'rescue' perfectly good boxes from dumpster land than
spend big bucks for 'excess' processor -- I don't *need* a dual 64-bit
processor *desktop* with 4gig of RAM -- about as dumb as using a monster
truck with 5' tall tires to drive 1 mile to buy a quart of milk on a dry
paved road on a warm sunny day.
>
> Any ideas welcome. Be advised that I also needle the posters at
> comp.os.linux.advocacy, but this is not a flame. I really have not
> been able to get a straight answer on this issue.
>
> Some common mistakes made by respondants: they recommend their
> favorite distro without checking the min system requirements; they
> recommend something they've never tried (Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, and Damn
> Small Linux seem to be a favorites--but I need somebody who is very
> familiar with a distro before I install it and find out it won't work
> on this archaic system); and they assume that I have fast internet
> access on this machine. Also, some spiteful types from
> comp.os.linux.advocacy (avoid this group like the plague unless you
> simply enjoy flaming for its own sake) recommend distros that, when I
> research them, find they won't work on this machine specified above,
> so, please cite your choice with a link if possible.
I use CentOS 4.6 on my systems right now. I have an old Toshiba laptop
(166mhz Pentium I, 144meg of RAM) that has WBL 3.0 on it, but I did run
CentOS 4.3 on it at one point (while trying to get wireless cards to
work) -- I don't at this point since the RHEL 2.6 kernel has no default
support for ISA-flavor sound cards. I presently run CentOS 4.6 on a
number of older machines, including:
An old Dell laptop: Insperion 4000: 700mhz PII, 256meg of RAM.
My desktop: a 500mhz PII with 384Meg of RAM.
It was running on my older desktop: a 500mhz K6 with 256meg of RAM
until its MB died -- I transplanted most of the rest of the old system
to the newer box (disks, SCSI disk controller, DVD-ROM, and RAM).
I have it on a 400mhz K6 with 256meg of RAM, but I don't use this
latter box much -- I think its hard drive is dieing.
CentOS (www.centos.org) is a GPL 'clone' of RHEL. CentOS 4 is a fairly
conservative distro. It won't have bleeding edge stuff, but works well
and reliably on most older hardware. While it does include 586
kernels, it does not include ISA support out-of-the-box -- this should
not be a problem for you, since you seem to have a 686 (PII) and
probably don't have any ISA cards, unless your MB's sound is a 'legacy'
sound controller, like the one on my desktop's motherboard -- I don't
care if the sound on my desktop is non-functional -- the sound on my
laptop works and that is fine by me. Oh the win-modem built into the
laptop is also non-functional (again I don't care -- the *external*
RS232 hardware modem on my desktop works, as does the built-in Ethernet
on the laptop).
>
> Thanks for your attention.
>
> RL
>
--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
hel...@deepsoft.com -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk
Robert Heller
>
> * raylopez99:
> > I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> > a year of trying.
>
> Maybe then this time you should take the time and at least check what
> you really have? "...about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or
> maybe it's 225.." and "...It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand...." is worth nothing. There is no
> PentiumII 200MHz, so either it is a Pentium 200 or a PentiumII with
Pentium Pros were available at 200mhz -- not labeled as PIIs, but were
686 processors and thus effectively PIIs in all but name. I'm guessing
that the OP has one of these (and the vintage is about right). I used a
200mhz Pentium Pro box at UMass until I was laid off in Nov of 2005 --
at the time I had the oldest and slowest desktop in the lab were I
worked -- a sort of point of pride -- I kept *refusing* newer boxes,
since I liked that old box -- it worked well and I was confortable with
it.
> higher clock speed. If it's a Pentium then you won't have much fun
> running Linux on it, too (except maybe for use as a router or file
> server). Same about memory (exact size and type), the mainboard and also
> the gfx card. You also want to check the gfx card because it won't give
> you much fun if it's not supported by Linux.
Most *older* graphic cards are supported on some level. Graphics cards
that are supported are cheap -- almost any nVidia PCI or AGP card is
supported.
>
> If you expect people to help you the least thing you can do is to
> provide accurate details.
>
> Benjamin
>
--
ray
I would probably try Elive first - I installed it on a P166 with 64mb RAM
last year and it was 'decent'. Other options would include Damn Small and
Vector.
Douglas Mayne
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
>
> Maybe three's the charm?
>
> Here goes again...
>
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
<snip>
>
I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4100, built circa 2001. I got it from
the local university surplus property for $20. It came outfitted as
follows:
CPU: Pentium 3, 933 MHz
Memory: 512MB
Network: 3Com 10/100
Sound: Ensoniq
Optical: CD-RW (12x)
HD: none
I added a 500G SATA drive and controller, and now it has new life. It
can do all of the jobs you outlined without a hitch. I use it as secondary
workstation all of the time. Here are some screenshots running Dropline
Gnome on Slackware 12.0:
http://www.xmission.com/~ddmayne2/images/ss.2008-06-20.01.png
http://www.xmission.com/~ddmayne2/images/ss.2008-06-20.01.png
My advice is to get a computer with similar specs if you intend to run
Open Office, Mozilla, etc. without running into a lot of frustration. As
an academic exercise, the absolute minimum that I would consider using as
desktop (in 2008) is
CPU: Pentium 3, 500MHz
Memory: 256M
Memory is critical. The more the better.
BTW, I needed to add a disk to the system above because the university
removes all disks before reselling their systems. In your case, you
probably will need to add a disk, also. That is because of the fact that
2G is tight for installing any major GNU/Linux distribution. Maybe, you
should consider throwing a few bucks at a SATA PCI disk controller ($25)
and 500G SATA HD ($100). That could be a good investment because if you
decide to upgrade to a totally new system later on you already have the
disk. On the other hand, a lot of vendors have prebuilt complete systems
for about $300- and they will definitely run circles around these
"junk" systems. You'll have to decide if it is worth it because at some
point, it becomes a case of throwing good money after bad.
--
Douglas Mayne
General Schvantzkopf
I disagree about throwing any money at an antique machine. A new VIA based
machine is $189 so you should always keep that in mind when considering
putting any money into a machine that is less than 1GHz.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
As for the original question, I wouldn't bother doing anything with a
200MHz box except to use it as a backup server or a firewall. A 500MHz
processor is the lowest spec processor that I would consider for desktop
use.
Robert Riches
>
> Pentium Pros were available at 200mhz -- not labeled as PIIs, but were
The Pentium II and Pentium III processors were proliferation
designs based on the Pentium Pro. (I worked on schematic
formal verification as part of the design team of the
P. Pro. and P. IV.)
--
Robert Riches
spamt...@verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
Robert Heller
>
> On 2008-06-28, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > Pentium Pros were available at 200mhz -- not labeled as PIIs, but were
> > 686 processors and thus effectively PIIs in all but name. ...
>
> The Pentium II and Pentium III processors were proliferation
> designs based on the Pentium Pro. (I worked on schematic
> formal verification as part of the design team of the
> P. Pro. and P. IV.)
Right. The Pentium Pros were the precursor to the PII/PIII and use the
same instruction set: i686.
Nigel Feltham
> In comp.os.linux.misc Benjamin Gawert <bga...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> If you expect people to help you the least thing you can do is to
>> provide accurate details.
>
> Yeah, like THAT'LL ever happen...
> I think he makes the specs up as he goes along, sometimes.
> (to be fair to linux though, I doubt there's a video card THAT old that'll
> cause problems)
One example that springs to mind as a tricky card that old is the ISA and
VLBUS range of Cirrus Logic cards, had to try several settings before
getting it working without display corruption last time I tried to use one
of these cards - but then that was about 9 years ago on Mandrake 7.0 so
maybe even these work now.
Quite why he insists on finding a distro for a machine of unknown spec this
old is still a real mystery when newer and faster hardware is being thrown
away (I know of companies near me who are now trashing 2ghz P4's as
obsolete - unfortunately their company policies demand they get sent to
outside recycling companies due to current EU disposal laws).
Lets face it even if someone on here offered him a free PIII machine with
Linux pre-installed he'd still insist that this was not good enough and we
have to supply a source for a distro available retail that supports his
unknown spec machine.
raylopez99
> Maybe then this time you should take the time and at least check what
> you really have? "...about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or
> maybe it's 225.." and "...It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand...." is worth nothing. There is no
> PentiumII 200MHz, so either it is a Pentium 200 or a PentiumII with
> higher clock speed. If it's a Pentium then you won't have much fun
> running Linux on it, too (except maybe for use as a router or file
> server). Same about memory (exact size and type), the mainboard and also
> the gfx card.
So your argument then is for maintaining the status quo--running
Windows 2000. Thanks for your vote.
Anybody else?
RL
raylopez99
Hobley) wrote:
> If you want to stick with a small 2Gb drive, I would suggest Puppy
> Linux.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark.
Thank you Mark for the Puppy Linux vote, though I take it you're
relying on hearsay and have never tried it. What word processor and
what web browser do you recommend for such a weak system?
RL
raylopez99
>
> Do not waste your time speculating. Belarcs advisor runs on any WIndows
> platform down to Win98. Simply ask him to save the4 output and post it.
No shiite head Bubba--the system is not mine, it's loaned to a friend,
far away in fact. Any other "brilliant" ideas, Einstein?
RL
raylopez99
> I used a
> 200mhz Pentium Pro box at UMass until I was laid off in Nov of 2005 --
> at the time I had the oldest and slowest desktop in the lab were I
> worked -- a sort of point of pride -- I kept *refusing* newer boxes,
> since I liked that old box -- it worked well and I was confortable with
> it.
>
Uh, ok. But maybe that's why you were fired? (using old equipment)
Probably not, but the thought comes to mind.
Do you have a vote on a min hardware distro?
It's surprising how un-helpful Linux advocates are. Their main point--
and indeed only point--is not to waste bandwidth answering trolls.
