Re: Debian on an old PC
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 03:47:08 +1100 From: Sam Watkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] [snip] I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) . . . With 15-inch screens, dial-up connectivity. (Other restrictions may apply.) Wendell Cochran West Seattle -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 05:02:32AM -0800, Wendell Cochran wrote: I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) . . . With 15-inch screens, dial-up connectivity. The dial-up consideration would help. I have to use the Woody installer because the Sarge installer doesn't include PPP support. Believe it or not, not everyone who uses Linux has DSL, a cable modem, or a T1 at their disposal. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:31:10PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? FWIW I installed OO.org on my pentium MMX 200MHz with 128Mb RAM the other day (after reading your email). It takes a while to start but works fine after that. If you use a sensible window manager (not KDE or gnome, maybe icewm) I guess it would work fine on your old computer, apart from taking a while to start up. It will be a lot slower than the appropriate version of microsoft office for that machine, though. Thanks for your experiences. I'll remember this! I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) I remember how good and fast the software was on my old RISC OS Acorn with 4MB RAM (Impression, Sibelius, Artworks). Something is seriously wrong with the way people write software these days! You have a point. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Best regards Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 08:46 -0500, Joshua Lee wrote: On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 05:02:32AM -0800, Wendell Cochran wrote: I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) . . . With 15-inch screens, dial-up connectivity. The dial-up consideration would help. I have to use the Woody installer because the Sarge installer doesn't include PPP support. Believe it or not, not everyone who uses Linux has DSL, a cable modem, or a T1 at their disposal. Have you filed a critical bug? -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. A C program is like a fast dance on a newly waxed dance floor by people carrying razors. Waldi Ravens signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 02:27:44PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 08:46 -0500, Joshua Lee wrote: On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 05:02:32AM -0800, Wendell Cochran wrote: With 15-inch screens, dial-up connectivity. The dial-up consideration would help. I have to use the Woody installer because the Sarge installer doesn't include PPP support. Have you filed a critical bug? It's already noted in the eratta. Basically as something they don't plan to fix. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:31:10PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? FWIW I installed OO.org on my pentium MMX 200MHz with 128Mb RAM the other day (after reading your email). It takes a while to start but works fine after that. If you use a sensible window manager (not KDE or gnome, maybe icewm) I guess it would work fine on your old computer, apart from taking a while to start up. It will be a lot slower than the appropriate version of microsoft office for that machine, though. I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) I remember how good and fast the software was on my old RISC OS Acorn with 4MB RAM (Impression, Sibelius, Artworks). Something is seriously wrong with the way people write software these days! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In defense of modern software (Re: Debian on an old PC)
On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 03:47 +1100, Sam Watkins wrote: On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:31:10PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] I think we would end up with much better software if all developers were forced to use old, slow computers :) I remember how good and fast the software was on my old RISC OS Acorn with 4MB RAM (Impression, Sibelius, Artworks). Something is seriously wrong with the way people write software these days! I have to somewhat disagree. Much modern software just *does more*(1) than, and is more integrated with the DE, than old(2) software. And don't forget that s/w written in C++ is larger and slower than C programs. But yes, VM can make people sloppy. OTOH, it can allow them to write easier-to-read s/w, because of the lack of need to write dense, hard to debug, code that wrings the last bit of speed out of the box. Ron 1) Which sometimes, but not always, is Creeping Featuritis. 2) Macintosh excepted, but it had it's own problems: the geniuses who wrote it had to be brilliant to squeeze all that greatness into a 64KB ROM, and the hacks they had to do mad it difficult to make multi-finder, do protected multi-tasking, and port the s/w to Power. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog. Mark Twain signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: In defense of modern software (Re: Debian on an old PC)
On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 04:12:14PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: 2) Macintosh excepted, but it had it's own problems: the geniuses who wrote it had to be brilliant to squeeze all that greatness into a 64KB ROM, and the hacks they had to do mad it difficult to make multi-finder, do protected multi-tasking, and port the s/w to Power. Reminds of the old farts who used to tell me how they'd fit 100 people onto a system with 256K of memory. Each client would get allocated 2K. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: In defense of modern software (Re: Debian on an old PC)
