Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
should get for an old computer.  I've asked this question six times so
far and each time I get conflicting and confusing answers.  Is Linux
so complicated?  Are there really 100 different mutually incompatible
distros?  I think not, but from the posts here it seems that way.  I
thought the kernel is the same across all distros, and only the
drivers/installation and bundled apps are different, right?

Target machine: Pentium II, with 512 MB RAM, a 2 or 3 GB HD (might
upgrade to 40 GB), and a Hayes compatible dial-up modem and modern HP
inkjet printer.

Apps needed: Open Office (if it can export to .RTF format or .DOC
format so a Word reader can read it), Adobe (I can download later--do
they have a Linux version?), and a web explorer (what is a good one
for a n00b?  Mozilla?).

That's it.  So far, people have suggested DSL, Arch, Vector and one
other one I got but forgot--was in Ubuntu?  I forget now.  Maybe Puppy
Linux.

But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros
are good, tell me why.  I would like to spend no more than a few hours
doing the installation.  Once, last year, somebody suggested "Debian"
I think it was, and their website says they supported even mainframes
like the IBM 360.  The trouble was, the distro came in 24 CDs or such--
way too much information. BTW the target machine only has a floppy
drive and a CD ROM drive--no DVD.

Yes, I'm serious.  I know I flame a lot, but this is serious.  I know
about the boy that cried wolf, thanks.

Sincerely,

Ray Lopez

On Wednesday 16 July 2008 20:42, raylopez99 wrote:

> That's it.  So far, people have suggested DSL, Arch, Vector and one
> other one I got but forgot--was in Ubuntu?  I forget now.  Maybe Puppy
> Linux.
> 
> But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
> one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros
> are good, tell me why.  I would like to spend no more than a few hours
> doing the installation.

This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead of
wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able to
try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.

On Jul 16, 11:57=A0am, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
>
> This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead o=
f
> wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able t=
o
> try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.

This is funny, but not helpful.

I really am trying to use this group for information, but it's like
beating my head against the wall.  Why do I do it?  Perhaps because it
feels so good when I stop!

But seriously, do you have an answer?  I suspect not.  Why?  Because
Linux evolves over time, and 1996, when this PC was born, was a long
time ago.  Linux distros today are not designed for old machines that
are not even good doorstops.  You need, like Vista today, a powerful
PC to fully appreciate Linux.  So, Linux is a 'mainstream' OS in the
sense it's made "for Americans".  No wonder then the Nigerians a while
ago scrapped their planned purchase of Linux and switched to Microsoft
Windows.  If you need modern hardware for Linux, why bother with Linux
at all then?  Just get a modern OS like Vista.

But for this target user--they are very technophobic and don't like to
throw anything away--waste they call it--I though Linux _might_ be a
good OS, if, after changing to a new HD, it's still slow (it's running
Win 2000 right now).  So I thought this group would give me a straight
answer--but NOOOO.  Instead, they use the opportunity to flame me.
Once in a while a poster, like TJ and a few others, give a good
answer, but it turns out after you inquire some more that they're
either basing their answers on hearsay (which is no good to me--it's
like me saying "I heard from a friend that Vista is terrible!"--that's
not credible, and, in fact, since I use Vista, Vista is not terrible
if you have modern hardware), or, it turns out their machine is top of
the line and super modern--well of course they love Linux, because
their hardware is super modern.  Try running your apps on a Pentium II
and then tell me how much you love your PC.

Sorry for the long post, but just trying to get real here.

RL

* raylopez99 wrote in comp.os.linux.misc:

[...]

> Try running your apps on a Pentium II
> and then tell me how much you love your PC.
> 
> Sorry for the long post, but just trying to get real here.
> 

You can easily run Linux on a PII and be perfectly happy with the 
perfomance, including a GUI if you so desire. Can you do that with Vista?

You are so far from getting real I might just call your post a fairy tale.

Yeah, Yeah, IHBT, so?

-- 
David

On Wednesday 16 July 2008 21:04, raylopez99 wrote:

> But seriously, do you have an answer?  I suspect not.  Why?  Because
> Linux evolves over time, and 1996, when this PC was born, was a long
> time ago.  Linux distros today are not designed for old machines that
> are not even good doorstops.  You need, like Vista today, a powerful
> PC to fully appreciate Linux.  So, Linux is a 'mainstream' OS in the
> sense it's made "for Americans".  No wonder then the Nigerians a while
> ago scrapped their planned purchase of Linux and switched to Microsoft
> Windows.  If you need modern hardware for Linux, why bother with Linux
> at all then?  Just get a modern OS like Vista.

No. What you say seems to imply that linux can not run on old hardware,
which is not true. You have been given a list of linux distros that do run
on old hardware, certainly not worse than windows 2000; you would just have
to try them, and decide for yourself.
 
> But for this target user--they are very technophobic and don't like to
> throw anything away--waste they call it--I though Linux _might_ be a
> good OS, if, after changing to a new HD, it's still slow (it's running
> Win 2000 right now). 

Your attitude seems even more technofobic, given that you don't even spend a
few hours (in your own interest) to try out for yourself what others have
already suggested to you.

> So I thought this group would give me a straight answer--but NOOOO.

Of course no. YOU have to decide. YOU know what your requirements are. YOU
know what can (or cannot) be considered satisfactory. But without getting
your hands dirty (which, again, would have taken *far*, *far* less time
than this comedy), you won't be able to decide, and will continue to depend
on what others say. 

> Instead, they use the opportunity to flame me. 

And rightly so.

> Once in a while a poster, like TJ and a few others, give a good
> answer, but it turns out after you inquire some more that they're
> either basing their answers on hearsay (which is no good to me--it's
> like me saying "I heard from a friend that Vista is terrible!"--that's
> not credible, and, in fact, since I use Vista, Vista is not terrible
> if you have modern hardware), or, it turns out their machine is top of
> the line and super modern--well of course they love Linux, because
> their hardware is super modern.  Try running your apps on a Pentium II
> and then tell me how much you love your PC.

You do realize that, even if the answer did not come from hearsay, but
instead from direct experience, what a single person suggests might be
completely inadequate for you, while completely satisfactory for him, don't
you?

SINNER wrote:
> * raylopez99 wrote in comp.os.linux.misc:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Try running your apps on a Pentium II
>> and then tell me how much you love your PC.
>>
>> Sorry for the long post, but just trying to get real here.
>>
> 
> You can easily run Linux on a PII and be perfectly happy with the 
> perfomance, including a GUI if you so desire. Can you do that with Vista?

I do not know, but I do know you could run Red Hat Linux 7.3 on a 166 MHz
Pentium (plain from 1996) with 64 Megabits RAM. It would work better with
128 Megabits RAM. I had a 4.3 Gigabyte hard drive on it. I even ran X and
Gnome on it with, I believe, Evolution desktop. Quite nice, actually.

It was really too slow to run RHL 9 on it though.
> 
> You are so far from getting real I might just call your post a fairy tale.
> 
> Yeah, Yeah, IHBT, so?
> 


-- 
  .~.  Jean-David Beyer          Registered Linux User 85642.
  /V\  PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A         Registered Machine   241939.
 /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey    http://counter.li.org
 ^^-^^ 15:25:01 up 21 days, 45 min, 4 users, load average: 4.02, 4.16, 4.24

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 16, 11:57�am, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead of
>> wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able to
>> try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.
> 
> This is funny, but not helpful.

And long may it remain so
You don't deserve help. (not technical help anyway. you might need
psychiatric help though)
-- 
|                          |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack|
|  spike1@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.|

pk wrote:

> On Wednesday 16 July 2008 20:42, raylopez99 wrote:
> 
>> T
> 
> This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead of
> wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able to
> try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.
> 


                                 ___________________
                          /|  /|  |                  |
                          ||__||  |      Please do   |
                         /   O O\__         NOT      |
                        /          \     feed the    |
                       /      \     \     trolls     |
                      /   _    \     \ ______________|
                     /    |\____\     \     ||
                    /     | | | |\____/     ||
                   /       \|_|_|/   \    __||
                  /  /  \            |____| ||
                 /   |   | /|        |      --|
                 |   |   |//         |____  --|
          * _    |  |_|_|_|          |     \-/
       *-- _--\ _ \     //           |
         /  _     \\ _ //   |        /
       *  /   \_ /- | -     |       |
         *      ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

Thank you ;-)

-- 
|_|0|_| Marti T. van Lin
|_|_|0| http://ml2mst.googlepages.com
|0|0|0| http://ubuntusteunpuntdaalhof.googlepages.com

pk wrote:

> On Wednesday 16 July 2008 21:04, raylopez99 wrote:
> 
>> B 
> 
> Your attitude seems even more technofobic, given that you don't even spend a
> few hours (in your own interest) to try out for yourself what others have
> already suggested to you.

[Snipped]

Please ladies and gentlemen, simply Killfile raylopez99. He's nothing
but a retarded flaming troll and a liar. His only goal is to show "how
Linux sux".

Please save your energy for something constructive.

Cheers

-- 
|_|0|_| Marti T. van Lin
|_|_|0| http://ml2mst.googlepages.com
|0|0|0| http://ubuntusteunpuntdaalhof.googlepages.com

And for the eighteenth time - since you won't take the answers given to 
you, what EXACTLY do you want or expect?

You don't seem to be serious about anything at all.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.  I've asked this question six times so
> far and each time I get conflicting and confusing answers.  Is Linux so
> complicated?  Are there really 100 different mutually incompatible
> distros?  I think not, but from the posts here it seems that way.  I
> thought the kernel is the same across all distros, and only the
> drivers/installation and bundled apps are different, right?

Wrong. Different versions and different distributions use different kernel 
versions compiled with different options. Many distributions also include 
their own kernel patches.

For the record, according to distrowatch.com, there are approximately 350 
active Linux distributions.

> 
> Target machine: Pentium II, with 512 MB RAM, a 2 or 3 GB HD (might
> upgrade to 40 GB), and a Hayes compatible dial-up modem and modern HP
> inkjet printer.
> 
> Apps needed: Open Office (if it can export to .RTF format or .DOC format
> so a Word reader can read it), Adobe (I can download later--do they have
> a Linux version?), and a web explorer (what is a good one for a n00b? 
> Mozilla?).

openoffice and abiword (recommended because it is smaller and faster) are 
included or available in virtually every modern Linux distribution. Once 
again, the exact version of oo may vary from distro to distro. IF you 
refer to adobe reader (certainly not clear - you only refer to 'adobe'), 
yes there is a Linux version which can indeed be downloaded from Adobe. 
You could also use xpdf or evince instead - Linux is about CHOICE. I'm not 
familiar with the term 'web explorer' - do you have MS on the brain and 
mean 'web browser'? If so, you could certainly use mozilla. Or Firefox. Or 
Opera - or even IE running under WINE. My own preference is Epiphany.

> 
> That's it.  So far, people have suggested DSL, Arch, Vector and one
> other one I got but forgot--was in Ubuntu?  I forget now.  Maybe Puppy
> Linux.
> 
> But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
> one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros are
> good, tell me why.  I would like to spend no more than a few hours doing
> the installation.  Once, last year, somebody suggested "Debian" I think
> it was, and their website says they supported even mainframes like the
> IBM 360.  The trouble was, the distro came in 24 CDs or such-- way too
> much information. BTW the target machine only has a floppy drive and a
> CD ROM drive--no DVD.

No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There is no 
'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist. There is 
not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen to use Ubuntu 
most of the time on most of my machines. I also run Gentoo on my mini-itx 
box because I can optimize it for that particular (underpowered) hardware. 
I've also used Elive on older machines and use Debian on other machines. 
Depends on what I'm doing on what hardware and what is needed from it. 
You're going to have to make a decision because folks cannot make it for 
you. Get off your freaking can and TRY something. It is not difficult to 
do.

> 
> Yes, I'm serious.  I know I flame a lot, but this is serious.  I know
> about the boy that cried wolf, thanks.

I doubt it. Else you would have tried five distros by now.

> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ray Lopez

ray <ray@zianet.com>:

> [a long response]

He's a troll, so consider your posting a waste of time, and if feeling like
responding to such a person next time, just hold on, take a breath, have
another sip of coffee and ... do something better ;)

-- 
Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.
                                      (Rosa Luxemburg)

raylopez99 wrote:
> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.

Any distro that you hand over to a competent person to install.

Let's face it Ray, you'd struggle to install your forefinger up your own 
rectum.

raylopez99 wrote:
> On Jul 16, 11:57 am, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
>> This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead of
>> wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able to
>> try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.
> 
> This is funny, but not helpful.
> 
> I really am trying to use this group for information,

Liar. You already admitted you area troll and enjoy it.

ml2mst wrote:
> pk wrote:
> 
>> On Wednesday 16 July 2008 21:04, raylopez99 wrote:
>>
>>> B 
>> Your attitude seems even more technofobic, given that you don't even spend a
>> few hours (in your own interest) to try out for yourself what others have
>> already suggested to you.
> 
> [Snipped]
> 
> Please ladies and gentlemen, simply Killfile raylopez99. He's nothing
> but a retarded flaming troll and a liar. His only goal is to show "how
> Linux sux".
> 

NO, that is not his goal at all. His goal is to keep a thread running 
indefintely to see how many Linux fanboys will rise to the bait if he 
manages to disturb their impression that Linux is the next best thing to 
God, apart from Naomi Campbell.


> Please save your energy for something constructive.

Always good advice..

> 
> Cheers
> 

ray wrote:

>Wrong. 

When do we stop feeding this troll?

chrisv wrote:

> ray wrote:
> 
>>Wrong.
> 
> When do we stop feeding this troll?

More to the point perhaps, when do we cut their cross-posting?

On Jul 16, 12:15=A0pm, SINNER <arcade.mas...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> You can easily run Linux on a PII and be perfectly happy with the
> perfomance, including a GUI if you so desire.
>

What distro Sinner?

RL

In comp.os.linux.misc raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.  I've asked this question six times so
> far and each time I get conflicting and confusing answers.  Is Linux
> so complicated?  Are there really 100 different mutually incompatible
> distros?  I think not, but from the posts here it seems that way.  I
> thought the kernel is the same across all distros, and only the
> drivers/installation and bundled apps are different, right?
> 
> Target machine: Pentium II, with 512 MB RAM, a 2 or 3 GB HD (might
> upgrade to 40 GB), and a Hayes compatible dial-up modem and modern HP
> inkjet printer.
> 
> Apps needed: Open Office (if it can export to .RTF format or .DOC
> format so a Word reader can read it), Adobe (I can download later--do
> they have a Linux version?), and a web explorer (what is a good one
> for a n00b?  Mozilla?).
> 
> That's it.  So far, people have suggested DSL, Arch, Vector and one
> other one I got but forgot--was in Ubuntu?  I forget now.  Maybe Puppy
> Linux.
> 
> But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
> one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros
> are good, tell me why.  I would like to spend no more than a few hours
> doing the installation.  Once, last year, somebody suggested "Debian"
> I think it was, and their website says they supported even mainframes
> like the IBM 360.  The trouble was, the distro came in 24 CDs or such--
> way too much information. BTW the target machine only has a floppy
> drive and a CD ROM drive--no DVD.

I've been successfully running Slackware 11.0 on a
Pentium II 450MHz, with 384MB and a 32GB hard drive.
Desktops like KDE are too heavyweight for that chip,
and I had to ressurrect fvwm95 from the "pasture"
directory on the cd.  Otherwise, you can just do a
no-brainer "full install" if you get a slightly larger
hard drive.  40GB is probably too big, as your 1996 bios
will hang.  Those older 40GB drives generally have
a CLJ (cylinder limitation jumper) to accommodate bioses
that can't handle drives beyond 32GB.  Make absolutely
sure you set that jumper -- the machine will just hang
unrecoverably if you don't.  linuxcdshop.com has the current
slackware 12.1 on cd's for a few bucks.  I suppose that
ought to work as easily as 11.0, but I haven't personally
upgraded yet.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

On Jul 16, 12:27=A0pm, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 July 2008 21:04, raylopez99 wrote:

>
> You do realize that, even if the answer did not come from hearsay, but
> instead from direct experience, what a single person suggests might be
> completely inadequate for you, while completely satisfactory for him, don=
't
> you?

Look, I'm not here to poke holes in your logic, which has more holes
than swiss chess.

Just tell me what distro to use, pk invalid.  What are you, a pink
invalid in some wheelchair?  Sorry to hear that.  But let's keep it on
topic, drama queen.