Back in the days when bandwidth was limited and the Internet was
government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
Windows regardless of what OS is actually loaded...that is so, what,
1995?
BTW If you don't believe I am sincere, at least answer the questions
raised for the benefit of people Googling this issue in the future.
RL
raylopez99
> I would probably try Elive first - I installed it on a P166 with 64mb RAM
> last year and it was 'decent'. Other options would include Damn Small and
> Vector.
Thanks for the Elive cite. I just checked their website--and it fits
the bill. However, they insist on money for the "fits on one CD
version".
I don't want to pay for something that might not work.
Also, how stable is this? For surfing the web (mainly checking email)
and printing a letter, how often does Elive (or any other 'minimum
hardware' distro) crash?
RL
PS--notice the bad english: "I have not put a minimum donation"...wow,
how good a programmer is this guy? I hope he's foreign, that would be
excuseable and understandable.
RL
Please give me something to continue my work!
Why request a donation ?
Elive is free and made with pleasure for your pleasure, but free does
not mean "no cost" . I spend all my time developing Elive. It is my
choice. Your choice is whether or not downloading Elive is worth a
donation. I have not put a minimum donation, because I realize that
many of you are students with very limited resources. I thank You for
showing interest in Elive, and hope to see you in #elive on IRC!
You decide the value Elive has for you. What do you obtain ? You
maintain the future of Elive and you also receive faster downloads.
No Money: If you can't possible to donate for Download Elive, we
propose you those solutions:
* The better option is to use our invitation codes system
* You can try Elive from a development version.
raylopez99
about! Thanks Douglas Mayne. My comments inline below.
On Jun 28, 9:29 am, Douglas Mayne <d...@localhost.localnet> wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:24:31 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
> > I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> > a year of trying.
>
> > Maybe three's the charm?
>
> > Here goes again...
>
> > I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> <snip>
>
> I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4100, built circa 2001. I got it from
> the local university surplus property for $20. It came outfitted as
> follows:
>
> CPU: Pentium 3, 933 MHz
> Memory: 512MB
> Network: 3Com 10/100
> Sound: Ensoniq
> Optical: CD-RW (12x)
> HD: none
>
> I added a 500G SATA drive and controller, and now it has new life. It
> can do all of the jobs you outlined without a hitch. I use it as secondary
> workstation all of the time. Here are some screenshots running Dropline
> Gnome on Slackware 12.0:
OK, I believe you.
>
> My advice is to get a computer with similar specs if you intend to run
> Open Office, Mozilla, etc. without running into a lot of frustration. As
> an academic exercise, the absolute minimum that I would consider using as
> desktop (in 2008) is
>
> CPU: Pentium 3, 500MHz
> Memory: 256M
>
> Memory is critical. The more the better.
Got that. I did upgrade memory to at least 256 (I think in fact it's
512) and my CPU is faster than above.
>
> BTW, I needed to add a disk to the system above because the university
> removes all disks before reselling their systems. In your case, you
> probably will need to add a disk, also. That is because of the fact that
> 2G is tight for installing any major GNU/Linux distribution.
YES! This is indeed the bottleneck. You are spot on.
> Maybe, you
> should consider throwing a few bucks at a SATA PCI disk controller ($25)
> and 500G SATA HD ($100). That could be a good investment because if you
> decide to upgrade to a totally new system later on you already have the
> disk. On the other hand, a lot of vendors have prebuilt complete systems
> for about $300- and they will definitely run circles around these
> "junk" systems. You'll have to decide if it is worth it because at some
> point, it becomes a case of throwing good money after bad.
YES! Again, spot on. I did buy on eBay a SATA PCI disk controller,
but, as bad luck would have it, the form factor was such that it would
not fit on my PCI slot. So I will have to rebuy it if I go down that
route again. But, though I have build many a system from scratch, I
rather not reorder a disk controller, wait a week, then disassemble
the case, play with the cards (it's very crowded on this small factor
mobo), etc etc. If--remember this fix is for a clueless noob who
literally checks email on Yahoo and prints a short letter once in a
blue moon--nothing fancy, and not even Java is required on the web
browser--if I can get away with just a software upgrade I would be
very happy, since that's less time wasted for me.
So, I ask again, which distro? Thanks in advance...
RL
raylopez99
wrote:
> As for the original question, I wouldn't bother doing anything with a
> 200MHz box except to use it as a backup server or a firewall. A 500MHz
> processor is the lowest spec processor that I would consider for desktop
> use.
General--I appreciate your answer. It seems you are correct, but for
fun I want to try loading Linux on this machine. Remember the specs,
like a good engineer: the noob does not care about anything but
checking email on Yahoo, printing a letter using OpenOffice--that's
IT! Nothing else. Not even Java on the browser. No games. No email
program like Eudora/Outlook. Nothing.
Windows 2000 'works' (takes forever, but remember AV sw is loaded on
it)--so why can't Linux?
Bonus questions: is Linux stable? How often does it crash? Do
viruses exist (realistically, not 'one time 10 years ago')? Do I need
antivirus software for this simple system?
RL
raylopez99
> The Pentium II and Pentium III processors were proliferation
> designs based on the Pentium Pro. (I worked on schematic
> formal verification as part of the design team of the
> P. Pro. and P. IV.)
Damn, you're good. What are you doing in the Linux camp?
RL
raylopez99
wrote:
>
> Lets face it even if someone on here offered him a free PIII machine with
> Linux pre-installed he'd still insist that this was not good enough and we
> have to supply a source for a distro available retail that supports his
> unknown spec machine.
Let's face it--you're not answering the question because:
(1) you don't know;
(2) you are a conspiracy kook who sees conspiracies behind every
tree;
(3) even if you know, it's more to your evil vindictive spirit to
posit a vindictive motive to the OP.
Welcome to the much vaunted Linux "community". With friends like
these, who needs enemies?
RL
Andrew Halliwell
> BTW If you don't believe I am sincere, at least answer the questions
> raised for the benefit of people Googling this issue in the future.
Can't come up with your own ideas?
Note to readers. That's almost word for word what I put at the bottom of my
first reply to this waster.
"NB: this is not for the benefit of lopez, but for anyone googling in the
future"
If there's anything lopez lacks, it's sincerity.
All he cares about is fud, and he's been chucking a lot of that about in
this thread so far, hasn't he?
--
| spi...@freenet.co.uk | Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
| in |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
| Computer Science | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |
raylopez99
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > BTW If you don't believe I am sincere, at least answer the questions
> > raised for the benefit of people Googling this issue in the future.
>
> Can't come up with your own ideas?
> Note to readers. That's almost word for word what I put at the bottom of my
> first reply to this waster.
> "NB: this is not for the benefit of lopez, but for anyone googling in the
> future"
Android--you're STILL going to hell--stzzzzzz--that's the smell and
sound of human flesh burning. Not too late though...Jesus loves you.
But do you have any constructive comments about Linux for my
question? As I type this, based on other replies, I am downloading
Vector Linux-but since the download speed is apparently deliberately
crippled (to get more money out of users), a simple 600 MB download is
going to take 3 hours +.
Tell me seriously, hell-fire and brimstone boy, do you actually use
Linux? Does it ever crash on you? How often? Windows NT and 2000
are super stable--I've rarely gotten the BSOD except when first
configuring stuff on it. Once stable, it's stable. Is Linux the
same? Let's hear how "honest" you are, hell boy.
RL
Andrew Halliwell
> question?
I gave my ha'penny's worth days ago, which you of course chose to ignore.
(along with everynoe else who gave you advice)
Robert Heller
>
> On Jun 28, 5:38=A0am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > I used a
> > 200mhz Pentium Pro box at UMass until I was laid off in Nov of 2005 --
> > at the time I had the oldest and slowest desktop in the lab were I
> > worked -- a sort of point of pride -- I kept *refusing* newer boxes,
> > since I liked that old box -- it worked well and I was confortable with
> > it.
> >
>
> Uh, ok. But maybe that's why you were fired? (using old equipment)
> Probably not, but the thought comes to mind.
I wasn't 'fired' -- I was laid off due to lack of funding.
>
> Do you have a vote on a min hardware distro?
I already answered that: I have used CentOS (4) on some fairly old
hardware.
>
> It's surprising how un-helpful Linux advocates are. Their main point--
> and indeed only point--is not to waste bandwidth answering trolls.
> Back in the days when bandwidth was limited and the Internet was
> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
> Windows regardless of what OS is actually loaded...that is so, what,
> 1995?
>
> BTW If you don't believe I am sincere, at least answer the questions
> raised for the benefit of people Googling this issue in the future.
>
> RL
>
--
Jean-David Beyer
> At Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:10:46 -0700 (PDT) raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Do you have a vote on a min hardware distro?
>
> I already answered that: I have used CentOS (4) on some fairly old
> hardware.
>
512 MBytes RAM that I got in early 2000. So it is a little over 8 years old.
CentOS4 runs perfectly well there.
The oldest machine I had (now gone) had about 166 MHz Pentiun with 64 Megs
RAM. It ran Red Hat Linux 7.3 OK, but it did not run RHL 9 very well because
it was thrashing the disk. I upped the RAM to 128 Megs and that stopped the
thrashing. I raised it to 256 Megs but that did not make much difference.
The main trouble with it was that the 166MHz processor was just too slow.
I am not sure if my "new" machine is still considered new as I built it
myself and started running it in March 2004. It runs RHEL5 just fine still;
I started it with RHEL3. It was almost state of the art then, but surely is
no longer. Dual 3.06 GHz Xeon processors, 8 GBytes RAM, 10,000 rpm Ultra/320
SCSI hard drives, ... . But these days, 4 year old machines are already
considered fairly old by some.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 08:20:01 up 3 days, 17:40, 4 users, load average: 4.10, 4.07, 4.11
General Schvantzkopf
If all you want to do is try Linux on it then download a copy of Fedora 9
Live and try it, all it will cost you is a blank CD. If the system has
512M then it can run the full Gnome desktop, it will just be slow. If F9
won't run on this box then nothing will, in which case you should just
take that system outside and put it out of it's misery.