On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 17:30 -0500, William Ballard wrote: On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 04:12:14PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: 2) Macintosh excepted, but it had it's own problems: the geniuses who wrote it had to be brilliant to squeeze all that greatness into a 64KB ROM, and the hacks they had to do mad it difficult to make multi-finder, do protected multi-tasking, and port the s/w to Power. Reminds of the old farts who used to tell me how they'd fit 100 people onto a system with 256K of memory. Each client would get allocated 2K. :-) I'm one of those old farts. My 1st job was as a mainframe COBOL programmer. The machine, an Amdahl PCM of an IBM 4030, had a 1.6 MIPS CPU and 6MB RAM, but yet supported ~75 on-line users plus 10 batch queue slots. Pretty amazing. The way it did it, of course, was that IBM pushed a lot of the work out towards the edge: FEPs (front-end processors) handled the incoming data from smart block-mode terminals, and the disk and tape controllers (boxes 1/2 the size of the main box) had their own intelligence. And, of course, CICS allowed the application to forget about a user until s/he pressed the XMIT key. None of this the-main-CPU-handles-every-keystroke-from-every-terminal stuff that saps the resources of interactive systems like Unix VMS. IBM knew what it wanted to do: build fast transaction-processing systems, and it did a great job of it. Programming it was a true pain in the fscking a**, though. Blech! -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. GGLX : Gnome GNU Linux X.Org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote: Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable BIOS? -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.dyndns.org/~baloo/ pgpQnB1BVMSFA.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian on an old PC
Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote: Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable BIOS? No, I remember flashing old ATT 6300 (4.77MHz 8086 PC) PCs here on campus because they had a Y2K-style glitch in the BIOS; it wouldn't go beyond 1987 or thereabouts (my memory is hazy). -- Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote: Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable BIOS? I have installed Debian 3.0r2 i386 vanilla on a 2 older computers in the 133 MHz with 32 RAM HD 1.2G with no problem. These computer did boot from the CDROM and also installed from boot-floppy also on other computers that can't boot from CDROM. I do use KDM to log into Blackbox, Fluxbox, KDE, GNOME. The text editor that I use is ee from the command line and also use MC (Midnight commander). I have experimented with a ttyS0 modem to connect to the internet no problem but it was slow, now using DSL much faster to get updates and installing other applications with no problems. I am still experimenting with other linux distro to see if they install but I still come back to Debian because I can choose which kernel to install like some other Linux distros you dont have that choice. Johnny -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:53:11PM -0600, Kent West wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote: Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable BIOS? No, I remember flashing old ATT 6300 (4.77MHz 8086 PC) PCs here on campus because they had a Y2K-style glitch in the BIOS; it wouldn't go beyond 1987 or thereabouts (my memory is hazy). Hey! I'm using one of those as a text terminal (typing this on it actually). The display is a bit slow on long listings, but I *really* like the feel/key placement of the keyboard. Back more on-topic for this thread, I still use some older PC's. But *fast enough* is pretty relative. One can manage with some pretty slow hardware until you try something faster. I used gdm/enlightenment on an AMD 686 ~150Mhz with 48MB memory for sometime. But after trying faster hardware it really starts to seem intolerably slow. What I find is the biggest problem on older hardware is actually getting large amounts of memory for them. They don't really have enough memory slots to add, and by the time you replace them with larger DIMMS the cost becomes a significant chunk of an all-around better used machine. (Of course if the machine is new enough to use current memory modules then it becomes much easier.) -- Chris Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- GNU/Linux --- The best things in life are free. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
CW Harris wrote: On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:53:11PM -0600, Kent West wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote: Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable BIOS? No, I remember flashing old ATT 6300 (4.77MHz 8086 PC) PCs here on campus because they had a Y2K-style glitch in the BIOS; it wouldn't go beyond 1987 or thereabouts (my memory is hazy). Hey! I'm using one of those as a text terminal (typing this on it actually). The display is a bit slow on long listings, but I *really* like the feel/key placement of the keyboard. I vaguely remember liking the old machines; maybe it was the keyboard; I can't remember for sure. And back to Paul's question, the more I think about it, the more I think the 6300 BIOS patch may not have been a flash after all, but rather a TSR (that's Terminate and Stay Resident, for you young whippersnappers; the DOS-days equivalent of a background service/daemon). So perhaps Paul is correct. -- Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. And realistically on the user-side, you're looking more at getting a machine that will run KDE with decent performance if you're trying to convince a Windows user. For a total replacement of OS I know KDE is the only one to convince the windows-fanatics, but that will have to wait untill he gets a faster PC. Luckely the