RL

On Jul 16, 12:31=A0pm, Jean-David Beyer <jeandav...@verizon.net> wrote:

>
> I do not know, but I do know you could run Red Hat Linux 7.3 on a 166 MHz
> Pentium (plain from 1996) with 64 Megabits RAM. It would work better with
> 128 Megabits RAM. I had a 4.3 Gigabyte hard drive on it. I even ran X and
> Gnome on it with, I believe, Evolution desktop. Quite nice, actually.
>

Oh gawd, these people are hopeless.

Jean, is this a recommendation for Red Hat?  Do you think RHAT would
run on this target machine?

Thanks in advance (I hope),

Ray

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:52:55 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> raylopez99 wrote:
>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
>> should get for an old computer.
> 
> Any distro that you hand over to a competent person to install.
> 
> Let's face it Ray, you'd struggle to install your forefinger up your own
> rectum.

<http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/2008/01/raylopez99-troll.html?showComment=1216241880000#c3104258204752332784>

    raylopez99 is not only utter stupid, he's a liar too.

    He claims to be "very rich", but then why is he whining for months
    about a prehistoric machine like a Pentium II?

    Beside that, he continually brags about his dial up modem. If he's
    so rich, then why can't he afford a broadband connection?

    He also claims to be a "rocket scientist" with an IQ of 140, but
    his posts speak for themselves.

    In contrast to his claims, this is a more realistic profile of
    raylopez99:

    * he's cheep;
    * lives in a trailer park (far from the civilized world);
    * has an IQ <80 and a inferiority complex;
    * possibly a Hadron Quark or TAB sock.

On Jul 16, 1:20=A0pm, ml2mst <ml2...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please save your energy for something constructive.
>
> Cheers
>
> --
> |_|0|_| Marti T. van Lin
> |_|_|0|http://ml2mst.googlepages.com
> |0|0|0|http://ubuntusteunpuntdaalhof.googlepages.com

This is your second post in this thread that added nothing of any
value.  Even if I was a troll in this thread, the days of bandwidth
limited Internet ended well over 10 years ago.  So kill file yourself.
Or drop file and go away.

RL

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.  I've asked this question six times so
> far and each time I get conflicting and confusing answers.  Is Linux so
> complicated?  Are there really 100 different mutually incompatible
> distros?  I think not, but from the posts here it seems that way.  I
> thought the kernel is the same across all distros, and only the
> drivers/installation and bundled apps are different, right?
> 
> Target machine: Pentium II, with 512 MB RAM, a 2 or 3 GB HD (might
> upgrade to 40 GB), and a Hayes compatible dial-up modem and modern HP
> inkjet printer.
> 
> Apps needed: Open Office (if it can export to .RTF format or .DOC format
> so a Word reader can read it), Adobe (I can download later--do they have
> a Linux version?), and a web explorer (what is a good one for a n00b? 
> Mozilla?).
> 
> That's it.  So far, people have suggested DSL, Arch, Vector and one
> other one I got but forgot--was in Ubuntu?  I forget now.  Maybe Puppy
> Linux.
> 
> But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
> one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros are
> good, tell me why.  I would like to spend no more than a few hours doing
> the installation.  Once, last year, somebody suggested "Debian" I think
> it was, and their website says they supported even mainframes like the
> IBM 360.  The trouble was, the distro came in 24 CDs or such-- way too
> much information. BTW the target machine only has a floppy drive and a
> CD ROM drive--no DVD.
> 
> Yes, I'm serious.  I know I flame a lot, but this is serious.  I know
> about the boy that cried wolf, thanks.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ray Lopez

Ray,

I'm going to answer you one last time. Your machine has enough memory so 
that you can run any distro, you don't need a crippled one like DSL or 
Puppy. You are on dial up and you don't a have a DVD so that makes the 
decision easy, you should install CentOS5.2. You can't use Fedora or 
Ubuntu without broadband, the number of updates will kill you. You also 
need a distro that still has a full install on CDs, CentOS does, Fedora 
doesn't, I don't know about Ubuntu but it's usually installed from a 
LiveCD which isn't good enough for you because the LiveCD is a minimal 
install, it assumes that you will install the majority of you apps from 
the web which is fine for people with broadband, it sucks for people on 
dialup.

Cent0S 5.2 is Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.2. It's a little dated looking 
but it's completely stable. It also needs minimal updates, a couple of 
megabytes a month which you can do on dial up. It comes on a set of CDs 
that include everything so you won't have to do any installs from the web.

You can by a set of CentOS 5.2 CDs for $9

http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/os2.html?var_distribution=CentOS

On Jul 16, 1:40=A0pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:

> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There is n=
o
> 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist. There is
> not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen to use Ubunt=
u
> most of the time on most of my machines. I also run Gentoo on my mini-itx
> box because I can optimize it for that particular (underpowered) hardware=
..
> I've also used Elive on older machines and use Debian on other machines.
> Depends on what I'm doing on what hardware and what is needed from it.
> You're going to have to make a decision because folks cannot make it for
> you. Get off your freaking can and TRY something. It is not difficult to
> do.
>

Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.

C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
Gentoo?  What?

RL

On Jul 16, 2:23=A0pm, "Sebastian \"lunar\" Wiesner"
<basti.wies...@gmx.net> wrote:

Why don't you surprise us and yourself by recommending a distro?  Why
prolong this thread needlessly?  Recommend something you f fool!

RL

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, raylopez99
<raylopez99@yahoo.com>
 wrote
on Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:05 -0700 (PDT)
<2d792c9d-7ef1-4bff-ae89-d7d3548a4165@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jul 16, 1:40�pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>
>> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There is no
>> 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist. There is
>> not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen to use Ubuntu
>> most of the time on most of my machines. I also run Gentoo on my mini-itx
>> box because I can optimize it for that particular (underpowered) hardware.
>> I've also used Elive on older machines and use Debian on other machines.
>> Depends on what I'm doing on what hardware and what is needed from it.
>> You're going to have to make a decision because folks cannot make it for
>> you. Get off your freaking can and TRY something. It is not difficult to
>> do.
>>
>
> Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
> up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
> 'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.

Then there you have it; the correct distro is Windows 2000, which is
what was on the machine in the first place. :-P

Unless you really want to answer my question as to why you're looking
for a distro for what appears to be an 8+-year-old machine.

>
> C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
> Gentoo?  What?

Were the user more expert in things Unix, I'd recommend Gentoo.
As it is, I won't recommend anything unless you want to play IT
for this individual.

>
> RL
>
>


-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Is it cheaper to learn Linux, or to hire someone
to fix your Windows problems?
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:23:23 +0200, Sebastian \"lunar\" Wiesner wrote:

> ray <ray@zianet.com>:
> 
>> [a long response]
> 
> He's a troll, so consider your posting a waste of time, and if feeling
> like responding to such a person next time, just hold on, take a breath,
> have another sip of coffee and ... do something better ;)

Aye - but he certainly can't claim no one took him seriously.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:05 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 16, 1:40 pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
> 
>> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There is
>> no 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist. There
>> is not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen to use
>> Ubuntu most of the time on most of my machines. I also run Gentoo on my
>> mini-itx box because I can optimize it for that particular
>> (underpowered) hardware. I've also used Elive on older machines and use
>> Debian on other machines. Depends on what I'm doing on what hardware
>> and what is needed from it. You're going to have to make a decision
>> because folks cannot make it for you. Get off your freaking can and TRY
>> something. It is not difficult to do.
>>
>>
> Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
> up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
> 'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.
> 
> C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
> Gentoo?  What?
> 
> RL

What.

* Sebastian "lunar" Wiesner peremptorily fired off this memo:

> ray <ray@zianet.com>:
>
>> [a long response]
>
> He's a troll, so consider your posting a waste of time, and if feeling like
> responding to such a person next time, just hold on, take a breath, have
> another sip of coffee and ... do something better ;)

I can't wait for:

   Subject: For the SEVEN-HUNDREdTH time, please, what distro for an old
   computer?

-- 
QOTD:
	"Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency
	on my part."

In comp.os.linux.advocacy Linonut <linonut@bollsouth.nut> wrote:
> * Sebastian "lunar" Wiesner peremptorily fired off this memo:
> 
>> ray <ray@zianet.com>:
>>
>>> [a long response]
>>
>> He's a troll, so consider your posting a waste of time, and if feeling like
>> responding to such a person next time, just hold on, take a breath, have
>> another sip of coffee and ... do something better ;)
> 
> I can't wait for:
> 
>   Subject: For the SEVEN-HUNDREdTH time, please, what distro for an old
>   computer?
 
By then we'll all be on 4th generation positronic nets with quantum cores.
And he'll still be trying to shoehorn the latest linux into that old PII.

Or rather, trying to convince people to help him to.
-- 
|   spike1@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              |

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, ray
<ray@zianet.com>
 wrote
on 17 Jul 2008 00:23:45 GMT
<6e7hogF5co35U2@mid.individual.net>:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:05 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>
>> On Jul 16, 1:40�pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There is
>>> no 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist. There
>>> is not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen to use
>>> Ubuntu most of the time on most of my machines. I also run Gentoo on my
>>> mini-itx box because I can optimize it for that particular
>>> (underpowered) hardware. I've also used Elive on older machines and use
>>> Debian on other machines. Depends on what I'm doing on what hardware
>>> and what is needed from it. You're going to have to make a decision
>>> because folks cannot make it for you. Get off your freaking can and TRY
>>> something. It is not difficult to do.
>>>
>>>
>> Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
>> up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
>> 'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.
>> 
>> C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
>> Gentoo?  What?
>> 
>> RL
>
> What.

No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
interesting-looking link:

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Perhaps this will help you?  If nothing else, you can
ask *it* the question 8 times... :-)

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Useless C++ Programming Idea #992398129:
void f(unsigned u) { if(u < 0) ... }
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.  I've asked this question six times so
> far and each time I get conflicting and confusing answers.

Of course you have conflicting suggestions.
Multiple solutions work.
And you refuse to try any of them.

Get off your ass and TRY them.
Boot up a LiveCD or pendrive distro and give it a spin.

And if you THEN have a problem, DESCRIBE IT. It can be fixed.

Until then, go away. Go far far away.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jul 16, 11:57 am, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> This is funny. How long have your previous six threads gone on? Instead of
>> wasting time here, during all that time you would easily have been able to
>> try all those distros (and probably others too) for yourself.
>
> This is funny, but not helpful.

Because it assumes you will make an effort.

However you show no evidence of actually doing anything.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:

> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, ray
> <ray@zianet.com>
>  wrote
> on 17 Jul 2008 00:23:45 GMT
> <6e7hogF5co35U2@mid.individual.net>:
>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:05 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>>
>>> On Jul 16, 1:40 pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There
>>>> is no 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist.
>>>> There is not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen
>>>> to use Ubuntu most of the time on most of my machines. I also run
>>>> Gentoo on my mini-itx box because I can optimize it for that
>>>> particular (underpowered) hardware. I've also used Elive on older
>>>> machines and use Debian on other machines. Depends on what I'm doing
>>>> on what hardware and what is needed from it. You're going to have to
>>>> make a decision because folks cannot make it for you. Get off your
>>>> freaking can and TRY something. It is not difficult to do.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
>>> up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
>>> 'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.
>>> 
>>> C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
>>> Gentoo?  What?
>>> 
>>> RL
>>
>> What.
> 
> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
> interesting-looking link:
> 
> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
> 
> Perhaps this will help you?  If nothing else, you can ask *it* the
> question 8 times... :-)

Well, what can I tell you. I gotta have my consultant fee in advance 
before I'll tell the sucker what to install.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jul 16, 12:31 pm, Jean-David Beyer <jeandav...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I do not know, but I do know you could run Red Hat Linux 7.3 on a 166 MHz
>> Pentium (plain from 1996) with 64 Megabits RAM. It would work better with
>> 128 Megabits RAM. I had a 4.3 Gigabyte hard drive on it. I even ran X and
>> Gnome on it with, I believe, Evolution desktop. Quite nice, actually.
>>
>
> Oh gawd, these people are hopeless.
>


Yeah - it's really tough when you have choices, eh?
A choice requires you to think, or experiment, or guess.
Sounds like too much work for you.

raylopez99 wrote:
> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> should get for an old computer.

I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you completed.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jul 16, 2:23 pm, "Sebastian \"lunar\" Wiesner"
> <basti.wies...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Why don't you surprise us and yourself by recommending a distro?  Why
> prolong this thread needlessly?  Recommend something you f fool!

Don't bother. Ray Lopez won't try it anyway.

He has a monolithic Microsoft mind. He wants an unanimous vote for a
single distro, as if it were a Microsoft product.

Because there are 40+ solutions, none can possible be correct.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:

> raylopez99 wrote:
>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
>> should get for an old computer.
> 
> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
> completed.

Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:

> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
> interesting-looking link:
> 
> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/


That's pretty neat.  It's good for trolls but good for people trying to 
choose a distro, too.



-Thufir

On Jul 16, 4:21=A0pm, JohnF <j...@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:

> I've been successfully running Slackware 11.0 on a
> Pentium II 450MHz, with 384MB and a 32GB hard drive.
> Desktops like KDE are too heavyweight for that chip,
> and I had to ressurrect fvwm95 from the "pasture"
> directory on the cd. =A0Otherwise, you can just do a
> no-brainer "full install" if you get a slightly larger
> hard drive. =A040GB is probably too big, as your 1996 bios
> will hang. =A0Those older 40GB drives generally have
> a CLJ (cylinder limitation jumper) to accommodate bioses
> that can't handle drives beyond 32GB. =A0Make absolutely
> sure you set that jumper -- the machine will just hang
> unrecoverably if you don't.

I thought if I get a new controller card (the drive I have in mind is
a 40 GB drive, IDE) then the BIOS does not matter, right?  If you know
please tell me.


> =A0linuxcdshop.com has the current
> slackware 12.1 on cd's for a few bucks. =A0I suppose that
> ought to work as easily as 11.0, but I haven't personally
> upgraded yet.

OK, but I'm trying to do this without having to pay money.  But I'll
keep 'slackware 12.1' in mind.

Thanks,
RL

On Jul 16, 4:28=A0pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Ray,
>
> I'm going to answer you one last time. Your machine has enough memory so
> that you can run any distro, you don't need a crippled one like DSL or
> Puppy.

General, I must have missed your post where you answered me for the
first time, because what you say below is very interesting and news to
me.  And thanks for letting me know DSL and Puppy are crippled
versions of Linux (!!!).

> You are on dial up and you don't a have a DVD so that makes the
> decision easy, you should install CentOS5.2.

For CentOS5.2, I checked http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/sc=
reenshots/index.php?os=3Dcentos
and some of the public download sites at: http://www.kernel.org/, but
could not find where you can download a single .ISO file (I did find
where apparently you can compile some source code to do the same
thing, and, while I do have MSFT Visual Studio 2005 compiler,
compiling is tricky with all the different swtiches, so I rather just
download a complete ISO file ready to go).

Can I bother you one last time (and thanks for your help so far), *if*
it's easy to do, for you to give me the link to the .ISO file?  Or, as
I suspect from the CheapBytes store, no free ISO file exists, but you
have to order from CheapBytes? (perhaps the developers of CentOS5.2
want it that way).  I might just have to spend the $0.99 + shipping
(shipping is usually $10) to pay for it, if not.  Thanks in advance
General.

> You can't use Fedora or
> Ubuntu without broadband, the number of updates will kill you.

THIS is what I'm talking about, for the rest of you reading this
thread.  THIS is why I posted.  Stuff like THIS you cannot find in the
'official' propaganda on LInux.  I totally agree with this statement
by General--it sounds so probable.  Fedora and the beloved Ubuntu are
MODERN distros for MODERN machines, in the same way Vista is a modern
OS for modern hardware.  And to think--the rest of you have been
pushing your favorite (modern) distro on me, as well as 'crippled'
OSes like DSL and Puppy. SHAME ON YOU!  Is this how you treat a newbie
who genuinely wants to load Linux (for a friend--I myself, as a highly
paid professional, would never risk my business with Linux, but we've
discussed this already)?

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!  That's really terrible.

> You also
> need a distro that still has a full install on CDs, CentOS does, Fedora
> doesn't, I don't know about Ubuntu but it's usually installed from a
> LiveCD which isn't good enough for you because the LiveCD is a minimal
> install, it assumes that you will install the majority of you apps from
> the web which is fine for people with broadband, it sucks for people on
> dialup.

GOT IT!!!  This is invaluable advice.  I tried to find out whether
this was true from the poster "TJ" (about LIve CD being a minimal
install) and never got an answer.  I thank you again, this sounds
totally believeable.