You never need antivirus software on Linux but with a 200MHz processor
there is no way this system is going to be fast with any modern software.
ray
> On Jun 28, 7:35 am, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>
>> I would probably try Elive first - I installed it on a P166 with 64mb
>> RAM last year and it was 'decent'. Other options would include Damn
>> Small and Vector.
>
> Thanks for the Elive cite. I just checked their website--and it fits
> the bill. However, they insist on money for the "fits on one CD
> version".
>
> I don't want to pay for something that might not work.
Be creative - there are certainly ways to download it for free - including
bittorrent.
>
> Also, how stable is this? For surfing the web (mainly checking email)
> and printing a letter, how often does Elive (or any other 'minimum
> hardware' distro) crash?
I don't run it regularly, but last time I checked, it was quite robust. In
the past I have had some issues with E17 though E16 was rock solid - E17
has grown a lot since then, though.
Douglas Mayne
Are you sure about that? A CPU of the Pentium Pro class, such as the
Pentium 2 at 200MHz +/-, is not nearly as fast Pentium 3 class at 500 MHz.
>>
>> BTW, I needed to add a disk to the system above because the university
>> removes all disks before reselling their systems. In your case, you
>> probably will need to add a disk, also. That is because of the fact
>> that 2G is tight for installing any major GNU/Linux distribution.
>
> YES! This is indeed the bottleneck. You are spot on.
>
<snip>
>
> So, I ask again, which distro? Thanks in advance...
>
> RL
>
Note: comment inline.
Considering the uncertainty of what hardware you have, I think that it
would be easiest to download a live CD and simply test if you can get
online using that "junk" PC. If it takes half an hour to boot, then you'll
know it probably isn't practical to even think about running Open Office
using that hardware. If it boots right up, and you can start a firefox
session, then you will be on your way to satisfying the requirements of
the problem you describe.
As far as choosing which liveCD to use for the test, here's a short list,
in order of my preference:
1. Slax. http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php
2. gOS. http://www.thinkgos.com/downloads (probably, rocket with
enlightenment)
3. ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download
Slax has worked well for me as a simple system, and is a good choice
for testing because the download is small, less than 200M. BTW, on
old hardware you should elect to download iso's only; don't start down the
path of getting a USB flash based system to boot on ancient hardware. It
probably could be done, but my guess is that it isn't a n00b friendly
project. Read Slax's help and docs along the way, and you should be good
to go. Slax packs a lot into a small package.
See if you can get that far and report back, perhaps with the output from
this command:
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
The key values to check and report:
stepping : 6
CPU MHz : 500 MHz (or more)
If you are really sincere and want to try GNU/Linux, then nothing is
preventing you. Perhaps, you should test Slax on your primary system, too.
That way you'll know what to expect when attempting to boot it on the
more ancient system.
BTW, I read some of your responses to others on this thread. They make me
think that you are only "yanking the chain" here on comp.os.linux.misc;
testing whether the dog will bite back.
--
Douglas Mayne
raylopez99
I downloaded Vector--and found out after 3 hours of download that it
needs a 2.3 GB HD, which might be bigger than the 2 GB I have now
(I'll have to check).
Final question to all: what exactly am I getting with Linux, assuming
i can install it, that I don't already have in Windows 2000 on this
old machine? Everybody agrees the hardware will be slow. So, the
only thing I can figure is that with Linux I don't need the bloatware
antivirus program I'm using now (and one reason I want to switch from
Win2000, since this antivirus program slows down this old machine too
much).
Am I correct?
Thanks in advance.
Also as a bonus how often Linux will crash--which will be upsetting
with this noob--would be helpful.
RL
General Schvantzkopf
If you are asking if moving from Win2K to Linux is going to change your
life, it won't. As you've already figured out, the big advantage to you is
that Linux is malware free. Linux comes with a huge amount of free
software right out of the box, however on the system that you are planning
to use it on this isn't going to help you. Open Office (which you could
run on your Win2K box also) is a little nicer than MSOffice, however it's
actually significantly slower than MSOffice. On modern hardware the
difference isn't noticeable but on a 200MHz box it will probably be pretty
painful. There are lightweight applications like Gnumeric and Abiword that
will be much faster but they aren't nearly as full featured. Evolution is
a terrific e-mail client, it's as least as good as anything on Windows,
and like all Linux apps you won't have to worry about viruses. However if
you are using Outlook now you won't see a lot of differences between
Evolution and Outlook. Linux also comes with a lot of server applications,
however you probably aren't interested in those.
The Gnome Desktop in it's current incarnation is a lot nicer than anything
on Windows, it's certainly light years ahead of Win2K. It's uncluttered as
compared to Windows and lot's more things happen automatically. However
Desktops don't really matter, they have no effect on your productivity.
The one big advantage of Linux desktops is that you can have lots of them,
once you've used multiple desktops you won't understand how you could have
lived without them.
Linux also networks with other machines a lot more naturally. SSH is
installed by default on Linux systems so you can run things on other boxes
just as easily as you can on your local box. On Windows you could install
Cygwin which would allow you to access Linux boxes in the same way but
there is no Windows to Windows equivalent. Rdesktop in XP allows you to
take over another XP box but it only allows one user at a time and it
brings up a whole desktop instead of just the application that you want to
run. BTW Linux has an Rdesktop client so you can access XP boxes this way
if you need to use it.
Win2K was very lightweight as compared to any modern OS including Linux.
While Linux can be stripped down so that it will run on very weak
machines, the process of doing that gives up most of the refinements that
have been added to Linux in recent years.
The bottom line is that you should try a modern full featured distro like
Fedora 9 or Ubuntu 8.0.4 (both of which have live CDs) to see what Linux
looks like. If you are impressed then you should put it on some modern
hardware. I've tried the Via based box and it's fairly decent. However a
quick check on Pricewatch showed that there are actually a fair number of
Athlon 64 X2 boxes that are available for the same money, just search
under PC -NO OS. If you get a new box make sure that you get 2G of RAM,
it's cheap and it will make a huge difference. Any modern CPU will be more
than fast enough so you could cut corners there.
Benjamin Gawert
> I think he makes the specs up as he goes along, sometimes.
> (to be fair to linux though, I doubt there's a video card THAT old that'll
> cause problems)
What about the Nvidia Riva128(ZX) or the bigger cards from 3DLabs
(Wildcat series)?
Benjamin
Benjamin Gawert
> So your argument then is for maintaining the status quo--running
> Windows 2000.
No, my argument is that you should finally get your act together and
check what exactly you have.
Benjamin
Benjamin Gawert
> It runs Microsoft Windows 2000, so it must be a Pentium II
Why? Windows 2000 runs out of the box on a Pentium 133 with 64MB.
Benjamin
Benjamin Gawert
> Pentium Pros were available at 200mhz -- not labeled as PIIs, but were
> 686 processors and thus effectively PIIs in all but name.
Definitely not. There are several non-minor differences between a
Pentium Pro and Pentium II.
> I'm guessing
> that the OP has one of these
It can be a Pentium Pro 200, it can be a Pentium 200, it can be a
Pentium 200 MMX, it can be a Pentium II 233+, who knows. Guessing is
just a waste of time.
> Most *older* graphic cards are supported on some level.
Yes, as frame buffer device. Nothing someone really wants to work with.
> Graphics cards
> that are supported are cheap -- almost any nVidia PCI or AGP card is
> supported.
Investing anything in a 200MHz computer is more or less just a waste as
a much faster P3 (500+Mhz) can be had for almost nothing today.
Benjamin
Baho Utot
> On Jun 29, 3:40 pm, Douglas Mayne <d...@localhost.localnet> wrote:
>
> I downloaded Vector--and found out after 3 hours of download that it
> needs a 2.3 GB HD, which might be bigger than the 2 GB I have now
> (I'll have to check).
You could try Arch Liunx, I use it on all my machines from Pentium 200 to
AMD 2500+. Be advised that it installs as a base system without GUI, then
you need to install the other stuff that you want. It has a nice wiki that
answers most question. If you can follow instructions you can install and
use it.
If you are interested here is a link for you to read:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
>
> Final question to all: what exactly am I getting with Linux, assuming
> i can install it, that I don't already have in Windows 2000 on this
> old machine? Everybody agrees the hardware will be slow. So, the
> only thing I can figure is that with Linux I don't need the bloatware
> antivirus program I'm using now (and one reason I want to switch from
> Win2000, since this antivirus program slows down this old machine too
> much).
>
> Am I correct?
Well you won't get a BSOD. You will get a stable OS with all the trimmings
if that is what you want.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Also as a bonus how often Linux will crash--which will be upsetting
> with this noob--would be helpful.
Running Arch Linux for 2 years and not a single crash or failure.
--
Tayo'y mga Pinoy
Peter
c69143...@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, raylo...@yahoo.com says...
> On Jun 29, 2:28 am, Andrew Halliwell <spi...@ponder.sky.com> wrote:
> > In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylope...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > BTW If you don't believe I am sincere, at least answer the questions
> > > raised for the benefit of people Googling this issue in the future.
> >
> > Can't come up with your own ideas?
> > Note to readers. That's almost word for word what I put at the bottom of my
> > first reply to this waster.
> > "NB: this is not for the benefit of lopez, but for anyone googling in the
> > future"
>
> Android--you're STILL going to hell--stzzzzzz--that's the smell and
> sound of human flesh burning. Not too late though...Jesus loves you.
>
> But do you have any constructive comments about Linux for my
> question? As I type this, based on other replies, I am downloading
> Vector Linux-but since the download speed is apparently deliberately
> crippled (to get more money out of users), a simple 600 MB download is
> going to take 3 hours +.