man who are to be convinced care more about the text editing tools than all other details. Hopefully only this slow PC with a decent texteditor will convince him that open-source is the best option. I will take Nate's advice and try with iceWM... Afterall, it doesn't hurt to try, a slow machine with linux is better than one with windoze!! Thanks, best regards from Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 06:47:55PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. And realistically on the user-side, you're looking more at getting a machine that will run KDE with decent performance if you're trying to convince a Windows user. Why? What's wrong with xfce? :) Simon. -- No pressure, huh? Glad I'm not the Commander - Tommy Okay, Lareo, take her out - Jason Galaxy Quest. pgpt7tGLnuTZg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:36:44PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Attaining your goal will be tied entirely to who your father is when it comes to assessing the system. Is he interested in what you propose, or is this a project of your own? If he is _interested_ then wm's which deviate more from a Windows perspective will not be as much of an issue, especially if he's willing to listen to the Knowledgable One (you ;-) patiently walk through a brief working tour of it. Blackbox/fluxbox come to my mind as very easy to use wm's which appear to be fairly light. Along with simple features such as window shading, multiple desktops, and window resizing/moving using the alt keys, an interested person could quickly see some nice things about being different. You mention scientific writing. What type? I personally use LyX for all my work (I teach chemistry at a community college) and find it does all I want, with LaTeX as its backbone. The only time I ever need OO.org is to allow me to see/print out .doc files from admin types at school who don't understand/care about more universal forms such as pdf files. On your machine the primary holdup to a system such as this would be memory--the likes of which cost about a $1/stick at our local re-compute store. If he likes what he sees then maybe a hardware upgrade would happen automagically... ;) HTH, Kenward -- In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be _teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. - Lee Iacocca -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 11:52 +, Simon Huggins wrote: On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 06:47:55PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. And realistically on the user-side, you're looking more at getting a machine that will run KDE with decent performance if you're trying to convince a Windows user. Why? What's wrong with xfce? :) *Wrong*? Nothing. It's just *different*. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Vegetarian - an old Indian word meaning 'lousy hunter'. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 11:07 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. And realistically on the user-side, you're looking more at getting a machine that will run KDE with decent performance if you're trying to convince a Windows user. For a total replacement of OS I know KDE is the only one to convince the windows-fanatics, but that will have to wait untill he gets a faster PC. Luckely the man who are to be convinced care more about the text editing tools than all other details. Hopefully only this slow PC with a decent texteditor will convince him that open-source is the best option. If *text* editing is really the most important thing, then why not stay in console mode? vim or joe should fit the bill. I will take Nate's advice and try with iceWM... Afterall, it doesn't hurt to try, a slow machine with linux is better than one with windoze!! Thanks, best regards from Vegard -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Some former UNSCOM officials are alarmed, however. Terry Taylor, a British senior UNSCOM inspector from 1993 to 1997, says the figure of 95 percent disarmament is complete nonsense because inspectors never learned what 100 percent was. UNSCOM found a great deal and destroyed a great deal, but we knew [Iraq's] work was continuing while we were there, and I'm sure it continues, says Mr. Taylor, now head of the Washington http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0829/p01s03-wosc.html signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
If *text* editing is really the most important thing, then why not stay in console mode? vim or joe should fit the bill. The texteditor he needs has to be able to replace every function of MS Office Word, wich means reading .doc-files, setting up tables, as well as having a spellcheck-option. Thanks, best regards from Vegard - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA Cheers, Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 11:07 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: [snip] Luckely the man who are to be convinced care more about the text editing tools than all other details. Hopefully only this slow PC with a decent texteditor will convince him that open-source is the best option. I will take Nate's advice and try with iceWM... Afterall, it doesn't hurt to try, a slow machine with linux is better than one with windoze!! No. All you're going to do is frustrate him. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. If you go into a drug store that has it's own brand of Vodka, you just may be in Louisiana... signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