>
> Cent0S 5.2 is Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.2. It's a little dated looking
> but it's completely stable. It also needs minimal updates, a couple of
> megabytes a month which you can do on dial up. It comes on a set of CDs
> that include everything so you won't have to do any installs from the web=
..

EXCELLENT!!! I assume Cent0S 5.2 has a GUI (KDE/Knome), and either
comes with some word processor and some web browser, as well as some
sort of way you can easily configure it (using default parameters) for
accessing the target user's ISP via a Hayes compatible dial-up modem.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

>
> You can by a set of CentOS 5.2 CDs for $9
>
> http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/os2.html?var_distribution=3DCentO=
S

$9 more than I want to spend. I don't think you are aware that the
target user refuses to buy anything on their own, and I don't want to
spend a dime on them (long story, but in a nutshell this person--you
might guess she's a woman from the description--is one of those people
who deplores 'waste', and even if I buy something for her, she would
say something like 'oh, you shouldn't waste money, the old machine was
slow but perfectly good!').  I think, seriously, that if Linux (as I
think Linux might be, in my mind's eye) is as I think it is, Linux
might be the perfect OS for her, since she is not a power user, only
uses email and prints a letter on occasion, and so, not being in the
business world (where they share Word .docs, Excel .xls spreadsheets,
PowerPoint .ppt presentations), Linux would be fast and 'virus free'
for her.  That's why I was excited about Linux (until, prior to you
posting, I found how difficult it is to find the right distro).

I thank you again General S.  I'm sorry to bother you.  I will look to
this thread again, to see your reply, and if it's what I am looking
for I will copy and save it (another factor:  target machine is not
nearby, so those people who claim I could have done 10 installs by now
are wrong--plus, if I did 10 installs, I'd have ruined the machine by
now since the distros likely would not mesh with the old hardware).

BTW, do you think CentOS 5.2 fits on a 2 or 3 GB HD?  Or should I
upgrade (if the BIOS allows to a bigger old drive)?

Thank you very much in advance.

RL

On Jul 16, 5:18=A0pm, The Ghost In The Machine
<ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>
> Were the user more expert in things Unix, I'd recommend Gentoo.
> As it is, I won't recommend anything unless you want to play IT
> for this individual.
>

Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
you can't give a good answer.  Since you are a thinking man, reread
the post by General S, and ponder this:

-with a dialup modem, perhaps your beloved Gentoo would take forever
to download the required patches

- more expert in Unix?  I did have RedHat 5? dual booted on NT 10
years ago.  I know about 'mounting' a drive (do you freaks still do
that) and 'virtual' directories, as well as piping and indirection.
And I code for a hobby.

Chew on that, and come back to us with a wordy 2000 character post,
fat man.

RL

On Jul 16, 6:11=A0pm, Andrew Halliwell <spi...@ponder.sky.com> wrote:
> Or rather, trying to convince people to help him to.

And why not help me, Hell Boy?

RL

On Jul 16, 6:29=A0pm, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
> Of course you have conflicting suggestions.
> Multiple solutions work.
> And you refuse to try any of them.
>
> Get off your ass and TRY them.
> Boot up a LiveCD or pendrive distro and give it a spin.
>
> And if you THEN have a problem, DESCRIBE IT. It can be fixed.
>
> Until then, go away. Go far far away.

No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff, then
having to trek to another place like a public library just to post to
this crummy group for advice on how to fix something (recall the
target machine has a dial up modem, and, once I wipe out Windows from
the HD, I'll have no way to even use the modem to communicate).

You didn't read General S's post in this thread, did you?  A dial up
modem is UNSUITABLE for realistically downloading the required patches
from Ubuntu, etc ,and DSL and Puppy are CRIPPLED Linux versions.  Got
it?  Got crippleware, got Linux?  This from an experienced LInux
user!  Do you want to argue with him?  Do so.  But I believe the
General, since, having built many systems from scratch, what he says
sounds believeable.  Even Windows on occasion needs a service pack,
and with a dialup modem that's impractical.  But Windows is tested
extensively before being deployed, so for this old machine, as Ghost
has pointed out, Windows 2000 was perfectly good and installed fine.
It's the antivirus software that's making it slow.  BTW, do I even
need AV s/w for Linux?  A post for another day, but I'm focusing on
figuring out what distro for now.

RL

On Jul 16, 6:41=A0pm, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
> Because there are 40+ solutions, none can possible be correct.

Logic tells you that unless the 40+ solutions are all the same, most
likely none will be correct.  Most will probably target the largest
audience (which in Linux land means dealing with 1% of the market, a
market of WIndows haters and malcontents), and since the target
audience uses modern hardware, will not be suitable for my needs.

Read the post by the General S, who recommends CentOS5.2.

RL

On Jul 16, 9:47=A0pm, thufir <hawat.thu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
> > No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
> > interesting-looking link:
>
> >http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>
> That's pretty neat. =A0It's good for trolls but good for people trying to
> choose a distro, too.
>
> -Thufir

Not true Thufir.

I took the crummy test, and the results below--their first choice for
me was SUSE. Unless General S is lying, which I think not (read his
post in this thread) these distros will take too long to download the
required patches using a dialup modem.  And note CentOS5.x is not even
mentioned. Obviously they are pushing their sponsor's distros.

RL

OpenSuSE	Homepage: http://www.opensuse.org/
Screenshots: The Coding Studio
The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell.
Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free,
easy access to the world's most usable Linux distribution, SUSE Linux.
OpenSUSE delivers everything that Linux developers and enthusiasts
need to get started with Linux. Hosted at opensuse.org, the project
features easy access to builds and releases. It also offers extensive
community development programs for open access to the development
process used to create SUSE Linux.

(This distribution also has a "Live CD" you can use to test the
distribution before you install it)



In addition, we found these matches, sorted by how well they match:
Mandriva
Mandriva Linux (formerly known as Mandrake Linux) was created in 1998
with the goal of making Linux easier to use for everyone. Mandriva
offers all the power and stability of Linux to both individuals and
professional users in an easy-to-use and pleasant environment.

Visit Mandriva at: http://www.mandrivalinux.org/	May not be suitable
because:
Your computer may be too slow

Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a free, open source operating system that starts with the
breadth of Debian and adds regular releases (every six months), a
clear focus on the user and usability (it should "Just Work", TM) and
a commitment to security updates with 18 months of support for every
release. Ubuntu ships with the latest Gnome release as well as a
selection of server and desktop software that makes for a comfortable
desktop experience off a single installation CD.

Visit Ubuntu at: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/	May not be suitable
because:
Your computer may be too slow

Kubuntu
Kubuntu is a user friendly operating system based on KDE, the K
Desktop Environment. With a predictable 6 month release cycle and part
of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu is the GNU/Linux distribution for
everyone.

Visit Kubuntu at: http://www.kubuntu.org/	May not be suitable because:
Your computer may be too slow

Fedora
The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to
build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from
open source software. Fedora Core is built to provide choice. It
includes the latest versions of many software packages, including both
GNOME and KDE desktop environments. Fedora Extras, a repository built
entirely by volunteers, provides thousands more packages, and is
enabled for use by default.

Visit Fedora at: http://fedora.redhat.com/	May not be suitable
because:
May require Linux knowledge

Freespire
Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that
combines the best that free, open source software has to offer
(community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but
also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs,
drivers and applications as they see fit.

Visit Freespire at: http://www.freespire.org/

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 quoth:

> But from these distros above, please PICK ONE and tell me to use that
> one.  Please don't confuse me further.  Or, if none of these distros are
> good, tell me why.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone else hasn't already advised you NOT to
install Linux.

you evidently don't know anything about it. the person you are installing
it for knows even less. if after she begins using it, she encounters a
problem -- even a trivial one --, you won't be able to help. in fact you
might not even be able to tell if the problem is in software or hardware
(which is already, you say, old). instead of her blessings, you will reap
her curses. I can't how this is worth it.

on the other hand, you know Windows so you can trouble-shoot it and speak
with her confidently about issues.

I guess I don't understand the rationale for this risky venture?

Felmon

On Thursday 17 July 2008 01:23, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 16, 12:27 pm, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
>> On Wednesday 16 July 2008 21:04, raylopez99 wrote:
> 
>>
>> You do realize that, even if the answer did not come from hearsay, but
>> instead from direct experience, what a single person suggests might be
>> completely inadequate for you, while completely satisfactory for him,
>> don't you?
> 
> Look, I'm not here to poke holes in your logic, which has more holes
> than swiss chess.
> 
> Just tell me what distro to use, pk invalid.  What are you, a pink
> invalid in some wheelchair?  Sorry to hear that.  But let's keep it on
> topic, drama queen.

Your reply shows clearly that you are a clueless troll. I'm not going to
waste more time with you, asshole (I probably should not have written this
answer either).

*plonk*

raylopez99 wrote:
> On Jul 16, 9:47 pm, thufir <hawat.thu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>>
>>> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
>>> interesting-looking link:
>>> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>> That's pretty neat.  It's good for trolls but good for people trying to
>> choose a distro, too.
>>
>> -Thufir
> 
> Not true Thufir.
> 
> I took the crummy test, and the results below--their first choice for
> me was SUSE. Unless General S is lying, which I think not (read his
> post in this thread) these distros will take too long to download the
> required patches using a dialup modem.  

Not half as long as you hav spent wittering and trolling. I was going to 
say get your finger out and get working, but I realised that you 
probably hadn't the nous to actually get your finger in, in the first place.

raylopez99 wrote:
> On Jul 16, 6:11 pm, Andrew Halliwell <spi...@ponder.sky.com> wrote:
>> Or rather, trying to convince people to help him to.
> 
> And why not help me, Hell Boy?
> 

Because it canmt be done, you are helpless, hopeless, and you still 
haven't managed to insert your finger far enough up your rectum to Feel 
The Power Of Jesus.


> RL

In comp.os.linux.misc raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 16, 6:29�pm, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
>> Of course you have conflicting suggestions.
>> Multiple solutions work.
>> And you refuse to try any of them.
>>
>> Get off your ass and TRY them.
>> Boot up a LiveCD or pendrive distro and give it a spin.
>>
>> And if you THEN have a problem, DESCRIBE IT. It can be fixed.
>>
>> Until then, go away. Go far far away.
> 
> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff, 

Instead, you'll waste a month of dozens of other people's lives trolling
them all for recommendations you have no intention of trying.


> then
> having to trek to another place like a public library just to post to
> this crummy group for advice on how to fix something (recall the
> target machine has a dial up modem, 

Yes, because broadband is just soooooo expensive these days isn't it.
A millionnaire couldn't POSSIBLY afford that.
Someone with 500 quid in the bank can afford it easily, but a
millionnaire..?

Way too mucn money.
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

ray <ray@zianet.com> writes:

> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, ray
>> <ray@zianet.com>
>>  wrote
>> on 17 Jul 2008 00:23:45 GMT
>> <6e7hogF5co35U2@mid.individual.net>:
>>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:05 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jul 16, 1:40 pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> No dice. YOU are going to have to decide what is best for YOU. There
>>>>> is no 'best' Linux distro - otherwise the other 349 would not exist.
>>>>> There is not even a 'best' distro for one person of one use. I happen
>>>>> to use Ubuntu most of the time on most of my machines. I also run
>>>>> Gentoo on my mini-itx box because I can optimize it for that
>>>>> particular (underpowered) hardware. I've also used Elive on older
>>>>> machines and use Debian on other machines. Depends on what I'm doing
>>>>> on what hardware and what is needed from it. You're going to have to
>>>>> make a decision because folks cannot make it for you. Get off your
>>>>> freaking can and TRY something. It is not difficult to do.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Hi ray--you almost had the best post of the evening, but you messed
>>>> up--why NOT recommend a distro?  How the ell am I supposed to know
>>>> 'what's right for me'?  I AM A WINDOWS USER EINSTEIN.
>>>> 
>>>> C'mon ray, help out a newbie.  Are you recommending Elive?  Debian?
>>>> Gentoo?  What?
>>>> 
>>>> RL
>>>
>>> What.
>> 
>> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
>> interesting-looking link:
>> 
>> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>> 
>> Perhaps this will help you?  If nothing else, you can ask *it* the
>> question 8 times... :-)
>
> Well, what can I tell you. I gotta have my consultant fee in advance 
> before I'll tell the sucker what to install.

Consultant fee for recommending a "free" OS?

More hypocrisy. How much did you charge your local library Ray? Are you
the new MS?

ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
> 
>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
>>> should get for an old computer.
>> 
>> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
>> completed.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.

Shush ray, this is a unique event!
A wintroll is getting irritated by another wintroll!
This could get interesting if left uninterrupted.

Let's just sit back and watch this spectacle. 
</naturalist's tone when watching badgers>
-- 
|   spike1@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              |

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:11:09 +0100, Andrew Halliwell wrote:

> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Linonut <linonut@bollsouth.nut> wrote:
>> * Sebastian "lunar" Wiesner peremptorily fired off this memo:
>> 
>>> ray <ray@zianet.com>:
>>>
>>>> [a long response]
>>>
>>> He's a troll, so consider your posting a waste of time, and if feeling
>>> like responding to such a person next time, just hold on, take a
>>> breath, have another sip of coffee and ... do something better ;)
>> 
>> I can't wait for:
>> 
>>   Subject: For the SEVEN-HUNDREdTH time, please, what distro for an old
>>   computer?
>  
> By then we'll all be on 4th generation positronic nets with quantum cores.
> And he'll still be trying to shoehorn the latest linux into that old PII.
> 
> Or rather, trying to convince people to help him to.

Perhaps you could give Dopez99 the phone number of a taxidermist local to
him.

In the meantime, get out the popcorn & beer....

-- 
Is a M$ "Certificate of Authenticity"
for Vista, a junk bond?

On Jul 17, 12:47=A0am, Felmon <dav...@lappie3.invalid> wrote:

> you evidently don't know anything about it. the person you are installing
> it for knows even less. if after she begins using it, she encounters a
> problem -- even a trivial one --, you won't be able to help. in fact you
> might not even be able to tell if the problem is in software or hardware
> (which is already, you say, old). instead of her blessings, you will reap
> her curses. I can't how this is worth it.
>
> on the other hand, you know Windows so you can trouble-shoot it and speak
> with her confidently about issues.
>
> I guess I don't understand the rationale for this risky venture?
>
> Felmon

I am beginning to agree with you Felmon.  I thought Linux, like the
app Apache, was "trouble free" but apparently I was mistaken.  It has
the same issues as Windows then.

Thanks for your input.  I will take it into consideration when I
decide, after upgrading the HD (assuming I can even do that), whether
to install Linux.

RL

On Jul 17, 1:43=A0am, Andrew Halliwell <spi...@ponder.sky.com> wrote:

> Yes, because broadband is just soooooo expensive these days isn't it.
> A millionnaire couldn't POSSIBLY afford that.
> Someone with 500 quid in the bank can afford it easily, but a
> millionnaire..?
>
> Way too mucn money.

You have not kept up with this soap opera, hell boy.  I told you
already the target machine and target user is not me, and far away.  I
can easily afford Windows Vista and the expensive hardware that is
required to properly run it (and well worth it, btw).

RL

  This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
  while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

--8323328-1044123561-1216298091=:14407
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 16, 4:21=A0pm, JohnF <j...@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been successfully running Slackware 11.0 on a
>> Pentium II 450MHz, with 384MB and a 32GB hard drive.
>> Desktops like KDE are too heavyweight for that chip,
>> and I had to ressurrect fvwm95 from the "pasture"
>> directory on the cd. =A0Otherwise, you can just do a
>> no-brainer "full install" if you get a slightly larger
>> hard drive. =A040GB is probably too big, as your 1996 bios
>> will hang. =A0Those older 40GB drives generally have
>> a CLJ (cylinder limitation jumper) to accommodate bioses
>> that can't handle drives beyond 32GB. =A0Make absolutely
>> sure you set that jumper -- the machine will just hang
>> unrecoverably if you don't.
>
> I thought if I get a new controller card (the drive I have in mind is
> a 40 GB drive, IDE) then the BIOS does not matter, right?  If you know
> please tell me.
>
>
>> =A0linuxcdshop.com has the current
>> slackware 12.1 on cd's for a few bucks. =A0I suppose that
>> ought to work as easily as 11.0, but I haven't personally
>> upgraded yet.
>
> OK, but I'm trying to do this without having to pay money.  But I'll
> keep 'slackware 12.1' in mind.
>
Then get out of the newsgroup and look for a better junk computer.