>
3+ hours? That's not too long to wait. And how does that 'get more money
out of users'?
And 'deliberately crippled' as well, eh? I just tried and my d/l is
going to take less than an hour.
Btw, who's going to install it? You, or your friend, far away?
Perhaps, your friend should have been asking for help instead of you?
--
Pete Ives
Remove All_stRESS before sending me an email
Edwin
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
>
> Maybe three's the charm?
>
> Here goes again...
>
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
> The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand.
>
> PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
> CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
> a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
> CDs to make installation easier.
>
> In case you're wondering why I want to switch to Linux: though the NT
> system is functional, it's slow, and rumor has it that Linux is 'virus
> free' (or nearly so) and faster. Presumeably since Linux is virus-
> free I would not need antivirus (AV) software. Is this true?
> Eliminating AV software would free up RAM. Again, this system is not
> for a power user. I myself am a power user, would never think of
> switching to Linux. But for this lightweight user, perhaps Linux
> might work for them.
>
> Any ideas welcome. Be advised that I also needle the posters at
> comp.os.linux.advocacy, but this is not a flame. I really have not
> been able to get a straight answer on this issue.
>
> Some common mistakes made by respondants: they recommend their
> favorite distro without checking the min system requirements; they
> recommend something they've never tried (Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, and Damn
> Small Linux seem to be a favorites--but I need somebody who is very
> familiar with a distro before I install it and find out it won't work
> on this archaic system); and they assume that I have fast internet
> access on this machine. Also, some spiteful types from
> comp.os.linux.advocacy (avoid this group like the plague unless you
> simply enjoy flaming for its own sake) recommend distros that, when I
> research them, find they won't work on this machine specified above,
> so, please cite your choice with a link if possible.
>
> Thanks for your attention.
>
> RL
"dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and
creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can
manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record,
edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and
peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more;
all using only free software!"
"You can employ this operating system without the need to install
anything, and if you want to run it from harddisk you just need to copy
a directory: the easiest installation ever seen!"
"It is optimized to run on slower computers, turning them into full
media stations: the minimum you need is a pentium1 or k5 PC 64Mb RAM and
IDE CD-ROM, or a modded XBOX game console - and if you have more than
one, you can easily do clusters."
Michael Black
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, Benjamin Gawert wrote:
> Investing anything in a 200MHz computer is more or less just a waste as a
> much faster P3 (500+Mhz) can be had for almost nothing today.
>
Well yes.
I bought a used 200MHz Pentium in mid-2001 to run Linux. The next
year, I found a nearly identical system lying on the sidewalk waiting
for the garbage truck. Almost five years ago I was given this hand me
down 1GHz computer, so basically I'm not paying attention to what's
being thrown out these days. But surely it's better than 200MHz.
A few weeks ago, I did finally find a computer with a 256meg DIMM
in it, so I'm finally up to 512megs, the maximum of this computer. In
retrospect, given that memory I should have taken a closer look to
see if it was better than this one. At this point it likely is time
to see better computers waiting for the garbage. Certainly, I'm seeing
1GHz or slightly better in local ads around the $40 mark.
Michael
GMAN
(LDS church version of Salvation Army type thrift store, as seen in Napolean
Dynamite) all the time for around $5-$10
JEDIDIAH
> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
[deletia]
> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
BTW, WindowMaker was what I ran when my system was a 32M 486.
--
Unfortunately, the universe will not conform itself to
your fantasies. You have to manage based on what really happens |||
rather than what you would like to happen. This is true of personal / | \
affairs, government and business.
Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com
JEDIDIAH
> wrote:
>>
>> Lets face it even if someone on here offered him a free PIII machine with
>> Linux pre-installed he'd still insist that this was not good enough and we
>> have to supply a source for a distro available retail that supports his
>> unknown spec machine.
>
> Let's face it--you're not answering the question because:
>
> (1) you don't know;
...that's the key thing here.
The first step in engineering is doing a proper requirements analsysis.
[deletia]
raylopez99
of these people apparently are here to flame (which I also do on
occasion). BTW, for Peter, the 'cripple' comment refers to the fact
that unless you pay money, most Linux distro websites deliberately
restrict the download speed--I'm surprised you didn't know this.
After three hours I did finally download the .ISO file for Vector, but
it took a while.
Couple of questions, some inline, some here.
It would be helpful if anybody knows if "Vector" (or in general if
most Linux distros) is a 'one-click install' program. That is, it's
not a distro where you have to load the kernel or skeleton first, then
the GUI later. I don't mind doing that--at one point in the mid 1990s
I had Linux Redhat 5 dual booted with Windows NT-- but for this
project I rather have a 'one-click' distro that does everything at
once. Also if during the installation for Vector you get setup for
the internet (also will it recognize a standard late model HP inkjet
printer?). Also, embarrasing enough, this noob only has a dial-up
modem--so will Vector recognize that some people still have a dial-up
modem for internet access, using a Haynes compatible standard modem?
I'm beginning to shudder thinking about the configuration problems I'm
going to have...it's hard enough to do this with NT/Win2000 (XP and
Vista were improvements--they assume a default configuration that
works on 99% of modems and that doesn't require modem initialization
commands and tedius clicking on hard to find tabs to store a password
and userID), much less an experimental OS / hobbyware like Linux.
More comments below.
On Jun 29, 8:39 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> If you are asking if moving from Win2K to Linux is going to change your
> life, it won't. As you've already figured out, the big advantage to you is
> that Linux is malware free. Linux comes with a huge amount of free
> software right out of the box, however on the system that you are planning
> to use it on this isn't going to help you.
I assume you're saying that the free software requires a lot more RAM
than the 225 to 512 MB RAM on this machine. BTW, to show you the lack
of sophistication of this noob, they don't know how to use File
Explorer in Windows, and they simply "save as" using the default
directory under the word processor program of choice, currently Open
Office but also Word. This noob also doesn't know how to set up
folders (in Yahoo email or anywhere else), doesn't delete any spam or
legitimate email (so everything just collects in the In box), and --my
favorite-- hits the escape key a few times and then does a hard reboot
when there's any problem with any program, even a minor problem that
would be solved by closing the program in question. And doesn't want
to learn a better way either. Also the noob doesn't use bookmarks to
save websites of interest--they simply Google it everytime. The noob
doesn't understand the significance of a URL: "http:" in your web
browser and that you can manually change it. I've never seen them use
the arrow keys on the web browser either--if they're stuck, they
restart from the beginning if they want to go back. I have seen the
noob use the 'home' page icon however (which I have helpfully set to
google.com), otherwise it would really be tedious to navigate (having
to restart the web browser everytime you want to navigate away from a
page). They say that the smart people have already adopted an OS and
bought a PC, and the remaining 40-60% of the population without a PC
is better off without one, and after seeing this noob in action, I
tend to agree. So you can see I want to make this system as "idiot
proof" as possible, hence my obsession with stability. Also I hope
that Linux 'associates' file extensions with applications--for
example, if you get a .PDF file, and double click on it from inside
the Linux GUI, will Vector associate it with a PDF reading program--
and does this program come 'built-into' Vector?--or do you have to
start an application and then manually read a PDF file? Obviously,
with this noob, the former is the only viable option.
>
> The Gnome Desktop in it's current incarnation is a lot nicer than anything
> on Windows, it's certainly light years ahead of Win2K
Interesting. I'll have to check out Gnome on a modern machine, but
that's another topic.
> once you've used multiple desktops you won't understand how you could have
> lived without them.
Kind of like dual monitors I guess.
> The bottom line is that you should try a modern full featured distro like
> Fedora 9 or Ubuntu 8.0.4 (both of which have live CDs) to see what Linux
> looks like.
Maybe when I get some modern hardware to play around with, but not for
this project.
RL
Hadron
> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> [deletia]
>
>> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
>> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
>> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
>
> A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
> ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
>
> With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
That's a cracker even for your silly word mangling games.
> I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
> by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
Yup. Hence my question about why so many distros.
> new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
>
> Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
Frequency Scaling monitor and associated kernel support in OnDemand mode
to reduce power consumption.
>
> BTW, WindowMaker was what I ran when my system was a 32M 486.
--
"We will never allow an event like an election reverse our
independence, our sovereignty, our sweat and all that we fought
for. -- Robert Mugabe, OSS supporter and advocate for freedom. COLA advocate."
General Schvantzkopf
I don't know where you got the idea that download speeds are restricted of
you don't pay money, that's simply untrue. What is true is that different
mirror sites have very different performance. When you look at the mirror
lists you will see the total amount of bandwidth available for that
mirror. A few sites have 2G of bandwidth and if you use them you will see
that you are only limited by the speed of your link, I generally get about
10Mbits/second on my cable modem. The mirror I favor is Argonne National
Lab (ANL), but Stanford also works well.
I've never used Vector so I don't know anything about it, however if one
click install is what you want then either the Fedora 9 or Ubuntu Live CDs
will do the trick. In both cases you boot into a full Linux system rather
then the simple installer that you would on the full install DVDs. On the
Live CD desktop there is am install icon, click it and it does an install
with only minimal questions. You could choose to let it use all of it's
defaults, if you do that it's nearly one-click. I prefer to make the
partitioning decisions myself so I always choose Custom Disk Partitioning.
You might want to let the installer make the choices.
The LiveCD installs lightweight applications like Abiword and Gnumeric
instead of Open Office, this is probably what you want. Once you've done
the install you can add anything you want later. In Linux adding more
software is trivial, there is a Software Installer that allows you to
select anything you want and install it from the web, all you have to do
is check the item you want and click a button.
512M meets the minimum requirements of running a full Gnome Desktop, in
fact my sister is using Fedora 8 on a laptop that has a 500MHz PIII and
384M. However adding more memory will greatly improve performance. At
today's memory prices there is no excuse for having less than 4G. If you
look on Newegg you will see that 4G is only $80. Actually 2G will give you
great performance, but memory is so cheap why not get more.
