On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:45:22 -0800, Patty wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "geremy condra" <debat...@gmail.com> To: <pa...@cruzio.com> > On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 10:22 AM, <pa...@cruzio.com> wrote: >> >> Now I think I understand a little better where you all are coming from >> -- I am a Unix person and I guess I expected to have to learn GUI's >> using whatever is provided for me by default. Which isn't a bad thing. >> And if I had to add additional software - and learn that - so be it. I >> am using a Windows XP system and a Windows 7 system presently. Some day >> I would like to switch out the Windows XP for Unix. > > Just dual boot, it isn't hard. >
IME you'll find that networking a Windows box to an older, slower PC thats rescued from the attic will be much more useful than a single dual-boot arrangement. Linux will run at a usable speed on a PC with 512 MB RAM and an 866 MHz P3, though some things, such as logging in, will be slow with a graphical desktop (runlevel 5), but if it has more RAM or you run an X-server on another PC, which could be running Windows, you'll execute commands, including graphical ones - provided you have X.11 forwarding enabled, a lot faster. The Linux box can also be headless if you haven't a screen and keyboard to spare. In short, Linux will run well on a PC that can't run anything more recent than Win98 at an acceptable speed. It doesn't need a lot of disk either - anything more than 30 GB will do. However, an optical drive is needed for installation. You can install Fedora from a CD drive provided the box is networked so it can retrieve most of its packages over the net, but using a DVD drive would be easier for a first install. > True. I have a Compaq Presario that is so old hardware-wise that I > don't think it could handle Unix or Linux. > What speed and type of CPU does it use? How much RAM? What's about disk and optical drives? FWIW my house server is an IMB Netvista that is at least 10 years old - 866MHz P3, 512 GB RAM, LG DVD drive, new 160GB hdd and runs Fedora 13. It is a bit slow at runlevel 5 (graphical desktop) when driven from its own console, but I usually access it over the house net from a more modern Core Duo laptop that runs Fedora 14. The NetVista is more than adequate for web and RDBMS development (Apache and PostgreSQL) in Python or Java and very fast for C compilation. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org | -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list