I finally topped of the RAM in this computer, because a month ago I found
two computers lying on the sidewalk waiting for the garbage trucks.  The=20
hard drives were missing, it's not clear if by the original owner or=20
someone had already taken them, but there were some bits worth bringing
home, including two 256meg DIMMs that worked in my computer. In retrospect
that computer likely was better than a lot I've seen waiting for the=20
garbage, and might have been worth bringing home.

People are tossing that level of computer, 1GHz, or at least selling them
for $40 or so, I've seen the ads, and people have already told you about=20
that.

I certainly had no problem finding a 4gig hard drive sometime within the
past few months.

   Michael

--8323328-1044123561-1216298091=:14407--

ray wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
>
>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
>>> should get for an old computer.
>>
>> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
>> completed.
>
> Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.

None, raytard.  Nor did I ever claim to.

Lopez99 didn't either.  He's just a bullshitter:

* completed 'rocket science' courses, but is unable to research/install 
Linux
* millionaire by age 30, but runs a $3 pirated copy of Vista
* charges $200/hr as a 'technical business consultant', but his target Linux 
machine is a $25 Pentium II system
* claims to be a doctor
* $9 is $9 more than he wants to spend.

On Jul 17, 5:37=A0am, "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
> ray wrote:
> > On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
>
> >> raylopez99 wrote:
> >>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
> >>> should get for an old computer.
>
> >> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
> >> completed.
>
> > Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.
>
> None, raytard. =A0Nor did I ever claim to.

DFS you're a hack then?  Nothing beyond high school dude?  I thought
you were living large.

>
> Lopez99 didn't either. =A0He's just a bullshitter:
>

GD it doofus, we're on the same side!  Team unity dude!  These LInux
freaks are loving this!

> * completed 'rocket science' courses, but is unable to research/install
> Linux

Not at all easy to install either.

> * millionaire by age 30, but runs a $3 pirated copy of Vista

So?  Millionaires love bargains too.

> * charges $200/hr as a 'technical business consultant', but his target Li=
nux
> machine is a $25 Pentium II system

Not my machine dude.

> * claims to be a doctor

I am.

> * $9 is $9 more than he wants to spend.

It is.

Unity.  We windows users have to show a monolithic front--these Iinux
freaks are like the proverbial herd of wild cats--they have no
discipline--free spirts all.  And atheists.  And evil doers, etc etc
etc.

RL

DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
> ray wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
>>
>>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of viruses, I
>>>> should get for an old computer.
>>>
>>> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
>>> completed.
>>
>> Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.
> 
> None, raytard.  Nor did I ever claim to.
> 
> Lopez99 didn't either.  He's just a bullshitter:
> 
> * completed 'rocket science' courses, but is unable to research/install 
> Linux
> * millionaire by age 30, but runs a $3 pirated copy of Vista
> * charges $200/hr as a 'technical business consultant', but his target Linux 
> machine is a $25 Pentium II system

You forgot about his complaints about wasting money burning CDs... And how
"blank CDs are hard to find"
And his constant complaints about downloading stuff via dialup.
:)
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 1:43�am, Andrew Halliwell <spi...@ponder.sky.com> wrote:
> 
>> Yes, because broadband is just soooooo expensive these days isn't it.
>> A millionnaire couldn't POSSIBLY afford that.
>> Someone with 500 quid in the bank can afford it easily, but a
>> millionnaire..?
>>
>> Way too mucn money.
> 
> You have not kept up with this soap opera, hell boy.  I told you
> already the target machine and target user is not me, and far away.  I
> can easily afford Windows Vista 

Then why are you using a pirated copy?

-- 
|   spike1@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..."  |

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:25:43 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 16, 4:28 pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ray,

> For CentOS5.2, I checked
> http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.php?
os=centos
> and some of the public download sites at: http://www.kernel.org/, but
> could not find where you can download a single .ISO file (I did find
> where apparently you can compile some source code to do the same thing,
> and, while I do have MSFT Visual Studio 2005 compiler, compiling is
> tricky with all the different swtiches, so I rather just download a
> complete ISO file ready to go).

Here are the ISOs, you need 6 isos for CDs, 1 for DVD. This is a complete 
distro which is why it's so big, it includes everything that you could 
ever want. The LiveCD is only one iso but that won't do the job for you 
because you would have to download at least a few hundred bytes more 
after you did the install to get the additional packages that you would 
need.

http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/centos/5.2/isos/i386/


> Can I bother you one last time (and thanks for your help so far), *if*
> it's easy to do, for you to give me the link to the .ISO file?  Or, as I
> suspect from the CheapBytes store, no free ISO file exists, but you have
> to order from CheapBytes? (perhaps the developers of CentOS5.2 want it
> that way).  I might just have to spend the $0.99 + shipping (shipping is
> usually $10) to pay for it, if not.  Thanks in advance General.

I don't know and I don't care, it's still cheap and it will save you the 
downloading time. Your alternative is to take a laptop to a Starbucks and 
download the ISOs yourself. The problem with that is that at $5 a latte 
you'll spend more on coffee than you will ordering the CDs from 
Cheapbytes.

>> You can't use Fedora or
>> Ubuntu without broadband, the number of updates will kill you.
> 
> THIS is what I'm talking about, for the rest of you reading this thread.
>  THIS is why I posted.  Stuff like THIS you cannot find in the
> 'official' propaganda on LInux.  I totally agree with this statement by
> General--it sounds so probable.  Fedora and the beloved Ubuntu are
> MODERN distros for MODERN machines, in the same way Vista is a modern OS
> for modern hardware.  And to think--the rest of you have been pushing
> your favorite (modern) distro on me, as well as 'crippled' OSes like DSL
> and Puppy. SHAME ON YOU!  Is this how you treat a newbie who genuinely
> wants to load Linux (for a friend--I myself, as a highly paid
> professional, would never risk my business with Linux, but we've
> discussed this already)?

CentOS 5.2 is a modern distro also, it uses an older version of Gnome but 
it does most of the same things.  Don't worry, 512M is enough to run ANY 
Linux distro. Linux isn't Vista, it can run on machines with small 
amounts of memory. I have Fedora 8 on a PIII with 384M, it's fine for 
basic things. My reason for recommending CentOS was not that it's aimed 
at old machines, it's not, but because it's completely solid out of the 
box and doesn't need a huge amount of updating. You could put CentOS on 
the system and never update it if you want. Take my word for it, if you 
have 512M it will run fine. 

 
> EXCELLENT!!! I assume Cent0S 5.2 has a GUI (KDE/Knome), and either comes
> with some word processor and some web browser, as well as some sort of
> way you can easily configure it (using default parameters) for accessing
> the target user's ISP via a Hayes compatible dial-up modem. Please
> correct me if I'm wrong.

It has Gnome, it has OpenOffice, it has Firefox, it has Evolution (e-
mail). Every Linux distro ever shipped could handle a dial up modem, 
CentOS 5.2 will do it easily.

> 
>> You can by a set of CentOS 5.2 CDs for $9
>>
>> http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/os2.html?
var_distribution=CentOS
> 
> $9 more than I want to spend.

This is ridiculous, it's two cups of coffee.
 
> 
> I thank you again General S.  I'm sorry to bother you.  I will look to
> this thread again, to see your reply, and if it's what I am looking for
> I will copy and save it (another factor:  target machine is not nearby,
> so those people who claim I could have done 10 installs by now are
> wrong--plus, if I did 10 installs, I'd have ruined the machine by now
> since the distros likely would not mesh with the old hardware).
> 
> BTW, do you think CentOS 5.2 fits on a 2 or 3 GB HD?  Or should I
> upgrade (if the BIOS allows to a bigger old drive)?

You can't put any full distro on a 2G drive, forget about it. LiveCDs can 
operate on something that size because they are stripped down and they 
are compressed. I could install a LiveCD to a 2G drive, in fact putting 
them on a 1G USB FLASH drive is done all the time, but it's beyond your 
capabilities. You have to do a standard install and that takes more than 
2G. A 40G drive would be more than enough and there is no question that 
your BIOS can handle a 40G drive. BTW the BIOS limitations apply to 
Windows only, Linux doesn't use the BIOS to talk to drives, it uses it's 
own drivers. As a result Linux can handle bigger drives on very old 
machines than Windows can.

Andrew Halliwell wrote:

> fsckwit wrote:
>> 
>> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff, 
>
>Instead, you'll waste a month of dozens of other people's lives trolling
>them all for recommendations you have no intention of trying.

If anyone allows this worthless fsckwit to waste any of their time,
it's their own fault.

* raylopez99 wrote in comp.os.linux.misc:

> On Jul 16, 12:15�pm, SINNER <arcade.mas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>
>> You can easily run Linux on a PII and be perfectly happy with the
>> perfomance, including a GUI if you so desire.
>>
> 
> What distro Sinner?
> 

DSL
Vector
Puppy

probably a dozen or so others made for older hardware.

here is a list of Live CD's. knock yourself out. Filter on Desktop and 
grab one of the small ones.

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

I bet even using the alternative CD for Ubuntu and installing something 
like Fluxbox as a desktop would be fine.

-- 
David

raylopez99 wrote:

> You have not kept up with this soap opera, hell boy.  I told you
> already the target machine and target user is not me, and far away.  I
> can easily afford Windows Vista and the expensive hardware that is
> required to properly run it (and well worth it, btw).

I think Vista is nice, too.  But it doesn't require expensive hardware, at 
all.

I recommend at minimum:

ATI 9600 (not Pro) graphics card: $50
2gb RAM: $50
Intel P4 2.8ghz or AMD 4xxx series CPU: $100 max

You need better graphics and CPU for current games, of course. 

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:31:22 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 17, 12:47�am, Felmon <dav...@lappie3.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> you evidently don't know anything about it. the person you are
>> installing it for knows even less. if after she begins using it, she
>> encounters a problem -- even a trivial one --, you won't be able to
>> help. in fact you might not even be able to tell if the problem is in
>> software or hardware (which is already, you say, old). instead of her
>> blessings, you will reap her curses. I can't how this is worth it.
>>
>> on the other hand, you know Windows so you can trouble-shoot it and
>> speak with her confidently about issues.
>>
>> I guess I don't understand the rationale for this risky venture?
>>
>> Felmon
> 
> I am beginning to agree with you Felmon.  I thought Linux, like the app
> Apache, was "trouble free" but apparently I was mistaken.  It has the
> same issues as Windows then.
> 
> Thanks for your input.  I will take it into consideration when I decide,
> after upgrading the HD (assuming I can even do that), whether to install
> Linux.
> 
> RL
>
>
Do you remember the early mainframe computing era? That computing model
was based on a powerful central computer and users connected via dumb
terminals. The mainframe had the resources to do computations, store
programs and data, and the network resources to relay information to
clients. The clients had no real resources of their own, except the
ability to display information relayed to it from the main computer. Most
dumb terminals only had the ability to display a simple command line user
interface.

That was a long time ago, though. There has been a lot of water under the
bridge. Yet, in today's computing era, Google appears ready to revive a
close variant of that model. There is one big difference, though. Today's
"dumb terminals" are not nearly as dumb. CPUs in the Pentium III class,
with speeds of approximately 1GHz, can do useful work all by themselves.
They can run Firefox; they can run OpenOffice; they can run media players.
If they rely on the central computer to provide their storage resource,
then they are reverting to the earlier computing model. It could actually
work and be the computing model that most people will use in he future.
They would use their handheld personal devices (translation: iPhones, or
equiv) to access their Gmail account, their Facebook account, their own
website with their data, or another online "freebie" online storage house.
It is amazing, but vendors are willing to give users online storage in
exchange for viewing a few online ads. In any case, users appear to be
looking for the "one central data repository" where they can keep their
stuff and have access to it no matter where they are in the world. I
wouldn't bet against the internet winning that war. Even with all of the
great advances to personal computers which have come courtesy of Moore's
law: super fast local CPUs and super big (TB class) local storage, users
may simply say, "No thanks. The web gives me everything I need." They will
simply opt for the convenience of having one place where they can always
go to find their stuff.

IMO, the online model is set to explode. As evidence, over 1 million
iPhones were sold in one weekend. More cell phones are sold each year than
the entire installed base of personal computers. Intel's new Atom chip
appears positioned correctly in time to take advantage of this move. The
45nm advance has made it possible to reduce heat production while
providing the computing resources that are necessary.It has enough power-
it's definitely as powerful as the 1GHz Pentium III class CPU, which is a
minimum acceptable baseline. It is also small enough to work in a cell
phone with limited cooling possibilities. The smartphone has a big
advantage over any PC: it is more "personal" than a "personal computer."
People _always_ carry their cell phone with them.

Well, I am sure that you've found this very educational, but you may be
asking what this has to do with your case and your potential new Linux
user? The solution to the question you have asked may be this simple:

1. You download a live CD image. I have previously recommended: Slax, gOS,
Ubuntu, etc.

2. You burn it to a CD.

3. You walk over to your friend's house and say the following:

 "This is something I've heard a lot about online.  I don't know if it's
 any good, or not- I haven't tried it myself. They say that it's something
 you can use to boot your computer with. They say that it is good enough
 to get online and use to get access to your GMail, Facebook, anything
 that you keep online. They also say you don't need any antivirus scanner,
 to bog your system down. That's because your files are stored in the
 cloud, or some such newfangled nonsense. Just give it a try, if you want,
 or not."

The bottom line is your user may not be nearly as stubborn as you.  She
may be ready to "shift paradigms" and embrace the online model. A
GNU/Linux live CD may be just the ticket she needs to get there.

-- 
Douglas Mayne

* Andrew Halliwell peremptorily fired off this memo:

> DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
>> ray wrote:
>>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
>>>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>>
>>> Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.
>> 
>> None, raytard.  Nor did I ever claim to.
>> Lopez99 didn't either.  He's just a bullshitter:
>> 
>> * completed 'rocket science' courses, but is unable to research/install 
>> Linux
>> * millionaire by age 30, but runs a $3 pirated copy of Vista
>> * charges $200/hr as a 'technical business consultant', but his target Linux 
>> machine is a $25 Pentium II system
>
> You forgot about his complaints about wasting money burning CDs... And how
> "blank CDs are hard to find"
> And his constant complaints about downloading stuff via dialup.

Ray "Pepe" Lopez certainly has acquired quite a large and varied group
for his never-ending circle-jerk!

I'll bet he's getting a great LMAOrgasm.

-- 
The only perfect science is hind-sight.

* chrisv peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Andrew Halliwell wrote:
>
>> fsckwit wrote:
>>> 
>>> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff, 
>>
>>Instead, you'll waste a month of dozens of other people's lives trolling
>>them all for recommendations you have no intention of trying.
>
> If anyone allows this worthless fsckwit to waste any of their time,
> it's their own fault.

It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.

-- 
Swim at your own risk.

Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
reproved:

> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.


    ...said the voice of experience. 

-- 
alt.usenet.kooks
"We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us."
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 [129]

Hammer of Thor: February 2007. Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook,
Line & Sinker: September 2005, April 2006, January 2007.
Official Member: Cabal Obsidian Order COOSN-124-07-06660
Official Overseer of Kooks & Trolls in 24hoursupport.helpdesk

Member of:
   Usenet Ruiner List
   Top Assholes on the Net List
   Most hated usenetizens of all time List
   Cog in the AUK Hate Machine List

Find me on Google Maps: 24�39'47.13"S, 134�4'20.18"E

Join me for dinner. I'm cooking glitched exploding boils and chive
compote accompanied by flawed genitalia on top of rank puffin penis,
dished up in a steaming double boiler containing raw pistachio nut,
tough specks of scampi, caviar and shrimp, sour cream, a side of chips
and a pint of clotted cherry tomato puree.

raylopez99 wrote:
> On Jul 17, 5:37 am, "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
>> ray wrote:
>>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:36:56 -0400, DFS wrote:
>>
>>>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>>>> Please help me decide what distro, for stability, lack of
>>>>> viruses, I should get for an old computer.
>>
>>>> I'll tell you when you tell us which 'rocket science courses' you
>>>> completed.
>>
>>> Just out of curiosity, which ones have YOU completed, DooFuS.
>>
>> None, raytard. Nor did I ever claim to.
>
> DFS you're a hack then?  Nothing beyond high school dude?

I went a little further.



> I thought you were living large.

I do OK for a lowly Access/VB/Oracle/SQL Server developer.



>> Lopez99 didn't either. He's just a bullshitter:
>
> GD it doofus, we're on the same side!  Team unity dude!  These LInux
> freaks are loving this!