One more thing, if you are still on dial up then you are screwed. There is
no excuse for still using dialup, at the very least you should get an
entry level DSL connection which isn't much more expensive than dialup.
Leading edge Linux distros assume that you have broadband, they have
frequent updates which are untenable without a broadband connection. If
you really can't get broadband then you should forget about any of the
leading edge distros, you should install a stable distro instead. Order a
set of CentOS5.2 CDs from Linux Central. CentOS5.2 is a clone of RHEL5.2.
It's not nearly as advanced as Fedora 9, it's goal is stability. CentOS
has 1% of the updates of Fedora so it's doable with broadband. The reason
for this is that they only provide security patches and bug fixes, Fedora
provides constant updates on everything in the distro because their goal
is to be on the bleeding edge.
Andrew Halliwell
His questions were answered in COLA before he even posted here.
He's since posted to cola asking "for the FOURTH TIME, can someone tell me
which distro?"...
He's a time waster. A liar. A troll. And admits to being proud of his
microsoft share portfolio and his trolling and FUDing to keep them afloat.
You weren't the only person to answer his questions. I was the first.
After me, over a dozen have answered his questions satisfactorily.
He chooses to ignore them so he can complain that no-one will give him a
straight answer.
--
| spi...@freenet.co.uk | "I'm alive!!! I can touch! I can taste! |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | I can SMELL!!! KRYTEN!!! Unpack Rachel and |
| in | get out the puncture repair kit!" |
| Computer Science | Arnold Judas Rimmer- Red Dwarf |
Eric
> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>
>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>> [deletia]
>>
>>> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
>>> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
>>> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
>> A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
>> ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
>>
>> With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
>
> That's a cracker even for your silly word mangling games.
>
>> I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
>> by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
>
> Yup. Hence my question about why so many distros.
>
>> new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
>>
>> Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
>
> Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
> Frequency Scaling monitor and associated kernel support in OnDemand mode
> to reduce power consumption.
>
>> BTW, WindowMaker was what I ran when my system was a 32M 486.
>
Eric
General Schvantzkopf
> You're wasting WAYYYY too much time on this troll, General. His
> questions were answered in COLA before he even posted here. He's since
> posted to cola asking "for the FOURTH TIME, can someone tell me which
> distro?"...
>
> He's a time waster. A liar. A troll. And admits to being proud of his
> microsoft share portfolio and his trolling and FUDing to keep them
> afloat.
>
> You weren't the only person to answer his questions. I was the first.
> After me, over a dozen have answered his questions satisfactorily. He
> chooses to ignore them so he can complain that no-one will give him a
> straight answer.
You're right, we've all been down this road several times with this guy.
However there is a reason to play along and that is that there are other
people reading this thread. This particular poster always starts his
thread with a reasonable question, in fact this time it was more
reasonable than usual because the specs of the system that he started with
weren't impossible. His subsequent questions have also been reasonable so
far, i.e. about what his expectations should be vis a vis the Win2K that
came with his antique system. His usual pattern is to try and post some
impossible requirement and then when he's told that you can't do that he
gets to call Linux useless. But the fun part here is that it's getting
harder and harder for him to come up with an impossible requirement. I
think his request for a one click install was his attempt to do that in
the current thread. However as all of us know, Ubuntu Live CDs have had
one-click installs for a long time and as of Fedora 8 so has the Fedora
projects. He also usually tells a tail of woe about having to use dial-up,
which I doubt he does. He does this at the end of all of his threads, but
of course that's never been an issue because you can buy CDs or DVDs for
any distro for a pittance, and for the truly impoverished Ubuntu is happy
to send you a free CD.
So for the non-troll readers of this thread we've been able to discuss the
merits of putting money into old machines versus spending the money on the
new ultra cheap machines. We've been able to discuss what's reasonable to
expect if you do pull some old shitbox out of the closet and put Linux on
it (i.e. it's still a shitbox but it's a stable shitbox). And which
distros are good for which types of users.
BTW I keep hoping that one of these days he might actually grab a LiveCD
and actually try Linux. And if he has a lot of MS in his portfolio my free
advice is to sell it and put the money in a market index fund. MS stock
hasn't moved in years and it's not likely to in the future. We aren't in
the MS age anymore, it's the Google age now. IBM stock has underperformed
the market for years, that's what happens to companies that were once
completely dominant and then time passes them by. They can still be very
solid companies, IBM certainly is, but their days of stellar growth are
over. Microsoft has reached that point now. They displaced IBM as the 800
pound gorilla of the computer market, now Google has replaced Microsoft.
Someday another company will come along and displace Google, but it won't
be Microsoft (even if they ha bought Yahoo), and it won't be IBM, it will
be someone new.
JEDIDIAH
> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>
>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>
>> [deletia]
>>
>>> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
>>> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
>>> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
>>
>> A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
>> ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
>>
>> With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
>
> That's a cracker even for your silly word mangling games.
Why do you insist on being such an ass.
>
>> I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
>> by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
>
> Yup. Hence my question about why so many distros.
Obviously you've never really worked in the computing industry.
>
>> new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
>>
>> Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
>
> Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
...must not be much of movie then.
> Frequency Scaling monitor and associated kernel support in OnDemand mode
> to reduce power consumption.
>
>>
>> BTW, WindowMaker was what I ran when my system was a 32M 486.
...in those days instead of converting movies while watching
them it was listening to music while converting it. There was also the
occasional programming, web surfing, document editing and running amok
on Usenet.
--
Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire,
is genuinely new: culture, like science and |||
technology grows by accretion, each new creator / | \
building on the works of those that came before.
Judge Alex Kozinski
US Court of Appeals
9th Circuit
Andrew Halliwell
> You're right, we've all been down this road several times with this guy.
> However there is a reason to play along and that is that there are other
> people reading this thread. This particular poster always starts his
> thread with a reasonable question, in fact this time it was more
> reasonable than usual because the specs of the system that he started with
> weren't impossible.
Indeed, which was why I answered in the first place (but added a footnote at
the bottom that it was for the benefit of people googling for an answer
rather than him). :)
Quite a few people seem to have been suckered in though...
(looked like you were one of them...)
> His subsequent questions have also been reasonable so
> far, i.e. about what his expectations should be vis a vis the Win2K that
> came with his antique system. His usual pattern is to try and post some
> impossible requirement and then when he's told that you can't do that he
> gets to call Linux useless. But the fun part here is that it's getting
> harder and harder for him to come up with an impossible requirement. I
> think his request for a one click install was his attempt to do that in
> the current thread. However as all of us know, Ubuntu Live CDs have had
> one-click installs for a long time and as of Fedora 8 so has the Fedora
> projects. He also usually tells a tail of woe about having to use dial-up,
> which I doubt he does. He does this at the end of all of his threads, but
> of course that's never been an issue because you can buy CDs or DVDs for
> any distro for a pittance, and for the truly impoverished Ubuntu is happy
> to send you a free CD.
Indeed... I think he's been directed towards cheapbytes dozens of times.
(note to readers, in the UK, linux emporium...)
> So for the non-troll readers of this thread we've been able to discuss the
> merits of putting money into old machines versus spending the money on the
> new ultra cheap machines. We've been able to discuss what's reasonable to
> expect if you do pull some old shitbox out of the closet and put Linux on
> it (i.e. it's still a shitbox but it's a stable shitbox). And which
> distros are good for which types of users.
>
> BTW I keep hoping that one of these days he might actually grab a LiveCD
> and actually try Linux. And if he has a lot of MS in his portfolio my free
> advice is to sell it and put the money in a market index fund. MS stock
> hasn't moved in years and it's not likely to in the future.
Oh, I think it's likely to move...
down down down...
:)
> We aren't in
> the MS age anymore, it's the Google age now. IBM stock has underperformed
> the market for years, that's what happens to companies that were once
> completely dominant and then time passes them by. They can still be very
> solid companies, IBM certainly is, but their days of stellar growth are
> over. Microsoft has reached that point now. They displaced IBM as the 800
> pound gorilla of the computer market, now Google has replaced Microsoft.
> Someday another company will come along and displace Google, but it won't
> be Microsoft (even if they ha bought Yahoo), and it won't be IBM, it will
> be someone new.
Most probably, yeah...
But it's POSSIBLE it could be IBM again, we don't know what the future of
technology has in store and if IBM came up with an optical CPU or a quantum
computer, they could be on their way to a new high...
Tech is the fastest moving of all industries after all. Who can say what'll
happen 10 years from now if someone makes a breakthrough?
--
| spi...@freenet.co.uk | |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't |
| in | suck is probably the day they start making |
| Computer science | vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge |
chrisv
>>
>>Hence my question about why so many distros.
Don't you mean your "continuous, cretinous, anti-choice trolling",
Quack?
The Ghost In The Machine
<raylo...@yahoo.com>
wrote
on Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:24:31 -0700 (PDT)
<f83465dc-f065-4ae1...@27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>:
> I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
>
> Maybe three's the charm?
>
> Here goes again...
>
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
> The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand.
>
> What Linux distro to use for this configuration?
Before you ask *what*, you must first ask *why*. Win2k
appears to be satisfactorially running on that machine;
there's no particular reason to change absent additional
information.
Did you have a repurposing of this machine in mind?
(Me, I got sick of Windows 95, long ago, and I'm an old
Unix head. That's satisfactory ... barely ... as an explanation.)
If you're going to go ahead with this, make it a dual-boot.
At least that way, you'll have a fallback.
> I can, using another
> PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
> CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
> a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
> CDs to make installation easier.
http://www.cheapbytes.com/ is still around. In any event
it makes little difference; the .ISO images are burnt
as-is; no reassembly required.
If you *really* want to build your very own distro, it's
possible but arduous. (I'll admit to some curiosity
on some of the technical stuff, though -- like setting
up booting. However, for me it's not a high priority.)