Attaining your goal will be tied entirely to who your father is when it comes to assessing the system. Is he interested in what you propose, or is this a project of your own? If he is _interested_ then wm's which deviate more from a Windows perspective will not be as much of an issue, especially if he's willing to listen to the Knowledgable One (you ;-) patiently walk through a brief working tour of it. The only demand he has for participating in this project is that he can have a machine where he can write/read his text-documents (therfore OpenOffice) and mail. Besides that I am free to choose linux-dist and wm. I belive his will to try and learn linux is there so that shouldn't be a problem. Blackbox/fluxbox come to my mind as very easy to use wm's which appear to be fairly light. Along with simple features such as window shading, multiple desktops, and window resizing/moving using the alt keys, an interested person could quickly see some nice things about being different. You mention scientific writing. What type? I personally use LyX for all my work (I teach chemistry at a community college) and find it does all I want, with LaTeX as its backbone. The only time I ever need OO.org is to allow me to see/print out .doc files from admin types at school who don't understand/care about more universal forms such as pdf files. Today he uses 'Scientific Notebook', I'm not sure excactly what that program does. He's a teacher in what we call furter going school (it sound pretty stupid when I translate it directly) (its the 11. - 12. year of school for the young of norway). I will tell him to look up LyX, maby the right thing. On your machine the primary holdup to a system such as this would be memory--the likes of which cost about a $1/stick at our local re-compute store. I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? If he likes what he sees then maybe a hardware upgrade would happen automagically... ;) I won't give up untill that happens, so its just a matter of time. The more open-source and the less Microsoft, the better HTH, Kenward Fun to here from all of you guys, best wishes from Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:31 pm, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On your machine the primary holdup to a system such as this would be memory--the likes of which cost about a $1/stick at our local re-compute store. I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? I would be surprised if that old machine could recognize more than 64MB. Have you tried the memory in the machine? Tell you what... Download a bootable Linux CD with a LightGUI and run that on the machine. That way you can try it before you commit. -- peace, Alvin Smith http://www.alvinsmith.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Alvin Smith wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:31 pm, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On your machine the primary holdup to a system such as this would be memory--the likes of which cost about a $1/stick at our local re-compute store. I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? I would be surprised if that old machine could recognize more than 64MB. Have you tried the memory in the machine? Tell you what... Download a bootable Linux CD with a LightGUI and run that on the machine. That way you can try it before you commit. I would be surprised if that old machine could *boot a cdrom*. Have you tried *that*? ;-0 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
I would be surprised if that old machine could *boot a cdrom*. Have you tried *that*? ;-0 It can't boot from cdrom, it has one (4X) but the system doesn't know of it untill an OS is loaded (i.e. win98se). I'm forced to install linux with floppy disks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:42:58PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: It can't boot from cdrom, it has one (4X) but the system doesn't know of it untill an OS is loaded (i.e. win98se). I'm forced to install linux with floppy disks. Don't use this piece of crap as a desktop machine. Use it as -- the world's coolest router! Download One! OpenBSD floppy, put two network cards on it, and in 2 minutes have OpenBSD installed. Edit pf.conf, put it in the corner, and forget about it. I have done this with an ancient Pentium 90 laptop with 32MB of ram and I haven't had to touch it in a year. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:42 pm, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I would be surprised if that old machine could *boot a cdrom*. Have you tried *that*? ;-0 It can't boot from cdrom, it has one (4X) but the system doesn't know of it untill an OS is loaded (i.e. win98se). I'm forced to install linux with floppy disks. Try using this: From Debian-boot mailing list: Smart Boot Manager (http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/) can be started from floppy and allows some older computers to boot from CD. That's how I loaded my firewall/router machine with Sarge. Might be worth a try. --Don John
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 19:31 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] I got hold of 128MB RAM from a friend. Now there is a total of 128+16=144MB RAM. Don't you think that is enough for OO.org and WM when he's prepared for a slow machine? Is it actually installed, or do you just have the DIMM? -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Vegetarian - an old Indian word meaning 'lousy hunter'. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:42:58PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I would be surprised if that old machine could *boot a cdrom*. Have you tried *that*? ;-0 It can't boot from cdrom, it has one (4X) but the system doesn't know of it untill an OS is loaded (i.e. win98se). I'm forced to install linux with floppy disks. Can't you change the boot order in the BIOS setup to look for cdrom first? Debian install CDs are bootable, surely? David -- David Jardine Running Debian GNU/Linux and loving every minute of it. -Sacher M. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thursday 06 January 2005 02:37 pm, David Jardine wrote: On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:42:58PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I would be surprised if that old machine could *boot a cdrom*. Have you tried *that*? ;-0 It can't boot from cdrom, it has one (4X) but the system doesn't know of it untill an OS is loaded (i.e. win98se). I'm forced to install linux with floppy disks. Can't you change the boot order in the BIOS setup to look for cdrom first? Debian install CDs are bootable, surely? David -- David Jardine Running Debian GNU/Linux and loving every minute of it. -Sacher M. Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Can't you change the boot order in the BIOS setup to look for cdrom first? Debian install CDs are bootable, surely? David -- David Jardine Tried that, Not Possible -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 14:44 -0700, John Schmidt wrote: On Thursday 06 January 2005 02:37 pm, David Jardine wrote: On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:42:58PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an update out there (highly unlikely). Even P-120s can't boot from CD. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men. Herbert Clark Hoover signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
Is it actually installed, or do you just have the DIMM? Nothing installed yet! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
* Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005 Jan 06 16:21 -0600]: If *text* editing is really the most important thing, then why not stay in console mode? vim or joe should fit the bill. Ugggh! The surest way to send someone running back to Windows is dump vi(m) on them. Emacs isn't much better. I don't mean to start another editor flame war, but folks, we have to ease the transition of those wanting to come over to our favorite OS by guiding them to tools they can feel familiar with. I may have not have jumped the MS ship seven years ago had I not found FTE. It probably lacks many of the features that make vi(m) and Emacs popular with many, but after all these years it is still my favorite editor. I wish it's user base were a bit larger so it would receive some active development. The nice thing for me is that I have a text editor that uses keystrokes and actions common to OOo and many apps on Windows (which I use at work). I'm not a coder so I probably don't demand as much from an editor as many on this list. I think FTE is a good choice for newcomers to a Linux as it has both console and X11 packages. If most Windows users were familiar with edlin, I'd be less vocal about dumping them into vi(m). I realize familiarity with vi is necessary at times, but for the most part, users like family members aren't going to deal with that situation as we'll be their sys-admin. - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Nate Bargmann wrote: I may have not have jumped the MS ship seven years ago had I not found FTE. Wow! I was not aware of this editor. I do like it (for familiarity reasons - don't know about power yet). Thanks for mentioning it. -- Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
* Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005 Jan 06 17:04 -0600]: Nate Bargmann wrote: I may have not have jumped the MS ship seven years ago had I not found FTE. Wow! I was not aware of this editor. I do like it (for familiarity reasons - don't know about power yet). Thanks for mentioning it. You're welcome. :) Another cool thing is that it's also cross-platform so I have it available on a FreeDOS partition. - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WP60 (was Re: Debian on an old PC)
On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 17:13 -0600, Nate Bargmann wrote: * Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005 Jan 06 17:04 -0600]: Nate Bargmann wrote: [snip] Another cool thing is that it's also cross-platform so I have it available on a FreeDOS partition. Speaking of FreeDOS, does anyone have WordPerfect 6.0 DOS laying around? I'd love to install it in dosemu. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. I wish the USA could get out of the UN. But a forum where governments can talk is too useful. The next best thing is to only pay a fraction of our dues. Or find a better forum. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 14:54:43 +0100 (CET) Vegard Lundby Rekaa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I'm currently using a Pentium 133Mhz with a 3GB hard drive for my firewall. It does, however, have 64MB of ram instead of 16MB. You could probably use your computer for similar purposes, though I would recommend trying to get a little more ram in it. You could also use it as a dumb terminal for running off a terminal server. HTH, Jacob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. The chief excitement in a woman's life is spotting women who are fatter than she is. Helen Rowland signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? We ran our mail server on a Pentium 133 for a couple of years. We processed a few thousand messages a day about half of them running through spamassassin. But, we had 128 Megs of ram. A machine that old can still be useful, but you have to use it in the right spot. If you don't have a great deal of traffic, it would make a great router, firewall, mail server, web server, dns server, etcMaybe even all of the above. (however, more ram would help.) I probably would try to avoid using as a desktop. It can be done with some of the lightweight gui's, but i don't think it would be pretty. ;) begin:vcard fn:Jason Crowe n:Crowe;Jason org:MidWest Quality Gloves adr;dom:;;;Chillicothe;MO;64601 email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] tel;work:(660) 646-2165 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.midwestglove.com version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: Debian on an old PC