I'm not gonna hold rank when you make bogus claims.  It's not even close to 
Rex Ballard-level fantasies of course (which cola "advocates" don't have the 
balls to question), but you should hold yourself to higher standards than 
the lying freaks of cola.



>> * completed 'rocket science' courses, but is unable to
>> research/install Linux
>
> Not at all easy to install either.

It actually is.  Vista is easier in my experience, but any reasonably 
intelligent person can install virtually all Linux distros (LFS and Gentoo 
might require some work).




>> * millionaire by age 30, but runs a $3 pirated copy of Vista
>
> So?  Millionaires love bargains too.

So tell us exactly how you made your "millions".

Did Dad start you off with $10 million, and through judicious investments 
you turned it into $2 million?





>> * charges $200/hr as a 'technical business consultant', but his
>> target Linux machine is a $25 Pentium II system
>
> Not my machine dude.

OK.  What kind of millionaire doctor has broke friends who run 12-year old 
systems?




>> * claims to be a doctor
>
> I am.

"doctor" strongly implies M.D. of course.  What med school?  What specialty?

If not an M.D., then a Ph.D.  What discipline?  What school?




>> * $9 is $9 more than he wants to spend.
>
> It is.

Try www.frozentech.com.  I sometimes buy from them rather than download 
..iso/burn CDs.



> Unity.  We windows users have to show a monolithic front--these Iinux
> freaks are like the proverbial herd of wild cats--they have no
> discipline--free spirts all.  And atheists.  And evil doers, etc etc
> etc.

I'm generally with you on this, but when you started up with the outlandish 
personal boasts about income and education you lost me.

See, if you're gonna lie you need to make them really exaggerated like Rex 
Ballard's or Chris Hunter's or 7's.  Then everyone knows you're a clown.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff,


Heck - you are unwilling to spend 10 minutes.
If you won't do that, why should we help you?

> You didn't read General S's post in this thread, did you?  A dial up
> modem is UNSUITABLE for realistically downloading the required patches
> from Ubuntu, etc ,and DSL and Puppy are CRIPPLED Linux versions.  Got
> it? 

I guess you have your answer. dialup is unsuitable.
The machine is unsuitable.
Windows is unsuitable.
Linux is unsuitable.
You have no possible solution.

>Even Windows on occasion needs a service pack,
> and with a dialup modem that's impractical.  But Windows is tested
> extensively before being deployed, so for this old machine, as Ghost
> has pointed out, Windows 2000 was perfectly good and installed fine.

You do realize that Windows 2000 has no firewall, no browser
protection, and is generally unsafe to connect to the internet.

> It's the antivirus software that's making it slow.  
>BTW, do I even  need AV s/w for Linux?  

No.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> You have not kept up with this soap opera, hell boy.  I told you
> already the target machine and target user is not me, and far away.  I
> can easily afford Windows Vista and the expensive hardware that is
> required to properly run it (and well worth it, btw).

Liar.
So if you are so rich, why not buy a computer for your friend?

You COULD occasionally burn new distros onto a CDROM.

But you COMPLAIN about the cost when you try to burn 700MB onto a 650MB CDROM.

So I guess asking you to spend a dollar or two for your friend is also
not a solution.

Hadron <hadronquark@googlemail.com> writes:

>> Well, what can I tell you. I gotta have my consultant fee in advance 
>> before I'll tell the sucker what to install.
>
> Consultant fee for recommending a "free" OS?

You have never been a consultant, have you?

Face it, Ray Lopez is so cheap he complains about the cost of a blank
CD needed to burn a distro. Yet he's too lazy to try anything, and too
cheap to have someone set up the computer for him.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> I took the crummy test, and the results below--their first choice for
> me was SUSE. Unless General S is lying, which I think not (read his
> post in this thread) these distros will take too long to download the
> required patches using a dialup modem.  


Also note that you only need to download patches to applications you
have INSTALLED.

So it's not nearly as bad as you think, unless you install every
program in the book. Also - you only need to load security patches -
as if this is a problem. Most of the Window users never install
patches anyway. The most important application you need to update is
firefox, and that's separate from the OS in any case.

Besides, you can burn an update distro onto a CD if you want.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> Read the post by the General S, who recommends CentOS5.2.

Then get off you ass and try it for gods sake.
quityerbitchin.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

>> I'm going to answer you one last time. Your machine has enough memory so
>> that you can run any distro, you don't need a crippled one like DSL or
>> Puppy.
>
> General, I must have missed your post where you answered me for the
> first time, because what you say below is very interesting and news to
> me.  And thanks for letting me know DSL and Puppy are crippled
> versions of Linux (!!!).


Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended it.

Do you know how big OpenOffice is? Do you expect your user to
download updates for it over a dialup?

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:52:05 -1200, Kadaitcha Man aided th' terraists with
the following claims :

> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
> reproved:
> 
>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
> 
> 
>     ...said the voice of experience.

Ontopic goodness:
FOR YOR OLD COMPUTER YUO SHOLD RUN PUPPY LINUCKS OR AUSTRUMI LINUKS OR
DAMN SMALL LINUKS OR FLUXBUNTU.....

HTH
HAND

-- 
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, 
can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire

* Kadaitcha Man peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
> reproved:
>
>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>
>     ...said <BITCHSLAP>

Douglas Mayne wrote:

> Do you remember the early mainframe computing era?

I sure do, starting in about 1955.

> That computing model
> was based on a powerful central computer and users connected via dumb
> terminals.

Not hardly. The computing model was based on a pitiful (by today's
standards) central computer and the users interacted with it via trays of
punched cards that were batched onto magnetic taps. These tapes were then
read by the computer and output to two more tapes: one to be printed and one
to be punched. Some of these machines had tiny (by today's standards) hard
drives.

It was not until the mid 1960s that people could be connected to the main
frame machines by Teletype machines, running at 10 characters per second.

Around 1970, the UNIX Operating System was run on PDP-11 minicomputers and
supported, say, 16 users at a time. (CTSS and similar exploratory systems
ran earlier, but were not widespread). After a while, that data rates
between the terminals (which became electronic in the meantime) went up to
30 characters per second and even to 120 characters per second.

> The mainframe had the resources to do computations, store
> programs and data, and the network resources to relay information to
> clients. The clients had no real resources of their own, except the
> ability to display information relayed to it from the main computer. Most
> dumb terminals only had the ability to display a simple command line user
> interface.

True, but the dial-up connections running at 30 characters per second could
hardly do more anyway. When they finally got up to 120 characters per
second, they began to become useful.
> 
> That was a long time ago, though. There has been a lot of water under the
> bridge. Yet, in today's computing era, Google appears ready to revive a
> close variant of that model. There is one big difference, though. Today's
> "dumb terminals" are not nearly as dumb. CPUs in the Pentium III class,
> with speeds of approximately 1GHz, can do useful work all by themselves.
> They can run Firefox; they can run OpenOffice; they can run media players.
> If they rely on the central computer to provide their storage resource,
> then they are reverting to the earlier computing model. It could actually
> work and be the computing model that most people will use in he future.
> They would use their handheld personal devices (translation: iPhones, or
> equiv) to access their Gmail account, their Facebook account, their own
> website with their data, or another online "freebie" online storage house.
> It is amazing, but vendors are willing to give users online storage in
> exchange for viewing a few online ads. In any case, users appear to be
> looking for the "one central data repository" where they can keep their
> stuff and have access to it no matter where they are in the world. I
> wouldn't bet against the internet winning that war. Even with all of the
> great advances to personal computers which have come courtesy of Moore's
> law: super fast local CPUs and super big (TB class) local storage, users
> may simply say, "No thanks. The web gives me everything I need." They will
> simply opt for the convenience of having one place where they can always
> go to find their stuff.

Is it not ironic? Users did not like the centrally administered computers
attached to their desk tops by narrow band data links. Their desktops ran
what we would call dumb terminals such as the Lear Seigler ADM-3. And the
whole thing was slow because the central computer was overloaded due to the
bean-counters overloading them.

So the users revolted and got their own machines, small minicomputers
mostly, and thought that was the solution to their problems. And it was the
solution to some problems. But they could not get enough memory and enough
disk space at first. And they seldom thought to buy tape drives or any other
devices for backups. They did not understand security and software
maintenance. For large corporations and even some small ones, this made a
support nightmare.

So I am not surprised that the trend is turning back again.
> 
> IMO, the online model is set to explode. As evidence, over 1 million
> iPhones were sold in one weekend. More cell phones are sold each year than
> the entire installed base of personal computers. Intel's new Atom chip
> appears positioned correctly in time to take advantage of this move. The
> 45nm advance has made it possible to reduce heat production while
> providing the computing resources that are necessary.It has enough power-
> it's definitely as powerful as the 1GHz Pentium III class CPU, which is a
> minimum acceptable baseline. It is also small enough to work in a cell
> phone with limited cooling possibilities. The smartphone has a big
> advantage over any PC: it is more "personal" than a "personal computer."
> People _always_ carry their cell phone with them.

I do not always carry my cell phone with me.

I would detest trying to write or compile program on a cell phone, even one
with a full keyboard.
> 
> Well, I am sure that you've found this very educational, but you may be
> asking what this has to do with your case and your potential new Linux
> user? The solution to the question you have asked may be this simple:
> 
> 1. You download a live CD image. I have previously recommended: Slax, gOS,
> Ubuntu, etc.
> 
> 2. You burn it to a CD.
> 
> 3. You walk over to your friend's house and say the following:
> 
>  "This is something I've heard a lot about online.  I don't know if it's
>  any good, or not- I haven't tried it myself. They say that it's something
>  you can use to boot your computer with. They say that it is good enough
>  to get online and use to get access to your GMail, Facebook, anything
>  that you keep online. They also say you don't need any antivirus scanner,
>  to bog your system down. That's because your files are stored in the
>  cloud, or some such newfangled nonsense. Just give it a try, if you want,
>  or not."
> 
> The bottom line is your user may not be nearly as stubborn as you.  She
> may be ready to "shift paradigms" and embrace the online model. A
> GNU/Linux live CD may be just the ticket she needs to get there.
> 
!

-- 
  .~.  Jean-David Beyer          Registered Linux User 85642.
  /V\  PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A         Registered Machine   241939.
 /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey    http://counter.li.org
 ^^-^^ 11:15:02 up 21 days, 20:35, 4 users, load average: 4.32, 4.39, 4.28

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, raylopez99
<raylopez99@yahoo.com>
 wrote
on Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:30:48 -0700 (PDT)
<946cb6df-4201-4bce-81ce-ec39bf1e2c62@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jul 16, 5:18�pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>
>> Were the user more expert in things Unix, I'd recommend Gentoo.
>> As it is, I won't recommend anything unless you want to play IT
>> for this individual.
>>
>
> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
> you can't give a good answer.

I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
friend's machine.

> Since you are a thinking man, reread
> the post by General S, and ponder this:
>
> -with a dialup modem, perhaps your beloved Gentoo would take forever
> to download the required patches

Not a perhaps, though it depends on the patches.
Openoffice-bin 2.4.1 in particular is 154 megabytes...an
8 hour download under ideal conditions.

>
> - more expert in Unix?  I did have RedHat 5?

That's Linux, not Unix, though that's close.

> dual booted on NT 10
> years ago.  I know about 'mounting' a drive (do you freaks still do
> that)

Yes, though there are tools such as supermount that one might use.

> and 'virtual' directories,

Not sure what that is.  Linux does have its VFS, and a
Google on "Linux virtual directories" coughed up some
application-specific stuff such as Apache and Autodir.

> as well as piping and indirection.
> And I code for a hobby.
>
> Chew on that, and come back to us with a wordy 2000 character post,
> fat man.

It matters little.  If you're satisfied with Windows 2k,
by all means use Windows 2k.  I fail to see why you think
it necessary to ask the same question 8 times regarding
changing to Linux; there's no purpose there.

Is there a specific application you desire?  Is Win2k
falling down on the job somewhere?  Do you need support (as
Win2k lost support long ago, and WinXP might lose support
in a year or two)?  Did I miss something in all this?

>
> RL


-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Windows.  Because it's not a question of if.
It's a question of when.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:34:29 -0500, chrisv wrote:

> Andrew Halliwell wrote:
> 
>> fsckwit wrote:
>>> 
>>> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff,
>>
>>Instead, you'll waste a month of dozens of other people's lives trolling
>>them all for recommendations you have no intention of trying.
> 
> If anyone allows this worthless fsckwit to waste any of their time, it's
> their own fault.

Well the Dopez99 ain't wasting mine, I'm binning the thread. 

-- 
Is a M$ "Certificate of Authenticity"
for Vista, a junk bond?

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, thufir
<hawat.thufir@gmail.com>
 wrote
on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:47:31 GMT
<D9Afk.112940$gc5.12119@pd7urf2no>:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
>> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
>> interesting-looking link:
>> 
>> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>
>
> That's pretty neat.

I'd say cute; in any event, it seems to work.  It suggested
Slackware for me, though I'm wondering where Gentoo is
in its decision tree.

> It's good for trolls but good for people trying to 
> choose a distro, too.

If properly used.  But then, a screwdriver can be a deadly weapon.

>
>
>
> -Thufir

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Windows Vista.  Because a BSOD is just so 20th century; why not
try our new color changing variant?
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Maxwell Lol
<nospam@com.invalid>
 wrote
on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:48:47 -0400
<878ww0bm7k.fsf@com.invalid>:
> raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> You have not kept up with this soap opera, hell boy.  I told you
>> already the target machine and target user is not me, and far away.  I
>> can easily afford Windows Vista and the expensive hardware that is
>> required to properly run it (and well worth it, btw).
>
> Liar.
> So if you are so rich, why not buy a computer for your friend?

He's already explained that in a previous post; the friend
apparently has some sort of attachment to this particular
machine and does not want to buy a new one.

>
> You COULD occasionally burn new distros onto a CDROM.

A possibility, that.

>
> But you COMPLAIN about the cost when you try to burn
> 700MB onto a 650MB CDROM.
>
> So I guess asking you to spend a dollar or two for
> your friend is also not a solution.
>

Not if that solution doesn't meet his particular needs.

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Windows Vista.  Because a BSOD is just so 20th century; why not
try our new color changing variant?
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:31:22 -0700, raylopez99 quoth:

> I thought Linux, like the app Apache, was "trouble free" but apparently
> I was mistaken.  It has the same issues as Windows then.

computers are not like a nipple on a breast - one still has to learn how
to use them. in this regard, yes, Linux has the "same issues" as _any_
other operating system: it must be used by a person possessing sufficient
know-how.

maybe someday we will have computers we can talk to in natural language
and which will know what questions to ask when we say ambiguous,
incomplete or irrelevant things in slang, slurred speech or our specific
idiolect against a noisy background filled with other conversations, piano
music and bass drums and with a memory of our personal history and
interests.

until then, in Windows, Linux, OS/2, whatever, we must know something
about what we are doing.

Felmon

> 
> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended
> it.

Crippled is my term not Ray's. It's probably too strong a term but I was 
making a point. What I really mean is that it lacks all of the GUI 
niceness of a mainstream Gnome based distro. I happen to think DSL is 
pretty cool and if I had some reason for using a stone age PC I'd use it. 
However the system that Ray is talking about isn't stone age, it's bronze 
age, so it's fully capable of running a Gnome based distro. I'm 
completely comfortable with the idea of handing a Gnome system to a naive 
user, in fact I did just that with my sister, but not with the idea of 
handing a barebones distro like DSL to a non-expert. I took away my 
sister's virus riddled Win98 laptop and handed her an old Dell Laptop of 
mine that had Fedora on it (it's the 384M system I've mentioned before). 
Even though she has zero understanding of how computers work she had no 
trouble adapting to Linux. All I had to do was to show her how to start 
Firefox, i.e. click here, and how to start Evolution, i.e. click there, 
and that was that. The performance is adequate, not great but usable, and 
the box is stable. My sister has a cable modem so there was no reason not 
to give her Fedora instead of CentOS. I keep her one or two releases back 
on Fedora, I just moved her to F8 from F6, so that she doesn't have to 
suffer from Fedora's teething problems. I also disabled automatic updates 
because I didn't want to risk the system breaking when I wasn't there (I 
live in Mass, she lives in Chicago). When I'm in Chicago I update her 
system so that she's never more than a month out of date. With those 
workarounds I'm comfortable with her using Fedora. However if she didn't 
have cable and I didn't go to Chicago every month or two, I would have 
put CentOS on her box because CentOS doesn't break the way Fedora does.