>
> In case you're wondering why I want to switch to Linux:
I do.
> though the NT
> system is functional, it's slow,
Compared to a 3.2 GHz 2 GB RAM modern sort, *anything* on a 200 MHz
Pentium II with 500 MB RAM isn't going to be speedy.
> and rumor has it that Linux is 'virus
> free' (or nearly so) and faster.
That is only a rumor. BadBunnyz is out there, for example.
True, Linux is very virus-*resistant*, and most distros
are set up such that even if a virus does in fact infect
a user's executables, turning a user's account into a
quasi-zombie, the system (loosely defined, the bits owned
by root or bin) is still reasonably safe. Of course BadBunnyz
will infect all of a user's documents, given half a chance, but
it can't infect another user's documents without that other user
letting it in, nor can it infect the rest of the system.
> Presumeably since Linux is virus-
> free I would not need antivirus (AV) software. Is this true?
Depends. For the most part, AV software is unnecessary for
Linux *desktops*. However, if you're going to use that thing
for a Linux *server*, you may want virus detection software
to protect downstream Windows nodes. (This is a rather specialized
solution, to be sure.)
> Eliminating AV software would free up RAM.
And disk space.
> Again, this system is not
> for a power user. I myself am a power user, would never think of
> switching to Linux. But for this lightweight user, perhaps Linux
> might work for them.
Perhaps, perhaps not. I ask again: is there a reason to switch
from Win2k? "Having a lightweight user" on the box is insufficient.
Might be cheaper to buy a new box, especially since most consultants
charge over $100k/hour. Also, they can learn Windows Vista, which
is supposed to be easy to use, intuitive, and what not.
>
> Any ideas welcome. Be advised that I also needle the posters at
> comp.os.linux.advocacy, but this is not a flame. I really have not
> been able to get a straight answer on this issue.
>
Well, you need to clarify your question. At best, you're trying
to install a 2008-era distro on 1998-era hardware. There's some
issues there. At worst, you're working with an about-to-be-doorstop.
> Some common mistakes made by respondants: they recommend their
> favorite distro without checking the min system requirements; they
> recommend something they've never tried (Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, and Damn
> Small Linux seem to be a favorites--but I need somebody who is very
> familiar with a distro before I install it and find out it won't work
> on this archaic system); and they assume that I have fast internet
> access on this machine. Also, some spiteful types from
> comp.os.linux.advocacy (avoid this group like the plague unless you
> simply enjoy flaming for its own sake) recommend distros that, when I
> research them, find they won't work on this machine specified above,
> so, please cite your choice with a link if possible.
You will have to go into more detail as to what you expect
the user of that machine to do:
- Browsing?
- Email?
- Flash Gameplay (e.g., ArmorGames, Miniclip)?
- Native Gameplay (e.g., Halo, UT, Quake)?
- Spreadsheets?
- Documentation?
- Software development?
* C/C++?
* .NET?
* Java?
* Other?
Specifics are important, especially for games, which tend
to favor Windows (Halo in particular is Windows-only, AIUI),
if only because developers tend to go towards the big targets.
You can try http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ if you just want to
experiment; it's one of the lighter-weight distros, occupying
only 50MB of disk space.
>
> Thanks for your attention.
>
> RL
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
The Ghost In The Machine
<bga...@gmx.de>
wrote
on Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:55:54 +0100
<6cppkmF...@mid.individual.net>:
What he has is a machine satisfactorially running Win2k.
It is very strange that he wants to load Linux on it.
Did I miss something in the original problem specification?
Granted, Windows does appear to be getting bigger,
especially if one upgrades to Vista. Since that's not
in the gameplan, though, color me puzzled.
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Windows Vista. It'll Fix Everything(tm).
Hadron
> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>
>>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> On Jun 28, 5:38Â am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> [deletia]
>>>
>>>> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
>>>> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
>>>> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
>>>
>>> A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
>>> ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
>>>
>>> With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
>>
>> That's a cracker even for your silly word mangling games.
>
> Why do you insist on being such an ass.
>
>>
>>> I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
>>> by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
>>
>> Yup. Hence my question about why so many distros.
>
> Obviously you've never really worked in the computing industry.
>
This must be a new meaning of "obviously" only you are familiar with.
>>
>>> new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
>>>
>>> Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
>>
>> Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
>> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
>> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
>
> ...must not be much of movie then.
Your clueless regarding video and video HW is simply gobsmacking in this
day and age.
--
"Unfortunately, once again, the user-unfriendly dirtware sucks so bad it's
hard to prove how bad it sucks."
-- "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> in comp.os.linux.advocacy
Mark Hobley
>
> Thank you Mark for the Puppy Linux vote, though I take it you're
> relying on hearsay and have never tried it. What word processor and
> what web browser do you recommend for such a weak system?
I have used Puppy Linux, and it works fine. It comes with Mozilla
Seamonkey and Abiword.
Regards,
Mark.
--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.
Mark Hobley
> Why? Windows 2000 runs out of the box on a Pentium 133 with 64MB.
Hmmm, I'm sure Microsoft have changed their minds, since I last looked at this,
but you appear to be right. That is what their website now says.
I used to run a 450Mhz Pentium with 128Mb RAM and Microsoft Windows '95.
My machine was way above specification, but the system ran like a pile
of shit. I'm glad the days of Microsoft Windows are over.
JEDIDIAH
> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>
>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Jun 28, 5:38Â am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [deletia]
>>>>
>>>>> government owned, that was a good point, but no more; however, Linux
>>>>> users are stuck in the past, still fighting the battle that was
>>>>> settled by litigation 10+ years ago, that MSFT charges vendors for
>>>>
>>>> A lot of trolls are stuck in the past too. They're probably the
>>>> ones that generate most of the counter-traffic.
>>>>
>>>> With Linux, it's not so much the distro but what you try and run.
>>>
>>> That's a cracker even for your silly word mangling games.
>>
>> Why do you insist on being such an ass.
>>
>>>
>>>> I can take Ubuntu and easily adapt it to a less powerful system just
>>>> by running the sorts of things that I ran back when a PentiumPro was
>>>
>>> Yup. Hence my question about why so many distros.
>>
>> Obviously you've never really worked in the computing industry.
>>
>
> This must be a new meaning of "obviously" only you are familiar with.
Don't kid yourself.
>
>>>
>>>> new. A lot depends on what all your requirements are.
>>>>
>>>> Even my current fancy desktop is mostly idle...
>>>
>>> Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
>>> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
>>> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
>>
>> ...must not be much of movie then.
>
> Your clueless regarding video and video HW is simply gobsmacking in this
> day and age.
Not really. Although I am satisfied to just let your comments speak for
themselves....
--
vi isn't easy to use. |||
/ | \
vi is easy to REPLACE.
Hadron
> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>
>>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
As they have done. I use a dual head, HW accelerated video card on a top
notch machine driving both a big plasma screen and a lcd monitor. I do
play modern FPS and similar. You do none of these things. You have no
experience of what I speak and your ridiculous word games reveal you to
be a wannabe.
--
"Maybe you can buy a Saturday Night Special and blow your POS brains out."
-- Rick <no...@nomail.com> in comp.os.linux.advocacy
JEDIDIAH
> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>
>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
[deletia]
>>>>> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
>>>>> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
>>>>
>>>> ...must not be much of movie then.
>>>
>>> Your clueless regarding video and video HW is simply gobsmacking in this
>>> day and age.
>>
>> Not really. Although I am satisfied to just let your comments speak for
>> themselves....
>
> As they have done. I use a dual head, HW accelerated video card on a top
> notch machine driving both a big plasma screen and a lcd monitor. I do
...try your dick waving with someone who cares and/or doesn't know better.
> play modern FPS and similar. You do none of these things. You have no
> experience of what I speak and your ridiculous word games reveal you to
> be a wannabe.
>
--
Hadron
> On 2008-07-01, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>
>>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2008-06-30, Hadron <hadro...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> JEDIDIAH <je...@nomad.mishnet> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 2008-06-29, raylopez99 <raylo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Jun 28, 5:38 am, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
> [deletia]
>>>>>> Yup. Mine too. I tend to play movies on the second head while
>>>>>> programming or playing COLA (by far the best RPG available for
>>>>>> Linux).. And the machine is still only ticking over. So I use the CPU
>>>>>
>>>>> ...must not be much of movie then.
>>>>
>>>> Your clueless regarding video and video HW is simply gobsmacking in this
>>>> day and age.
>>>
>>> Not really. Although I am satisfied to just let your comments speak for
>>> themselves....
>>
>> As they have done. I use a dual head, HW accelerated video card on a top
>> notch machine driving both a big plasma screen and a lcd monitor. I do
>
> ...try your dick waving with someone who cares and/or doesn't know
> better.
We were discussing it with people who cared. Until you hopped in with
your usual misinformation and hot air. You're not related to Mark Kent
are you?
--
"Off the top of my head, I can't tell you which sites. They are ones that
throw up some kind of dialog, I change the user agent and look at them
again, then move on."
-- Rick <no...@nomail.com> telling lies in comp.os.linux.advocacy
JR Weiss
>I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
> a year of trying.
>
> Maybe three's the charm?
>
> Here goes again...
>
> I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
> somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
> recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
> program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
> Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
> it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
> it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
> the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
> I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
> have loaded Linux on one of them.
>
> The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
> popular video card, forget the brand.
>
> PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
> CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
> a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
> CDs to make installation easier.
Look at Knoppix and Ubuntu. Both have "live CD" distributions that you can test
by running directly from the CD. You'll have to check if either or both will
send you a CD.
I ran Knoppix on my old P3-550 and on an HP laptop.
JR Weiss
> Thanks for the Elive cite. I just checked their website--and it fits the
> bill. However, they insist on money for the "fits on one CD version".
> I don't want to pay for something that might not work.
I don't know why you expect somebody to spend their own $$ to send you a CD! If
you're that cheap, no wonder you've been "trying" for a year!