Linonut, ye unmuzzled simple bawd, out, you mad headed ape. A weasel
hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with, ye harried:

>* Kadaitcha Man peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
>> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
>> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
>> reproved:
>>
>>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>>
>>     ...said <BITCHSLAP>


Monkey see, monkey do. 

-- 
alt.usenet.kooks
"We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us."
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 [129]

Hammer of Thor: February 2007. Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook,
Line & Sinker: September 2005, April 2006, January 2007.
Official Member: Cabal Obsidian Order COOSN-124-07-06660
Official Overseer of Kooks & Trolls in 24hoursupport.helpdesk

Member of:
   Usenet Ruiner List
   Top Assholes on the Net List
   Most hated usenetizens of all time List
   Cog in the AUK Hate Machine List

Find me on Google Maps: 24�39'47.13"S, 134�4'20.18"E

Join me for dinner. I'm cooking despicable pig heart and pheasant cyst
dressing with decomposing used tampons and disgusting rectum with hurt
crunchy handkerchief dregs and liver preserve, served in a splashing
pannikin with a slew of tiny cooked green bean and leek in dressing, a
side of spittlebug placenta and a cup of clotted garlic puree.

���hwأf, ye befouled fellow of no merits, your beard deserves not so
honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in
as ass's pack saddle, ye whined:

> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:52:05 -1200, Kadaitcha Man aided th' terraists with
> the following claims :
>
>> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
>> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
>> reproved:
>>
>>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>>
>>
>>     ...said the voice of experience.
>
> Ontopic goodness:
> FOR YOR OLD COMPUTER YUO SHOLD RUN PUPPY LINUCKS OR AUSTRUMI LINUKS OR
> DAMN SMALL LINUKS OR FLUXBUNTU.....


Nah. I just dl'd Suse 11.0. 

-- 
alt.usenet.kooks
"We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us."
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 [129]

Hammer of Thor: February 2007. Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook,
Line & Sinker: September 2005, April 2006, January 2007.
Official Member: Cabal Obsidian Order COOSN-124-07-06660
Official Overseer of Kooks & Trolls in 24hoursupport.helpdesk

Member of:
   Usenet Ruiner List
   Top Assholes on the Net List
   Most hated usenetizens of all time List
   Cog in the AUK Hate Machine List

Find me on Google Maps: 24�39'47.13"S, 134�4'20.18"E

Join me for dinner. I'm cooking dirty beagle adenoid and opossum tumor
dressing and hideous blight with atrocious wolverine snot with clove
marinade, cooked in a cooling tureen containing cool specks of cancerous
growth and hodgepodge of brussel sprout in butter, a side of horned toad
pituitary gland and a demitasse of syphilis tea.

William Poaster wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:34:29 -0500, chrisv wrote:
> 
>> Andrew Halliwell wrote:
>>
>>> fsckwit wrote:
>>>> No.  I will not spend a week of my life 'trying' different stuff,
>>> Instead, you'll waste a month of dozens of other people's lives trolling
>>> them all for recommendations you have no intention of trying.
>> If anyone allows this worthless fsckwit to waste any of their time, it's
>> their own fault.
> 
> Well the Dopez99 ain't wasting mine, I'm binning the thread. 
> 
For the EIGHTH time...
;-)

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:
>> I've been successfully running Slackware 11.0 on a
>> Pentium II 450MHz, with 384MB and a 32GB hard drive.
>> Desktops like KDE are too heavyweight for that chip,
>> and I had to ressurrect fvwm95 from the "pasture"
>> directory on the cd. Otherwise, you can just do a
>> no-brainer "full install" if you get a slightly larger
>> hard drive. 40GB is probably too big, as your 1996 bios
>> will hang. Those older 40GB drives generally have
>> a CLJ (cylinder limitation jumper) to accommodate bioses
>> that can't handle drives beyond 32GB. Make absolutely
>> sure you set that jumper -- the machine will just hang
>> unrecoverably if you don't.
> 
> I thought if I get a new controller card (the drive I have in mind is
> a 40 GB drive, IDE) then the BIOS does not matter, right?  If you know
> please tell me.

I believe you're probably right, but am not quite sure myself.
Hopefully, that old 40GB drive has a pin marked clj (next to
master/slave/cs) that you can jumper if the machine hangs during
boot.  That's the very first thing I'd try if it does hang.

>> linuxcdshop.com has the current
>> slackware 12.1 on cd's for a few bucks. I suppose that
>> ought to work as easily as 11.0, but I haven't personally
>> upgraded yet.
> 
> OK, but I'm trying to do this without having to pay money.  But I'll
> keep 'slackware 12.1' in mind.

You can download slackware cd images and/or individual
slackware packages for free, e.g., see
     http://www.slackware.org/getslack/list.php?country=USA
And they have slackware 11.0 archived, too, which I know
will do what you want from first-hand personal experience.
But you mentioned having a dialup modem only.
How do you intend to get any complete distribution for
free that way?
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

Maxwell Lol wrote:
> raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
>> I took the crummy test, and the results below--their first choice for
>> me was SUSE. Unless General S is lying, which I think not (read his
>> post in this thread) these distros will take too long to download the
>> required patches using a dialup modem.  
> 
> 
> Also note that you only need to download patches to applications you
> have INSTALLED.
> 
> So it's not nearly as bad as you think, unless you install every
> program in the book. Also - you only need to load security patches -
> as if this is a problem. Most of the Window users never install
> patches anyway. The most important application you need to update is
> firefox, and that's separate from the OS in any case.
> 
> Besides, you can burn an update distro onto a CD if you want.

Here's an interesting thought...If he were to re-install Windows 2000 on 
that computer, how long would it take to download and install all the 
patches and updates from Microsoft with that dialup modem?

TJ

In comp.os.linux.misc TJ <TJ@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> firefox, and that's separate from the OS in any case.
>> 
>> Besides, you can burn an update distro onto a CD if you want.
> 
> Here's an interesting thought...If he were to re-install Windows 2000 on 
> that computer, how long would it take to download and install all the 
> patches and updates from Microsoft with that dialup modem?
> 

A lot less than you might think, assuming he has the
Win2K SP4 cdrom. There have been very few patches/updates
to 2K recently. Also unlike Vista, 2K installs very quickly
and easily and runs great on older hardware 

Stan

-- 
Stan Bischof ("stan" at the below domain)
www.worldbadminton.com 

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:32:17 +0000, stan wrote:

> In comp.os.linux.misc TJ <TJ@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> firefox, and that's separate from the OS in any case.
>>> 
>>> Besides, you can burn an update distro onto a CD if you want.
>> 
>> Here's an interesting thought...If he were to re-install Windows 2000 on 
>> that computer, how long would it take to download and install all the 
>> patches and updates from Microsoft with that dialup modem?
>> 
> 
> A lot less than you might think, assuming he has the
> Win2K SP4 cdrom. There have been very few patches/updates
> to 2K recently. Also unlike Vista, 2K installs very quickly
> and easily and runs great on older hardware 
> 
> Stan
>
The post SP4 rollup patch is about 60M, IIRC. Also, IIRC, there are about
100M of patches since then.

-- 
Douglas Mayne

* Kadaitcha Man peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Linonut, ye unmuzzled simple bawd, out, you mad headed ape. A weasel
> hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with, ye harried:
>
>>* Kadaitcha Man peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>>> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
>>> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
>>> reproved:
>>>
>>>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>>>
>>>     ...said <BITCHSLAP>
>
> Monkey see, monkey do. 

You only /think/ you have an answer for everything.

-- 
Jones' Motto:
	Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

General Schvantzkopf- I thank you for your time.  I am copying myself
with this thread and intend to implement it when I'm at the target
machine.

Unfortunately, the six .ISO files that you referenced with a link
would take several hours to download (for some reason, though I have
DSL, and for some reason 'bit torrent' works faster for me but I'm not
quite sure what file to download for Bittorrent).  Therefore, I've
decided to bite the bullet and order, for $10 + shipping, the six CDs
for CentOS5.2 from CheapBytes (order info below for anybody else
reading this thread).

As for upgrading the HD, if you can be so kind to briefly tell me
whether, on a bare new 40 GB HD, if I plug the new HD in, set the
right jumpers etc for it to be a master drive, and boot from a Linux
CD (to do a clean install) whether, with my old BIOS, I will be able
(or the LInux installation program will be able) to 'view' the new HD
(which will be clean or zeroed out, so nothing on it--it will probably
be formatted FAT16, but that should not matter since I imagine Linux
will reformat it anyway).

If so, if LInux can 'see' the bigger HD even though the BIOS cannot
recognize it, then it will save me having to either upgrade the BIOS
and/or buy a IDE PCI controller card (which I read on the net is how
to get Windows to 'see' a bigger HD than before).

I appreciate your time and patience.

RL

On Jul 17, 6:10=A0am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:25:43 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
> > On Jul 16, 4:28=A0pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wro=
te:
>
> >> Ray,
> > For CentOS5.2, I checked
> >http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.php?
> os=3Dcentos
> > and some of the public download sites at:http://www.kernel.org/, but
> > could not find where you can download a single .ISO file (I did find
> > where apparently you can compile some source code to do the same thing,
> > and, while I do have MSFT Visual Studio 2005 compiler, compiling is
> > tricky with all the different swtiches, so I rather just download a
> > complete ISO file ready to go).
>
> Here are the ISOs, you need 6 isos for CDs, 1 for DVD. This is a complete
> distro which is why it's so big, it includes everything that you could
> ever want. The LiveCD is only one iso but that won't do the job for you
> because you would have to download at least a few hundred bytes more
> after you did the install to get the additional packages that you would
> need.
>
> http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/centos/5.2/isos/i386/
>
> > Can I bother you one last time (and thanks for your help so far), *if*
> > it's easy to do, for you to give me the link to the .ISO file? =A0Or, a=
s I
> > suspect from the CheapBytes store, no free ISO file exists, but you hav=
e
> > to order from CheapBytes? (perhaps the developers of CentOS5.2 want it
> > that way). =A0I might just have to spend the $0.99 + shipping (shipping=
 is
> > usually $10) to pay for it, if not. =A0Thanks in advance General.
>
> I don't know and I don't care, it's still cheap and it will save you the
> downloading time. Your alternative is to take a laptop to a Starbucks and
> download the ISOs yourself. The problem with that is that at $5 a latte
> you'll spend more on coffee than you will ordering the CDs from
> Cheapbytes.
>
> >> You can't use Fedora or
> >> Ubuntu without broadband, the number of updates will kill you.
>

>
> CentOS 5.2 is a modern distro also, it uses an older version of Gnome but
> it does most of the same things. =A0Don't worry, 512M is enough to run AN=
Y
> Linux distro. Linux isn't Vista, it can run on machines with small
> amounts of memory. I have Fedora 8 on a PIII with 384M, it's fine for
> basic things. My reason for recommending CentOS was not that it's aimed
> at old machines, it's not, but because it's completely solid out of the
> box and doesn't need a huge amount of updating. You could put CentOS on
> the system and never update it if you want. Take my word for it, if you
> have 512M it will run fine.
>
> > EXCELLENT!!! I assume Cent0S 5.2 has a GUI (KDE/Knome), and either come=
s
> > with some word processor and some web browser, as well as some sort of

>
> It has Gnome, it has OpenOffice, it has Firefox, it has Evolution (e-
> mail). Every Linux distro ever shipped could handle a dial up modem,
> CentOS 5.2 will do it easily.

> >> You can by a set of CentOS 5.2 CDs for $9
>
> >>http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/os2.html?
>
> var_distribution=3DCentOS
>
> > BTW, do you think CentOS 5.2 fits on a 2 or 3 GB HD? =A0Or should I
> > upgrade (if the BIOS allows to a bigger old drive)?
>
> You can't put any full distro on a 2G drive, forget about it. LiveCDs can
> operate on something that size because they are stripped down and they
> are compressed. I could install a LiveCD to a 2G drive, in fact putting
> them on a 1G USB FLASH drive is done all the time, but it's beyond your
> capabilities. You have to do a standard install and that takes more than
> 2G. A 40G drive would be more than enough and there is no question that
> your BIOS can handle a 40G drive. BTW the BIOS limitations apply to
> Windows only, Linux doesn't use the BIOS to talk to drives, it uses it's
> own drivers. As a result Linux can handle bigger drives on very old
> machines than Windows can.

http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/0070011624.html

CentOS 5.2 x86 Install (6 CD-R Set)
Our Price: $8.99
Shipping
Quantity:  		Quantity:
Price each:
Order:
Product Description

This is for the x86 CPU platform.

Major changes in CentOS 5 compared to CentOS 4 include:

These updated software versions: Apache-2.2, php-5.1.6, kernel-2.6.18,
Gnome-2.16, KDE-3.5, OpenOffice.org-2.0, Evolution-2.8, Firefox-1.5,
Thunderbird-1.5, MySQL-5.0, PostgreSQL-8.1.

Better desktop support with compiz and AIGLX.

Virtualization provided by the Xen hypervisor with Virtual Machine
Manager and libvirt.

Sabayon to simplify the construction of user profile

On Jul 17, 7:51=A0am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
> Hadron <hadronqu...@googlemail.com> writes:
> >> Well, what can I tell you. I gotta have my consultant fee in advance
> >> before I'll tell the sucker what to install.
>
> > Consultant fee for recommending a "free" OS?
>
> You have never been a consultant, have you?

Ah, so that's how you make money.  Offering "free" advice and then, a
month later, sending the hapless 'client' an invoice.  Scumbag.

>
> Face it, Ray Lopez is so cheap he complains about the cost of a blank
> CD needed to burn a distro. Yet he's too lazy to try anything, and too
> cheap to have someone set up the computer for him.

No, General S* helped me, unlike you, because the General is
competent, and not just here for flaming like the rest of you.  You
see, you don't know anything about PCs.  You just know how to make
noise.  You, Andrew, chrisv, Poaster and the like.  You guys are
worthless.  Not advocates but anti-advocates.  If I went through SEVEN
threads to get an answer, with close to 80 or so posts per thread,
that's 560 posts, over a period of close to a year (it was about this
time last year when I first asked), and I had to download five or six
distros (Puppy, Ubuntu, Arch, Vector, DSL that I can remember, and a
few others), and only then do I find out from the General that these
are 'crippled' so-called "LiveCDs" that are only partial versions of
Linux, unsuitable for a dialup modem, how do you expect anybody to
switch to Linux?  You have to have rocks for brains (that would be
you, Andrew, if you reading this)!

Like Ghost said, I might not even install Linux if, by installing a
bigger HD, it solves the problem of bloatware on the antivirus I have
running for windows 2000--which is the cause of the problem.  I have
another thread going in the comp.hardware forum and if somebody can
tell me that buying a cheap controller card will allow me to upgrade
the target machine C: drive easily, I might go down that route.  But
at least I have Linux--thanks again to General S* and not you--as a
backup plan "B".

Like a root canal--that's what figuring out Linux is like--a painful
tooth extraction without anesthesia.

RL

On Jul 17, 7:59=A0am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:


> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended =
it.

That's not the way I remember it.  I specifically said the target user
uses a word processor, and OpenOffice is a word processor.  If Linux
has a less bloated word processor program, like Notepad in Windows,
that would be fine too.

>
> Do you know how big OpenOffice is? Do you expect your user to
> download updates for it over a dialup?

Exactly. And the question is: do *you* know?  Obviously you don't,
gasbag.

RL

On Jul 17, 10:32=A0am, s...@worldbadminton.com wrote:

> > Here's an interesting thought...If he were to re-install Windows 2000 o=
n
> > that computer, how long would it take to download and install all the
> > patches and updates from Microsoft with that dialup modem?
>
> A lot less than you might think, assuming he has the
> Win2K SP4 cdrom. There have been very few patches/updates
> to 2K recently. Also unlike Vista, 2K installs very quickly
> and easily and runs great on older hardware

Yeah, that's right, Win 2k works fine on old machines, because it was
built for these old machines.  That's why I'm reluctant to nuke the HD
with Linux unless it's a last resort.

RL

In comp.os.linux.advocacy TJ <TJ@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Here's an interesting thought...If he were to re-install Windows 2000 on 
> that computer, how long would it take to download and install all the 
> patches and updates from Microsoft with that dialup modem?

Hehehe, might not even be possible.
Depends how fault tolerant the downloader is. If it has resume or not, etc.
Many dialup connections can't sustain a constant connection.
Over here at least there's a 2 hour cutoff if you're on "surftime".
Otherwise you have to pay for the connection per minute.
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

On Jul 17, 8:34=A0am, The Ghost In The Machine
<ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
> > Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
> > you can't give a good answer.
>
> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
> I might be talking to you, of course. =A0I was under the
> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
> friend's machine.

Sorry about that then, my apologies.

Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
to work with all features).

RL

In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 7:59�am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
>> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended it.
> 
> That's not the way I remember it.  I specifically said the target user
> uses a word processor, and OpenOffice is a word processor.  If Linux
> has a less bloated word processor program, like Notepad in Windows,
> that would be fine too.

ROTFL... 
So notepad's a wordprocessor now...
You'd be hard pressed to call it anything but a very weak text editor.
-- 
|                          |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack|
|  spike1@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.|

In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 8:34�am, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>> > Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>> > you can't give a good answer.
>>
>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>> I might be talking to you, of course. �I was under the
>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>> friend's machine.
> 
> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
> 
> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
> to work with all features).

Moving the goalposts again, I see.
you never said you needed all features.
You said you needed office software, e-mail and webbrowser.
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

On 2008-07-17, Kadaitcha Man <unpretentious.milk.shakes@rec.arts.horror.groupsex.biz.gambia> wrote:
> ���hwأf, ye befouled fellow of no merits, your beard deserves not so
> honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in
> as ass's pack saddle, ye whined:
>
>> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:52:05 -1200, Kadaitcha Man aided th' terraists with
>> the following claims :
>>
>>> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
>>> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
>>> reproved:
>>>
>>>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>>>
>>>
>>>     ...said the voice of experience.
>>
>> Ontopic goodness:
>> FOR YOR OLD COMPUTER YUO SHOLD RUN PUPPY LINUCKS OR AUSTRUMI LINUKS OR
>> DAMN SMALL LINUKS OR FLUXBUNTU.....
>
>
> Nah. I just dl'd Suse 11.0. 

Ubuntu server would probably also do just as well.

One of my 7.10 machines is pretty meagre by modern
stanards. Although it is not quite this out of date.

-- 
	Nothing quite gives you an understanding of Oracle's         |||
	continued popularity as does an attempt to do some          / | \ 
	simple date manipulations in postgres.

 Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------       
                http://www.usenet.com

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:06:17 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 17, 7:59 am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
>> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I
>> recommended it.
> 
> That's not the way I remember it.  I specifically said the target user
> uses a word processor, and OpenOffice is a word processor.  If Linux has
> a less bloated word processor program, like Notepad in Windows, that
> would be fine too.
> 
> 
>> Do you know how big OpenOffice is? Do you expect your user to download
>> updates for it over a dialup?
> 
> Exactly. And the question is: do *you* know?  Obviously you don't,
> gasbag.
> 
> RL


Why don't you go look it up? Go the Damn Small Linux page and check the 
packages.


-- 
Rick

raylopez99 wrote:
> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>> you can't give a good answer.
>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>> friend's machine.
> 
> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
> 
> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
> to work with all features).
> 
> RL
Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, raylopez99
<raylopez99@yahoo.com>
 wrote
on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:11:36 -0700 (PDT)
<3758f716-e083-46ae-82c1-a8aa880bee5a@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jul 17, 8:34�am, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>> > Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>> > you can't give a good answer.
>>
>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>> I might be talking to you, of course. �I was under the
>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>> friend's machine.
>
> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>
> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
> to work with all features).
>
> RL

It will need more than that *just to store the download files*
on a modern Gentoo install.  I'm reading 16.6 GB, though this
is mostly because I've been using Gentoo since 2005 and have
a fair amount of crud in there.

The actual system I have is using about 10-15 GB, not including
/usr/portage.

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Useless C/C++ Programming Idea #1123133:
void f(FILE * fptr, char *p) { fgets(p, sizeof(p), fptr); }
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Andrew Halliwell
<spike1@ponder.sky.com>
 wrote
on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:12:48 +0100
<0nl4l5-8b7.ln1@ponder.sky.com>:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Jul 17, 7:59�am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
>>> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended it.
>> 
>> That's not the way I remember it.  I specifically said the target user
>> uses a word processor, and OpenOffice is a word processor.  If Linux
>> has a less bloated word processor program, like Notepad in Windows,
>> that would be fine too.
>
> ROTFL... 
> So notepad's a wordprocessor now...
> You'd be hard pressed to call it anything but a very weak text editor.

I think he meant Wordpad, which is indeed a wordprocessor,
though not a very featureful one; among other things it has
multifont, bolding, italicizing, and such basic things as
bullet lists.  It can also include arbitrary ActiveX objects.

It does the basics, and it has been part of every Windows
system since about 3.1.

Personally, I prefer vi; it's *not* a word processor but
puts Word to shame. ;-)  How many other editors can do
'bang bang'?  (Though to be fair one could copy/paste or
cut/paste the desired input to a file, throw it at
a program, and copy/paste the resulting file back in.
Clumsy but workable.)

As for OpenOffice -- it is also a word processor but has far
more capabilities than Wordpad; among other things, it comes
with a math typesetting system.

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Windows Vista.  It'll Fix Everything(tm).
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:55:29 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

Yes the CentOS installer will see the new hard drive. The first thing you 
will have to do is to partition the drive. You will have a choice of a 
default partitioning or a custom partitioning . I always do a custom 
partitioning, you might want to let it do it for you and choose default. 
I make it a practice of always creating two root partitions (8G each on 
small disks, 16G on big ones), one for the current install which you 
would call /, and one for a future install (you can call that and thing 
you want, /os for example). I generally create a SWAP partition that's 2X 
the RAM size, in your case it would be 1G. The remainder of the disk 
becomes /home.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

Ray,

Now that you've ordered the CDs and a larger drive I have a suggestion 
that should make things easier for you. Instead of doing the install on 
your friends machine do it on your own where you have DSL and then move 
the drive to your friends machine. Follows these steps,

1) Disconnect your Windows drive(s). This will protect your drives and it 
will guarantee the the Linux drive is the drive with the MBR.
2) Connect the new Linux drive. You don't have to put it into the 
chassis, just hook up the PATA cable and the power.
3) Install CentOS
4) Boot it and create the user account.
5) Do the updates using your DSL connection
6) Make sure that you disable the SeLinux feature. RedHat enables this by 
default but it's not useful for individual users.
7) Add any additional packages that you think are useful or that you 
forget to install at installation time.
8) Put the drive into your friends machine and boot it, it should work 
fine.
9) Configure the dialup networking, there is a little GUI for this.

One more thing, make sure that you ordered the i386 CDs and not the 
X86_64 CDs.

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:47:41 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>raylopez99 wrote:
>> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>>> you can't give a good answer.
>>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>>> friend's machine.
>> 
>> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>> 
>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
>> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
>> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
>> to work with all features).
>> 
>> RL
>Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...

Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
afford a hard drive that big.

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, AZ Nomad
<aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM>
 wrote
on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:52:06 -0500
<slrng7vmp6.ilc.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net>:
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:47:41 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>>raylopez99 wrote:
>>> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
>>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>>>> you can't give a good answer.
>>>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>>>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>>>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>>>> friend's machine.
>>> 
>>> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>>> 
>>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
>>> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
>>> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
>>> to work with all features).
>>> 
>>> RL
>>Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...
>
> Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
> afford a hard drive that big.

??

100 GB would probably cost $30.  Are crop pickers that underpaid in the
US?

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
"Woman?  What woman?"
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

In comp.os.linux.advocacy The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>> Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
>> afford a hard drive that big.
> 
> ??
> 
> 100 GB would probably cost $30.  Are crop pickers that underpaid in the
> US?
 
Well, they do have to eat, pay bills and pay rent before they can think
about the luxuries. 
:)

-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

On 2008-07-17, The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, thufir
><hawat.thufir@gmail.com>
>  wrote
> on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:47:31 GMT
><D9Afk.112940$gc5.12119@pd7urf2no>:
>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>>
>>> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
>>> interesting-looking link:
>>> 
>>> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>>
>>
>> That's pretty neat.
>
> I'd say cute; in any event, it seems to work.  It suggested
> Slackware for me, though I'm wondering where Gentoo is
> in its decision tree.

Hmmm... it chose Gentoo, Archlinux and Slackware for me in that order.

Unlike the troll, I know what I want my computers to do.

-- 
Regards,

Gregory.
Gentoo Linux - Penguin Power

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:43:07 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> Not true Thufir.
> 
> I took the crummy test, and the results below--their first choice for me
> was SUSE.


The point is that it gave a definite response; the details of which are, 
for you, immaterial. Go argue with the website.



-Thufir

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:35:53 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:

>> That's pretty neat.
> 
> I'd say cute; in any event, it seems to work.  It suggested Slackware
> for me, though I'm wondering where Gentoo is in its decision tree.
> 
>> It's good for trolls but good for people trying to choose a distro,
>> too.
> 
> If properly used.  But then, a screwdriver can be a deadly weapon.


The veracity doesn't have to be 100% -- it's like the person who walks up 
to a salesman and asks which one is best.  All it has to provide is an 
answer in a convincing manner.  Heck, if it recommended the same distro 
regardless of what you entered it would still serve its purpose!  (To my 
mind, at least.)



-Thufir

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:11:36 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:


> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly a
> year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over time,
> as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd to work
> with all features).


ROFL -- awesome.



-Thufir

AZ Nomad wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:47:41 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
>>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>>>> you can't give a good answer.
>>>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>>>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>>>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>>>> friend's machine.
>>> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>>>
>>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
>>> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
>>> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
>>> to work with all features).
>>>
>>> RL
>> Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...
> 
> Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
> afford a hard drive that big.
huh?

On Jul 17, 11:53=A0pm, The Natural Philosopher <a...@b.c> wrote:
> AZ Nomad wrote:

> > Wow! =A0You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
> > afford a hard drive that big.
>
> huh?

See? Your side is racist, NP.  AZ Nomad, a trailer park trash cracker
who works in the deserts of Arizona, has a problem with illegal
immigrants from across the border stealing his jobs (menial labour
mostly, which he's not good at doing).  So AZ Nomad joins a posse at
night and intimidates pregnant Mexican women trying to cross the
border, carrying concealed firearms as is permitted by redneck Arizona
sherif Joe Arpaio and now by the US Supreme Court, all the while
(ironically enough) railing about federal government interference
(which in a true libertarian society would not police any borders),
and, worse of all, running Linux OS at night!

That last part kills me.  Running Linux at night.  What have we come
to as a nation?  That's terrible.

The true face of a Linux user unmasked, head to toe.

RL

On Jul 17, 3:19=A0pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>
> Ray,
>
> Now that you've ordered the CDs and a larger drive I have a suggestion
> that should make things easier for you. Instead of doing the install on
> your friends machine do it on your own where you have DSL and then move
> the drive to your friends machine. Follows these steps,
>
> 1) Disconnect your Windows drive(s). This will protect your drives and it
> will guarantee the the Linux drive is the drive with the MBR.
> 2) Connect the new Linux drive. You don't have to put it into the
> chassis, just hook up the PATA cable and the power.
> 3) Install CentOS
> 4) Boot it and create the user account.
> 5) Do the updates using your DSL connection
> 6) Make sure that you disable the SeLinux feature. RedHat enables this by
> default but it's not useful for individual users.
> 7) Add any additional packages that you think are useful or that you
> forget to install at installation time.
> 8) Put the drive into your friends machine and boot it, it should work
> fine.
> 9) Configure the dialup networking, there is a little GUI for this.
>
> One more thing, make sure that you ordered the i386 CDs and not the
> X86_64 CDs.

Thanks, I'll cc myself and note this. Sounds good, though I hate
fiddling with cables and stuff on a stable system like my own, which I
use for work--but luckily, I do have another really old system (it's
actually a Pentium II 100 (! I think), and I'll try and get LInux
loaded on that system first.

Good stuff here.  In fact, I might do this in the next week or so, and
report back progress.

RL

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:41:44 -0500, General Schvantzkopf quoth:

> I'm completely comfortable with the idea of handing a Gnome system to a
> naive user,

what about to a naive 'support person'? you know the in's and out's of
Linux but raylopez99 admits he knows little more than the intended user.
this means he cannot take any of the precautions or make any of the
enhancements you wisely suggest. 

he also asserts he doesn't want to acquire the know-how, he just wants to
click a couple of icons. (he may even want to fewer icons to click than he
has to in Windows!) 

I think he should stick to Windows.

Felmon

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:26:46 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 17, 3:19 pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:42:59 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>>
>> Ray,
>>
>> Now that you've ordered the CDs and a larger drive I have a suggestion
>> that should make things easier for you. Instead of doing the install on
>> your friends machine do it on your own where you have DSL and then move
>> the drive to your friends machine. Follows these steps,
>>
>> 1) Disconnect your Windows drive(s). This will protect your drives and
>> it will guarantee the the Linux drive is the drive with the MBR. 2)
>> Connect the new Linux drive. You don't have to put it into the chassis,
>> just hook up the PATA cable and the power. 3) Install CentOS
>> 4) Boot it and create the user account. 5) Do the updates using your
>> DSL connection 6) Make sure that you disable the SeLinux feature.
>> RedHat enables this by default but it's not useful for individual
>> users. 7) Add any additional packages that you think are useful or that
>> you forget to install at installation time. 8) Put the drive into your
>> friends machine and boot it, it should work fine.
>> 9) Configure the dialup networking, there is a little GUI for this.
>>
>> One more thing, make sure that you ordered the i386 CDs and not the
>> X86_64 CDs.
> 
> Thanks, I'll cc myself and note this. Sounds good, though I hate
> fiddling with cables and stuff on a stable system like my own, which I
> use for work--but luckily, I do have another really old system (it's
> actually a Pentium II 100 (! I think), and I'll try and get LInux loaded
> on that system first.
> 
> Good stuff here.  In fact, I might do this in the next week or so, and
> report back progress.
> 
> RL

How much RAM is in the PII-100? If it's under 384M I wouldn't bother 
trying to use it for an install. 

thufir wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:52 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
>> No such distro "What", but Google coughed up a rather
>> interesting-looking link:
>> 
>> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
>
>That's pretty neat.  It's good for trolls but good for people trying to 
>choose a distro, too.

I think there's a critical omission.  There should be a question along
the lines of "do you want multimedia to 'just work' out of the box",
which, if answered 'yes', would lead more people to distros like PCLOS
(my favorite distro, but not recommended to me by this site).

thufir wrote:

>On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:11:36 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>
>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly a
>> year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over time,
>> as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd to work
>> with all features).
>
>
>ROFL -- awesome.

Awesome trolling.  We sure have our share of suckers around here...  

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:53:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>AZ Nomad wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:47:41 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>>> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
>>>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>>>>> you can't give a good answer.
>>>>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>>>>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>>>>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>>>>> friend's machine.
>>>> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
>>>> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
>>>> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
>>>> to work with all features).
>>>>
>>>> RL
>>> Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...
>> 
>> Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
>> afford a hard drive that big.
>huh?

Why bitch about needing a $25 hard drive to install thousands of 
software applications?

With microsoft, "all features" means you get a basic operating system, some
lipstick for your pig, and a couple of lovely applications like wordpad and 8
cheesy games. With a typical linux distro, "all features", means you get
thousands of applications.  On my gentoo system for example, there are 15747
ebuild directories available.  

AZ Nomad wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:53:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>> AZ Nomad wrote:
>>> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:47:41 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
>>>> raylopez99 wrote:
>>>>> On Jul 17, 8:34 am, The Ghost In The Machine
>>>>> <ew...@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hey, Individual, I love how you impersonalize me Ghost when you know
>>>>>>> you can't give a good answer.
>>>>>> I'm not impersonating you; where'd you get that notion?
>>>>>> I might be talking to you, of course.  I was under the
>>>>>> impression that the old machine you're referring to is a
>>>>>> friend's machine.
>>>>> Sorry about that then, my apologies.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly
>>>>> a year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over
>>>>> time, as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd
>>>>> to work with all features).
>>>>>
>>>>> RL
>>>> Moe like 100Gb for ALL features ...
>>> Wow!  You'd have to work about six weeks at your crop picking job to
>>> afford a hard drive that big.
>> huh?
> 
> Why bitch about needing a $25 hard drive to install thousands of 
> software applications?
> 
> With microsoft, "all features" means you get a basic operating system, some
> lipstick for your pig, and a couple of lovely applications like wordpad and 8
> cheesy games. With a typical linux distro, "all features", means you get
> thousands of applications.  On my gentoo system for example, there are 15747
> ebuild directories available.  