Benjamin Gawert
>> Why? Windows 2000 runs out of the box on a Pentium 133 with 64MB.
>
> Hmmm, I'm sure Microsoft have changed their minds, since I last looked at this,
> but you appear to be right. That is what their website now says.
It's also what it said even before Windows2000 came out and is
completely in line with support of older hardware in former Windows
releases.
Benjamin
raylopez99
wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:46:31 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>
> I don't know where you got the idea that download speeds are restricted of
> you don't pay money, that's simply untrue.
No, it's true, trust me on this one General. In fact, some Linux
sites even say "for a minimum donation of X dollars, you can get
faster download speeds from this site". This was discussed last year
on C.O.L.A.
>
> I've never used Vector so I don't know anything about it, however if one
> click install is what you want then either the Fedora 9 or Ubuntu Live CDs
Either, or? Which one? I have DSL, Vector and I think (from last
year) Ubuntu. Now I might add Fedora 9 to the list. Way too much
information.
> The LiveCD installs lightweight applications like Abiword and Gnumeric
> instead of Open Office, this is probably what you want. Once you've done
> the install you can add anything you want later.
Here's an idea: if LiveCD supports a dialup modem, just run the
system off the CD, without *ever* doing a hard drive installation?!
But something tells me this won't work, not least of which being your
settings can never be saved and have to be redone every time you
bootup.
> One more thing, if you are still on dial up then you are screwed. There is
> no excuse for still using dialup, at the very least you should get an
> entry level DSL connection which isn't much more expensive than dialup.
You nailed it, once again. I figured this out: indeed you're hosed.
But it's not my system, it's a n00b's system, and that's the way they
like it.
I might switch to Linux for fun at some point, but right now I think
I'll just reinstall Windows 2000 on this old system and maybe restrict
the automatic loading of the memory hog antivirus program upon
startup, and that should fix it.
Once again, except for the serious power user that doesn't have to
deal with corporate types that insist on documents being sent in Word
or slides in Powerpoint or spreadsheets in Excel, Windows seems to be
the OS of choice.
RL
raylopez99
<ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
> You will have to go into more detail as to what you expect
> the user of that machine to do:
>
> - Browsing?
YES
> - Email?
YES
> - Flash Gameplay (e.g., ArmorGames, Miniclip)?
> - Native Gameplay (e.g., Halo, UT, Quake)?
> - Spreadsheets?
NO
> - Documentation?
OpenOffice or Word or even Google Apps.
> - Software development?
> * C/C++?
> * .NET?
> * Java?
> * Other?
Hell no! I doubt you can compile a decent console mode program on PII
without pulling out your hairs, once you're used to a modern multicore
machine.
>
> You can tryhttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/if you just want to
> experiment; it's one of the lighter-weight distros, occupying
> only 50MB of disk space.
>
Yes, I got the distro for this. Like you said, the problem is linux
evolves over time, and I'm trying to install a 2008 OS (linux) on a
1996 machine.
RL
General Schvantzkopf
> On Jun 30, 4:32 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:46:31 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>>
>> I don't know where you got the idea that download speeds are restricted
>> of you don't pay money, that's simply untrue.
>
> No, it's true, trust me on this one General. In fact, some Linux sites
> even say "for a minimum donation of X dollars, you can get faster
> download speeds from this site". This was discussed last year on
> C.O.L.A.
I don't know where you found a download site that asks for money but I've
never seen one. Here is a list of mirrors, you will notice that they all
list the speed of their internet connections. Many of these sites are
universities or national labs, none of these sites asks for money.
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors
As for one-click installs both Fedora Live and Ubuntu Live have an install
icon on their Live desktop. In both cases you can do an install with
minimal user interaction.
As for running dialup from the LiveCDs, the problem would be that you
can't save configuration files because they are CDs. However in Fedora's
case you can install the Fedora Live CD to a USB FLASH stick with an
overlay feature which makes the USB install work just like an ordinary
disk, i.e. you can add software, do updates, make configuration changes,
have a user directory. Fedora Live can also mount any partitions that it
finds on the machine that it's plugged into (including Windows FAT32 and
NTFS partitions). I have Fedora 9 Live on a 4G FLASH stick that I keep on
my keychain, I added the partition editors, parted and gparted, XEmacs and
my system exerciser (sys_basher) to the USB stick which allows me to use
it for hardware and software repairs.
You need a modern system to boot from a USB FLASH drive, chances are that
your old P2 doesn't have any USB connectors at all, and even if it does it
won't be able to boot from a USB drive.
Psyc Geek
Andrew Halliwell
> Once again, except for the serious power user that doesn't have to
> deal with corporate types that insist on documents being sent in Word
> or slides in Powerpoint or spreadsheets in Excel, Windows seems to be
> the OS of choice.
What a surprise...
Now, who guessed he'd not bother trying again?...
Don't all put your hands up at once!
--
| spi...@freenet.co,uk | "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | |
| in | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |
| Computer Science | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |
Benjamin Gawert
> use the ATARI. you can get one for like 50 cents at a swap meet.
Really? The last ATARIs I've seen weren't that cheap any more (at least
if the condition was somewhat good) as they seem to become collector's
items.
Benjamin
The Ghost In The Machine
<05d155f1-76b1-4ff8...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jun 30, 2:31 pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>
>> You will have to go into more detail as to what you expect
>> the user of that machine to do:
>>
>> - Browsing?
>
> YES
OK. IE7 or Firefox. IE8 is pending, AIUI.
Opera, Epiphany, and Galeon are also available,
depending on OS.
>
>> - Email?
>
> YES
OK. Bat, Eudora, Evolution, balsa, kmail, in no particular order.
>
>> - Flash Gameplay (e.g., ArmorGames, Miniclip)?
>> - Native Gameplay (e.g., Halo, UT, Quake)?
>> - Spreadsheets?
>
> NO
OK. Be advised disney.com requires Flash 9.
>
>> - Documentation?
>
> OpenOffice or Word or even Google Apps.
OK, Microsoft Word, Write, Word Perfect, emacs, kate.
>
>> - Software development?
>> * C/C++?
>> * .NET?
>> * Java?
>> * Other?
>
> Hell no! I doubt you can compile a decent console mode program on PII
> without pulling out your hairs, once you're used to a modern multicore
> machine.
A point, that.
>
>>
>> You can tryhttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/if you just want to
>> experiment; it's one of the lighter-weight distros, occupying
>> only 50MB of disk space.
>>
>
> Yes, I got the distro for this. Like you said, the problem is linux
> evolves over time, and I'm trying to install a 2008 OS (linux) on a
> 1996 machine.
And you've *still* not said why you specifically wanted to do this,
as opposed to reinstalling Win2k. (Perhaps I've missed it, but
why are you switching operating systems?)
>
> RL
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Useless C/C++ Programming Idea #40490127:
for(;;) ;
Andrew Halliwell
>> OpenOffice or Word or even Google Apps.
>
> OK, Microsoft Word, Write, Word Perfect, emacs, kate.
You forgot abiword
--
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack|
| spi...@freenet.co.uk |in the ground beneath a giant boulder, which you|
| |can't move, with no hope of rescue. |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc |Consider how lucky you are that life has been |
| in |good to you so far... |
| Computer Science | -The BOOK, Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy.|
Hadron
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, raylopez99
> <raylo...@yahoo.com>
> wrote
> on Wed, 2 Jul 2008 07:41:29 -0700 (PDT)
> <05d155f1-76b1-4ff8...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>:
>> On Jun 30, 2:31 pm, The Ghost In The Machine
>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>
>>> You will have to go into more detail as to what you expect
>>> the user of that machine to do:
>>>
>>> - Browsing?
>>
>> YES
>
> OK. IE7 or Firefox. IE8 is pending, AIUI.
> Opera, Epiphany, and Galeon are also available,
> depending on OS.
Emacs.
>
>>
>>> - Email?
>>
>> YES
>
> OK. Bat, Eudora, Evolution, balsa, kmail, in no particular order.
>
Emacs
>>
>>> - Flash Gameplay (e.g., ArmorGames, Miniclip)?
>>> - Native Gameplay (e.g., Halo, UT, Quake)?
>>> - Spreadsheets?
>>
>> NO
>
> OK. Be advised disney.com requires Flash 9.
>
>>
>>> - Documentation?
>>
>> OpenOffice or Word or even Google Apps.
>
> OK, Microsoft Word, Write, Word Perfect, emacs, kate.
>
Emacs
>>
>>> - Software development?
>>> * C/C++?
>>> * .NET?
>>> * Java?
>>> * Other?
>>
>> Hell no! I doubt you can compile a decent console mode program on PII
>> without pulling out your hairs, once you're used to a modern multicore
>> machine.
>
> A point, that.
Emacs
--
XP can't be selling well, or we'd have the wintrolls crowing about it all
over the advocacy newsgroups.
comp.os.linux.advocacy - where they put the lunacy in advocacy
Psyc Geek
DOS, and Windows.
It works great. Lots of keyboard shortcuts. great manuals. it just
works. no graphics,
but hey, what can i say.
Psyc Geek
i did not say WORKING ...
The Ghost In The Machine
<spi...@ponder.sky.com>
wrote
on Wed, 2 Jul 2008 23:22:11 +0100
<jlbtj5-...@ponder.sky.com>:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy The Ghost In The Machine <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>> OpenOffice or Word or even Google Apps.
>>
>> OK, Microsoft Word, Write, Word Perfect, emacs, kate.
>
> You forgot abiword
>
So I did; there's also another one whose name escapes me,
but it has something to do with synaptics. (There is
a ksynaptics but I don't think that's a word processor.
If there's one thing I don't like about FLOSS, it's the
colorful but hard to find naming conventions. ;-) Not
that Word is much better; googling on "word" won't find
word processors.)
And of course there's humble vi, which isn't quite a word
processor but which is definitely more powerful than Wordpad,
though it may not have Wordpad's font display capabilities. ;-)
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Does anyone else remember the 1802?
The Ghost In The Machine
<psyc...@yahoo.com>
wrote
on Wed, 2 Jul 2008 15:43:37 -0700 (PDT)
<3b2ba067-7a61-4ac4...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>:
Does it work on a Pentium IV? :-) There was a CP/M86 floating about at
one point.
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
People think that libraries are safe. They're wrong. They have ideas.
(Also occasionally ectoplasmic slime and cute librarians.)
TJ
> One more thing, if you are still on dial up then you are screwed. There is
> no excuse for still using dialup, at the very least you should get an
> entry level DSL connection which isn't much more expensive than dialup.
I beg to differ on this point. There are many rural areas in the US, at
least, that aren't served by anything but satellite when it comes to
broadband, and there are locations where even satellite service isn't
practical. For somebody that just wants to do a little web-surfing and
email without any heavy downloading, satellite is expensive, too. With
the economy either in or approaching recession (depending on who you
listen to), lots of people have to pinch pennies wherever they can.
TJ
TJ
> But, though I have build many a system from scratch, I
> rather not reorder a disk controller, wait a week, then disassemble
> the case, play with the cards (it's very crowded on this small factor
> mobo), etc etc. If--remember this fix is for a clueless noob who
> literally checks email on Yahoo and prints a short letter once in a
> blue moon--nothing fancy, and not even Java is required on the web
> browser--if I can get away with just a software upgrade I would be
> very happy, since that's less time wasted for me.
You've built many a system from scratch and you don't have an bigger,
old hard drive kicking around that you can put into this machine? Hard
to believe. Put in an 8-20 GB drive and you could run practically any
distro on that machine, albeit slowly. If you don't have one, they're
cheap on Ebay.
TJ
Darren Salt
[snip]
> With the economy either in or approaching recession (depending on who you
> listen to), lots of people have to pinch pennies wherever they can.
You lot pinching pennies doesn't make cents...
(Coat!)
--
| Darren Salt | linux or ds at | nr. Ashington, | Toon
| RISC OS, Linux | youmustbejoking,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army
| + Buy less and make it last longer. INDUSTRY CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING.
If everything seems to be going well, you've obviously overlooked something.
TJ
> I demand that TJ may or may not have written...
>
> [snip]
>> With the economy either in or approaching recession (depending on who you
>> listen to), lots of people have to pinch pennies wherever they can.
>
> You lot pinching pennies doesn't make cents...
>
> (Coat!)
>
"penny-pinching" has a different meaning in the UK, so you are confused
by my corruption of your language.
TJ
TJ
> Tell me seriously, hell-fire and brimstone boy, do you actually use
> Linux? Does it ever crash on you? How often? Windows NT and 2000
> are super stable--I've rarely gotten the BSOD except when first
> configuring stuff on it. Once stable, it's stable. Is Linux the
> same?
In over six years of using Linux on an almost daily basis, on three
separate machines, I have NEVER had Linux crash. I have had some
improperly-designed Flash-based websites crash Firefox, but it always
goes back to the KDE desktop. I repeat - Linux has NEVER crashed on me.
I can't say the same for Windows.
TJ
Andrew Halliwell
Indeed. I've had X crashes, I've had app crashes...
But the only time I've ever seen a kernel panic was with a badly setup
LILO/GRUB, duff RAM or other hardware problem.
Oh, tell a lie, 5 years ago I tried a linmodem and that driver caused a
panic when it had to dialin a second time...
Watch as the wintrolls leap on this linmodem driver as proof of linux's
instability, even though the driver wasn't part of linux (and was 5 years
ago).
:)
raylopez99
>
> I added a 500G SATA drive and controller, and now it has new life. It
> can do all of the jobs you outlined without a hitch. I use it as secondary
> workstation all of the time. Here are some screenshots running Dropline
> Gnome on Slackware 12.0:
>
Thanks Doug Mayne.
What I didn't catch the first time, but I do now, is that you can put
a SATA drive in an old Pentium II computer if you get a SATA
controller card, which I see eBay has, for a PCI slot, listed for
about USD $15 plus shipping. Good idea.
RL
General Schvantzkopf
Ray,
Before you start throwing money at an old machine take into consideration
how cheap a bottom of the line new machine is. If you look on pricewatch
under PC no OS you will see dual core machines of as little as $176.
That's a 40G drive and 512M of RAM but if you are willing to spend $200
you can up that to an 80G drive an 1G of RAM. With 1G of RAM you'll have
a pretty fast Linux box.
http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTAM2A64X242NOW
raylopez99
wrote:
>
> Before you start throwing money at an old machine take into consideration
> how cheap a bottom of the line new machine is. If you look on pricewatch
> under PC no OS you will see dual core machines of as little as $176.
> That's a 40G drive and 512M of RAM but if you are willing to spend $200
> you can up that to an 80G drive an 1G of RAM. With 1G of RAM you'll have
> a pretty fast Linux box.
>
> http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTAM2A64X242NOW
I know, but the target user (not me) is a cheapskate. Besides, I like
challenges, and this is a challenge.
RL
Andrew Halliwell
> Before you start throwing money at an old machine take into consideration
> how cheap a bottom of the line new machine is. If you look on pricewatch
> under PC no OS you will see dual core machines of as little as $176.
> That's a 40G drive and 512M of RAM but if you are willing to spend $200
> you can up that to an 80G drive an 1G of RAM. With 1G of RAM you'll have
> a pretty fast Linux box.
General... Please... Let him (claim to) waste his money.
He's a troll, a self confessed troll and microsoft share-holder who's been
bashing this same thread about for over a year.
He never had any intention of doing what he claims. And even if he SAYS he's
installed linux FINALLY, he'll only come back with a plethora of problems
he's found by googling the newsgroups and forums.
General Schvantzkopf
Ray if you have parts scavenged from other machines that's one thing,
buying new parts for an old machine is completely different. Mo matter
what you do to an old system it's still going to be very slow, you can't
paint a turtle Ferrari red and expect it to run any faster. You could end
up spending more money on the old system then you would on a new one. A
PII maxes out at 384M of RAM, PIIIs maxed out at 512M of RAM, and in both
cases new RAM for those boxes is much more expensive then new DDR2 RAM.
The cheapest Promise SATA controllers cost about the same as an entry
level motherboard. A drive is a drive so it's cost will be the same in a
new machine as it would in an old one.
Here is another cheap system. It comes with a terrible Linux distro but
that proves it's Linux compatibility. My business partner has one that he
uses as a file server. I put CentOS on it for him and played around with
it a little. It's pretty decent for something that costs so little. It's
also absolutely quiet because the whole box consumes about 20W.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
Other people have suggested that you look for thrown away machines. An
old P4 would be a much better choice than a PII, and that's the sort of
system that people are throwing out these days.
raylopez99
wrote:
> Here is another cheap system. It comes with a terrible Linux distro but
> that proves it's Linux compatibility. My business partner has one that he
> uses as a file server. I put CentOS on it for him and played around with
> it a little. It's pretty decent for something that costs so little. It's
> also absolutely quiet because the whole box consumes about 20W.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
Thanks General, you are very informative as usual--I didn't understand
until now that old chips max out on RAM, but it makes sense, address
space and all.
And the newegg review (first one, below) on the $189 machine below is
consistent with what you say--for some reason the Linux gOS sucks, why
I don't know (I assumed all Linux versions are the same, and it's the
applications that come bundled with them and/or the installation
software that's different, but maybe I'm wrong).
I'll keep this option as a suggestion to recommend to the target user,
but, I'm pretty sure she will reject it (she is a cheapskate--worships
this author that writes books on how you can save money by going
through people's trash and using stuff they throw out and/or recycling
it--don't get me started, LOL.)
RL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
EVEREX gPC2 TC2512 VIA C7-D 1.5GHz 512MB DDR2 80GB VIA UniChrome Pro
Linux gOS V2 - Retail
Linux gOS included
Nice Computer for the Price
Reviewed By: on 7/3/2008
Tech Level: average - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg.com
Pros: I bought this for my father who just uses it for internet and
web browsing, its perfect for that kind of use.
Cons: I find Linux gOS a bit......of a pain in the but't. Its not as
easy as Vista or XP and it does have its issues. In fact, this is the
only problem we have had with this computer so far, is Linux gOS.
Other Thoughts: Runs fine for what my father needs.Heck its almost
faster at loading into Linux than my $4000 custom desktop.
General Schvantzkopf
> On Jul 19, 7:51 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Here is another cheap system. It comes with a terrible Linux distro but
>> that proves it's Linux compatibility. My business partner has one that
>> he uses as a file server. I put CentOS on it for him and played around
>> with it a little. It's pretty decent for something that costs so
>> little. It's also absolutely quiet because the whole box consumes about
>> 20W.
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
>
> Thanks General, you are very informative as usual--I didn't understand
> until now that old chips max out on RAM, but it makes sense, address
> space and all.
>
> And the newegg review (first one, below) on the $189 machine below is
> consistent with what you say--for some reason the Linux gOS sucks, why I
> don't know (I assumed all Linux versions are the same, and it's the
> applications that come bundled with them and/or the installation
> software that's different, but maybe I'm wrong).
>
> I'll keep this option as a suggestion to recommend to the target user,
> but, I'm pretty sure she will reject it (she is a cheapskate--worships
> this author that writes books on how you can save money by going through
> people's trash and using stuff they throw out and/or recycling it--don't
> get me started, LOL.)
>
> RL
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883118005
You can't go through the trash for a computer anymore, it's illegal to
throw them out. But you could go to your town's recycling day and offer
to take peoples old machines off there hands for nothing, my town charges
you a $5 fee for recycling a computer and $10 for a monitor, so people
will be glad to hand you there old machine for nothing.