Yes, and even when the OS doesn't come with all of those pieces of 
software bundled with it, it nearly always provides and easy way of 
getting them free of charge, eg. YUM, RPM, etc.

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:29:36 +0000, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

> Douglas Mayne wrote:
> 
>> Do you remember the early mainframe computing era?
> 
> I sure do, starting in about 1955.
> 
>> That computing model
>> was based on a powerful central computer and users connected via dumb
>> terminals.
> 
> Not hardly. The computing model was based on a pitiful (by today's
> standards) central computer and the users interacted with it via trays of
> punched cards that were batched onto magnetic taps. These tapes were then
> read by the computer and output to two more tapes: one to be printed and one
> to be punched. Some of these machines had tiny (by today's standards) hard
> drives.
>
When I was in college in my freshman year, I decided to take a Fortran
class. I went to class and I was surprised that a significant portion of
time was spent giving directions on how to create cards for the "hot
reader" for batch jobs (connected to a Vax 11-780?). I was thinking to
myself, "Where's my terminal?" Well, I had a busy schedule, so I decided
I'd drop the class and try again the next semester. I was very
surprised when I went back a few months later, and the class didn't
begin with directions to the "hot reader" room. The card reader was
gone- replaced by a room full of terminals, but still connected to the
same mainframe. That was lucky for me- I was bit put off by that card
reader thingy, which often mangled the deck. That advance allowed the
teacher to concentrate on teaching fortran, and not so much about
the intricacies of how to use the machine.

BTW, I wonder how a Vax 11's computing performance compares to a Core 2
Duo with 2G RAM. Back then, the Vax 11 was assigned to the entire
university.
>
<snip>
>
Thanks for your reply and your perspective from 1955. That is still in the
infancy of modern computers, AFAIK. I read a few books about early
computing, including books on John von Neumann, Seymour Cray, and the
competition for defense contracts between CDC, IBM, and MIT research. It
was very interesting and gives more perspective with respect to today's
computers. The hand-strung magnetic core memory looks like an expensive
macrame project. 2G of that would be hard to make. Today, we slap that in
desktops without a second thought.

-- 
Douglas Mayne

* Douglas Mayne peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Thanks for your reply and your perspective from 1955. That is still in the
> infancy of modern computers, AFAIK. I read a few books about early
> computing, including books on John von Neumann, Seymour Cray, and the
> competition for defense contracts between CDC, IBM, and MIT research. It
> was very interesting and gives more perspective with respect to today's
> computers. The hand-strung magnetic core memory looks like an expensive
> macrame project. 2G of that would be hard to make. Today, we slap that in
> desktops without a second thought.

And Linux and Windows piss it away without a second thought.

-- 
Check it out, send me comments, and dance joyously in the streets,
		-- Linus Torvalds announcing 2.0.27

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:34:00 -0600, Douglas Mayne <doug@localhost.localnet> wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:29:36 +0000, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

>> Douglas Mayne wrote:
>> 
>>> Do you remember the early mainframe computing era?
>> 
>> I sure do, starting in about 1955.
>> 
>>> That computing model
>>> was based on a powerful central computer and users connected via dumb
>>> terminals.
>> 
>> Not hardly. The computing model was based on a pitiful (by today's
>> standards) central computer and the users interacted with it via trays of
>> punched cards that were batched onto magnetic taps. These tapes were then
>> read by the computer and output to two more tapes: one to be printed and one
>> to be punched. Some of these machines had tiny (by today's standards) hard
>> drives.
>>
>When I was in college in my freshman year, I decided to take a Fortran
>class. I went to class and I was surprised that a significant portion of
>time was spent giving directions on how to create cards for the "hot
>reader" for batch jobs (connected to a Vax 11-780?). I was thinking to
>myself, "Where's my terminal?" Well, I had a busy schedule, so I decided
>I'd drop the class and try again the next semester. I was very
>surprised when I went back a few months later, and the class didn't
>begin with directions to the "hot reader" room. The card reader was
>gone- replaced by a room full of terminals, but still connected to the
>same mainframe. That was lucky for me- I was bit put off by that card
>reader thingy, which often mangled the deck. That advance allowed the
>teacher to concentrate on teaching fortran, and not so much about
>the intricacies of how to use the machine.

>BTW, I wonder how a Vax 11's computing performance compares to a Core 2
>Duo with 2G RAM. Back then, the Vax 11 was assigned to the entire
>university.
>>
><snip>
>>
>Thanks for your reply and your perspective from 1955. That is still in the
>infancy of modern computers, AFAIK. I read a few books about early
>computing, including books on John von Neumann, Seymour Cray, and the
>competition for defense contracts between CDC, IBM, and MIT research. It
>was very interesting and gives more perspective with respect to today's
>computers. The hand-strung magnetic core memory looks like an expensive
>macrame project. 2G of that would be hard to make. Today, we slap that in
>desktops without a second thought.

In the early days of microcomputing, I found that 33mhz 80386 was equivelent
to a VaxStation II which was about 4 times faster than the 11-780.
The core 2 duo would be about 250 times faster.

In mhy college days, they had a vax 11-780 for 40-60 students.  When the
system had 8 meg of ram, it thrashed so bad that compiling a 100 line program
could take an hour.  When they added another 16M of ram, the thrashing
stopped.

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:41:02 -0500, JEDIDIAH aided th' terraists with the
following claims :

> On 2008-07-17, Kadaitcha Man <unpretentious.milk.shakes@rec.arts.horror.groupsex.biz.gambia> wrote:
>> §ñühwØ£f, ye befouled fellow of no merits, your beard deserves not so
>> honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in
>> as ass's pack saddle, ye whined:
>>
>>> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:52:05 -1200, Kadaitcha Man aided th' terraists with
>>> the following claims :
>>>
>>>> Linonut, ye begrimed notable coward, say wall eyed slave, whither
>>>> wouldst thou convey this growing image of thy fiend-like face, ye
>>>> reproved:
>>>>
>>>>> It looks like a mutual-masturbation thang.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     ...said the voice of experience.
>>>
>>> Ontopic goodness:
>>> FOR YOR OLD COMPUTER YUO SHOLD RUN PUPPY LINUCKS OR AUSTRUMI LINUKS OR
>>> DAMN SMALL LINUKS OR FLUXBUNTU.....
>>
>>
>> Nah. I just dl'd Suse 11.0. 
> 
> Ubuntu server would probably also do just as well.
> 
> One of my 7.10 machines is pretty meagre by modern
> stanards. Although it is not quite this out of date.

Well I guess we need a working definition of "old computer".
For me thats this pII laptop I'm using.
Runs puppy linux just fine.


-- 
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, 
can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/17/mccain-bad-jokes/

Douglas Mayne wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:29:36 +0000, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

> Thanks for your reply and your perspective from 1955. That is still in the
> infancy of modern computers, AFAIK. I read a few books about early
> computing, including books on John von Neumann, Seymour Cray, and the
> competition for defense contracts between CDC, IBM, and MIT research. It
> was very interesting and gives more perspective with respect to today's
> computers.

The first printed book I read was _High Speed Computing Devices_ issued by
Engineering Research Associates in about 1950. I also read various computer
conference proceedings, such as the Eastern Joint Computer Conference and
the Western Joint Computer Conference back when they were called that. They
are related, IIRC, to the present Spring and Fall computer conferences.

> The hand-strung magnetic core memory looks like an expensive
> macrame project.

The first ones were made in USA, but labor costs moved that to low-wage
non-union areas. It was hard to make them for over 16384 words. Most
computers had 32768 words of the stuff made by making 16384 double-word
memories. You could actually get an OS in there and have room for
application programs.

> 2G of that would be hard to make. Today, we slap that in
> desktops without a second thought.
> 
I have more RAM in my desktop than the first hard drive I ever used: 40
Megabyte hard drive (I had two), each the size of a washing machine. about
2400 rpm and it had stepper motor to select the tracks. When 2 Gigabyte hard
drives came out, I thought that was fantastic.

-- 
  .~.  Jean-David Beyer          Registered Linux User 85642.
  /V\  PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A         Registered Machine   241939.
 /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey    http://counter.li.org
 ^^-^^ 11:45:01 up 22 days, 21:05, 4 users, load average: 4.39, 4.37, 4.30

On Jul 18, 5:09=A0am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> How much RAM is in the PII-100? If it's under 384M I wouldn't bother
> trying to use it for an install.

Good one!  Didn't even think of this--thanks for the heads up.  I'll
fire it up and see (been busy programming all day today), it might be
under, though I am a big fan of RAM so maybe I beefed it up.

BTW on this PII - 100 I might install DSL just to see if it even
works, or Arch, etc, which like you say are 'crippled' version of
Linux designed to work with old machines.

RL

On Jul 18, 5:39=A0am, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> Awesome trolling. =A0We sure have our share of suckers around here... =A0

Yeah, like you, conspiracy freak.  You probably think I'm a paid
basher hired by MSFT to make Linux look bad... hehehe.

RL

In comp.os.linux.advocacy raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 18, 5:39�am, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Awesome trolling. �We sure have our share of suckers around here... �
> 
> Yeah, like you, conspiracy freak.  You probably think I'm a paid
> basher hired by MSFT to make Linux look bad... hehehe.

No need to think that with you.
We know your motivation.
Got to protect those shares. Which are currently falling... falling...
falling...
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:15:30 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 18, 5:09 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> How much RAM is in the PII-100? If it's under 384M I wouldn't bother
>> trying to use it for an install.
> 
> Good one!  Didn't even think of this--thanks for the heads up.  I'll
> fire it up and see (been busy programming all day today), it might be
> under, though I am a big fan of RAM so maybe I beefed it up.
> 
> BTW on this PII - 100 I might install DSL just to see if it even works,
> or Arch, etc, which like you say are 'crippled' version of Linux
> designed to work with old machines.
> 
> RL

It would be a good machine to try DSL on. A 100MHz PII would be unusable 
for a Gnome based distro, it will be painfully slow even if you have a 
lot of RAM. Using it to do an install would be doable if you have 
sufficient RAM as long as you are very very patient. DSL claims that it's 
usable on geriatric machines like that so it's worth a shot.

BTW when I said DSL was crippled I really meant that it's stripped of all 
the modern ease of use features. For someone who knows what they are 
doing it can be quite useful. Think of it as a Windows 3.1 replacement 
not as a Vista replacement. It's actually a real OS, unlike DOS, but it's 
using a very basic windowing system instead of a modern full featured 
desktop, but if all you want to do is run a few lightweight programs it 
can be quite functional.

On 2008-07-18, chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> thufir wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:11:36 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
>>
>>> Anyway I solved my problem thanks to General S--560+ posts and nearly a
>>> year after first asking the question (which did morph a bit over time,
>>> as I learned that Linux largely needs more than a 2 or 3 GB hd to work
>>> with all features).
>>
>>
>>ROFL -- awesome.
>
> Awesome trolling.  We sure have our share of suckers around here...  

Yep Lopez gets them every time.

The naivety, the huffpuff goalpost moving, the insults...

People just can't resist the energy-sapping moron.

The fuckwit has now infested COLM... I wish someone would just shoot the
cunt.

-- 
Regards,

Gregory.
Gentoo Linux - Penguin Power

* Gregory Shearman peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Yep Lopez gets them every time.
>
> The naivety, the huffpuff goalpost moving, the insults...
>
> People just can't resist the energy-sapping moron.
>
> The fuckwit has now infested COLM... I wish someone would just shoot the
> cunt.

Time for a "Punt the Cunt" campaign.

-- 
For office use only.

AZ Nomad wrote:

> With microsoft, "all features" means you get a basic operating
> system, some lipstick for your pig, and a couple of lovely
> applications like wordpad and 8 cheesy games.

I've noticed you're wrong every time you open your piehole.



> With a typical linux
> distro, "all features", means you get thousands of applications.  On
> my gentoo system for example, there are 15747 ebuild directories
> available.

And take a look at them...you can't be serious.  They're free for a reason.

DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
> AZ Nomad wrote:
> 
>> With microsoft, "all features" means you get a basic operating
>> system, some lipstick for your pig, and a couple of lovely
>> applications like wordpad and 8 cheesy games.
> 
> I've noticed you're wrong every time you open your piehole.

Yep... You only get 3 cheesy games.
Or has that been expanded slightly with vista?
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:35:34 +0100, Andrew Halliwell <spike1@ponder.sky.com> wrote:
>DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> wrote:
>> AZ Nomad wrote:
>> 
>>> With microsoft, "all features" means you get a basic operating
>>> system, some lipstick for your pig, and a couple of lovely
>>> applications like wordpad and 8 cheesy games.
>> 
>> I've noticed you're wrong every time you open your piehole.

>Yep... You only get 3 cheesy games.
>Or has that been expanded slightly with vista?

But don't you bow down in awe at the wonderfulness of the wordpad application?
It's notepad!  It's word!  It's both!

A fucking hundred billion dollar corporation, and wordpad is the best they can
do?

Every try to fix a windows system with the install CD?  Every time I try do
to something with that crippled CLI, I want to vomit.  Search subdirectories
for a particular malware file so it can be removed?  Sorry Microsoft is
afraid you might try and do something useful and that can't be permitted!

Microsoft can't even make fixboot work.  Does vista ship with a useless
defective version like all versions of XP?

General Schvantzkopf wrote:
> raylopez99 wrote:
>> on this PII - 100 I might install DSL just to see if it even works,
> 
> It would be a good machine to try DSL on. A 100MHz PII would be
> unusable for a Gnome based distro, it will be painfully slow

As far as I know, there's no such thing as a 100MHz PII.
The original/slowest PII ran, I believe, at 233MHz.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jul 17, 7:59 am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>> Crippled in this case is that OpenOffice is not a standard part of DSL.
>> Then again you never said it was a requirement until AFTER I recommended it.
>
> That's not the way I remember it.  

I'm not surprised.

>I specifically said the target user
> uses a word processor, and OpenOffice is a word processor. 

I checked and you said "word processor."

OpenOffice is a suite of tools, including presentations, spreadsheets, etc.
It's 166MBytes. 

There are other word processors as I said before. The one I mentioned
earlier is only 6MB.
>> Do you know how big OpenOffice is? Do you expect your user to
>> download updates for it over a dialup?
>
> Exactly. And the question is: do *you* know?  Obviously you don't,
> gasbag.

I don't know because I don't use a dial-up modem.  You do.
End of discussion. I'm tiring of helping you.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jul 17, 7:51 am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
>> Hadron <hadronqu...@googlemail.com> writes:
>> >> Well, what can I tell you. I gotta have my consultant fee in advance
>> >> before I'll tell the sucker what to install.
>>
>> > Consultant fee for recommending a "free" OS?
>>
>> You have never been a consultant, have you?
>
> Ah, so that's how you make money.  Offering "free" advice and then, a
> month later, sending the hapless 'client' an invoice.  Scumbag.

I never send invoices. I've been helping net people for 30 years,
because that's how I learned.


>
>>
>> Face it, Ray Lopez is so cheap he complains about the cost of a blank
>> CD needed to burn a distro. Yet he's too lazy to try anything, and too
>> cheap to have someone set up the computer for him.
>
> No, General S* helped me, unlike you, because the General is
> competent, and not just here for flaming like the rest of you. 

No. I responded to you with positive constructive advice about 20 times,
but then you insulted me, and it became clear you were unwilling to
put any effort into understanding your own problem.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

>If I went through SEVEN
> threads to get an answer, with close to 80 or so posts per thread,
> that's 560 posts, over a period of close to a year (it was about this
> time last year when I first asked), 

Seven threads over 1 year is your fault. When all you do is read and
bitch, it's no wonder you make no progress.


>and I had to download five or six
> distros (Puppy, Ubuntu, Arch, Vector, DSL that I can remember, and a
> few others), 


Liar. You have never once posted that you were running any distro.
You did say you were unable to burn a 700MB ISO image on a 650MB CD.
You did say you ordered a set of 6 CD's for the CentOS distro.


>and only then do I find out from the General that these
> are 'crippled' so-called "LiveCDs" that are only partial versions of
> Linux, unsuitable for a dialup modem, how do you expect anybody to
> switch to Linux?  

Liar. General said ALL can run on a dial-up modem.

And when he said "crippled", he was talking about features in modern
distros like fancy windowing systems, etc.

raylopez99 <raylopez99@yahoo.com> writes:

> Yeah, that's right, Win 2k works fine on old machines, because it was
> built for these old machines. 

So don't use Linux.