At Wednesday, 5 January 2005, Vegard Lundby Rekaa [EMAIL PROTECTED] matnat.uio.no wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Regards Vegard -- i have a 2.4 kernel running on one PII 133MHz machine w/ 16MB of RAM and a 40 GB HDD and another PII 200MHz machine w/ 32MB of ram w/ a 6.something GB HDD. no problems as far as I can tell ... the machines are slow though. -- Zero Crossings, Inc. -- Embedded and Digital Signal Processing Systems http://www.zerocrossings.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 08:06:07 CST, Jacob S writes: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? 16 MB RAM is ok, provided you don't want anything (graphically) fancy. But for, say, fvwm2, mutt and a couple xterms it should be usable. I'm currently using a Pentium 133Mhz with a 3GB hard drive for my firewall. It does, however, have 64MB of ram instead of 16MB. Heh. I have a 386 with 4 MB RAM as a firewall ;) (although getting Woody on it was quite an adventure, as the installer alone needs more memory). You could probably use your computer for similar purposes, though I would recommend trying to get a little more ram in it. You could also use it as a dumb terminal for running off a terminal server. cheers, rw -- / Ing. Robert Waldner | Security Engineer | CoreTec IT-Security \ \ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | T +43 1 503 72 73 | F +43 1 503 72 73 x99 / pgpW7W89QbhEu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian on an old PC
At Wednesday, 5 January 2005, you wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice. org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Vegard well, that machine is a slow machine for windows too ... the PII 200 MHz machine i use has KDE on it as a desktop. it is functional but slow. i think it would be slow w/ win98 as well. what is the alternative, to buy newer windows software? if so, spend your $ on a motherboard/cpu combo from a place like pricewatch.com and install debian on it. -- Zero Crossings, Inc. -- Embedded and Digital Signal Processing Systems http://www.zerocrossings.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I held the top slot in the BogoMIPS-HOWTO for slowest system for many years- a 386SX/16 w/8 megs of RAM. Used a pair of them (and Hercules MDA) to get Netscape on the internet (orange hi-res screen). One ran X, the other ran Netscape. Held 'em together with duct tape. ;-) Yes, yours'll work. Take a peek at WindowMaker (wmaker), I ran it on a 486DX4/100 w/24 megs for quite some time before moving to a P133 w/64 megs running KDE. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:36:44PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Forget openoffice.org with 16MB RAM. It needs at least 64MB, but I wouldn't use it with less than 128. Frank Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. - Brian W. Kernighan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:54 am, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I have an old Tandy 486-SX/16 meg, with a 540 meg hard drive, that I use as the family mail server/spam filter. I gave it 100 megs for swap and it still have 230 megs free! It's a pretty lean install that runs Debian Stable with a custom 2.2.x kernel that has minimal hardware support built in. It runs postfix, spamassassin, and fetchmail. Mail is accessed via the popa3d program. There's no outside access to the machine. It's by no means a speed-demon, but it works well enough for my purposes. -- ...Rob Return address is obfuscated. You can reach me via mylaptop (at) twcny dot rr dot com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:36:44PM +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. No way, forget running that on a P100 with 16MB. I am frankly surprised windows 98SE runs on it either. slink might run ok on it at the console. -- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ ( t | i | m | @ | i | t | . | k | p | t | . | c | c ) \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ GPG key fingerprint = 1DEE CD9B 4808 F608 FBBF DC21 2807 D7D3 09CA 85BF -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:36 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. As Harland said, this is a a bit too low powered. OpenOffice will be slow to load even with 128MB RAM, but will function. I don't know what PC prices are like in .no, but here in .us, you can get a minimally adequate box for only US$300. http://www.sub300.com/info.htm Tiny has one for GBP319. http://www.tiny.com/packages.php?prodid=10987 -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. All of the reporting about Laci Peterson Michael Jackson reminds me of the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry: Can we do the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet. Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 06:44 -0800, James Vahn wrote: Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I held the top slot in the BogoMIPS-HOWTO for slowest system for many years- a 386SX/16 w/8 megs of RAM. Used a pair of them (and Hercules MDA) to get Netscape on the internet (orange hi-res screen). One ran X, the other ran Netscape. Held 'em together with duct tape. ;-) XFree 3.1 and Netscape 1.x? I hope you took pictures! Yes, yours'll work. Take a peek at WindowMaker (wmaker), I ran it on a 486DX4/100 w/24 megs for quite some time before moving to a P133 w/64 megs running KDE. KDE 1.x? -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Anyone who thinks that religion is Sooo Eeevil should remember: - The number of Soviet citizens that the religion is the opiate of the masses Soviets killed or let starve is between 20M and 60M. - The number of Chinese killed or allowed to starve by the Chinese Communists is estimated to be as many as 66M. Now *that* is True Evil. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 09:51 -0500, Rob Bochan wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:54 am, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I have an old Tandy 486-SX/16 meg, with a 540 meg hard drive, that I use as the family mail server/spam filter. I gave it 100 megs for swap and it still have 230 megs free! It's a pretty lean install that runs Debian Stable with a custom 2.2.x kernel that has minimal hardware support built in. It runs postfix, spamassassin, and fetchmail. Mail is accessed via the popa3d program. There's no outside access to the machine. It's by no means a speed-demon, but it works well enough for my purposes. Can you show us what it's dmesg looks like? (As an attachment, so that the lines won't wrap, or a URL?) -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. this is how main street of town looked back in 1985 when I was of age of those girls http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/page11.html signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Is this the same machine he has been using, or another one that was lying around available for an experiment? If the latter, I hope this machine doesn't have a crummier spec than the one your father is already using. It needs a lot more RAM, as others have noted. I used to run linux on a P-160 with 96MB, and it was usable. I don't know if openoffice would've run on it, though. If I were trying to get my dad to use linux I'd try to pick up a cheap used machine of more recent vintage or (better) a bottom of the range new PC. It would be much easier to install and more pleasant to use and hence an easier sell. Supporting really old kit is IMO a royal time-wasting pain at the best of times. I know some people enjoy it, but I can think of more fun things to do. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:53 +, Sue Spence wrote: Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] hence an easier sell. Supporting really old kit is IMO a royal time-wasting pain at the best of times. I know some people enjoy it, but I can think of more fun things to do. Better said: it's a geek hobby, not fit for human consumption. ;) -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Guidelines for Bureaucrats: 1. When in charge, ponder. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in doubt, mumble. James H. Borden signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Absolutely not. The box will work, but it won't convince your father that Linux is an excellent replacement for Windows98se for the tasks mentioned. It might work if you drop the openoffice.org, and use something lighter weight, like Abiword or vim, and teX might be better suited to scientific documents, but he'll be frustrated by the learning curve. If you want to convince him that Linux is a good replacement for Windows _as a workstation_, you need more horsepower. -- Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. 16 MB is not enough for Open Office . Forget your idea, your father is going to believe that Win98 is better than linux :) Some time ago, I was testing several slow machines in order to replace some Windows 98 boxes. Running Win98, Office97 and IE 5 with 16 MB RAM the machine is very very slow, but is usable. To obtain something similar or may be worst performance you need a light window-manager (like IceWM) and at leat 64 MB RAM. An alternative, but taking a totally diferent way is use the slow machine as a light client, using LTSP or PXES, but you will need a powerful machine as a server, a network and a lot of work, but the performance is better. Norberto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 09:36 am, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? Depends on what software you decide to install on it. What do you want to do with the box? With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Vegard No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. Of course you could run a text based application to do text editing, such as Emacs... But I like mcedit. -- peace, Alvin Smith http://www.alvinsmith.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Ron Johnson wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:53 +, Sue Spence wrote: Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] hence an easier sell. Supporting really old kit is IMO a royal time-wasting pain at the best of times. I know some people enjoy it, but I can think of more fun things to do. Better said: it's a geek hobby, not fit for human consumption. ;) Your correction misses my point. I said *supporting* really old kit is a pain. I play with the stuff fairly regularly for my own purposes. There is a tidy pile of scavenger fodder next to my desk right now, and boxes of it on racks in our office. However, for various reasons, I really don't like to do IT support for family and friends on old gear. It's a mug's game. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
I am running Debian v 2.4.27-1-386/gcc 3.3.4 and Debian 1:3.3.4-9 (testing) on an OLD Gateway 100 mhz with 128 mb ram. Command line operation is great, gui is less than desireable, in fact unusable due to time lags. This is still a very usable box! Go for it! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Forget my prior, for you and the command line - Okay For you father, and gui - Forget it, too slow. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
16 MB is not enough for Open Office . Forget your idea, your father is going to believe that Win98 is better than linux :) Some time ago, I was testing several slow machines in order to replace some Windows 98 boxes. Running Win98, Office97 and IE 5 with 16 MB RAM the machine is very very slow, but is usable. To obtain something similar or may be worst performance you need a light window-manager (like IceWM) and at leat 64 MB RAM. An alternative, but taking a totally diferent way is use the slow machine as a light client, using LTSP or PXES, but you will need a powerful machine as a server, a network and a lot of work, but the performance is better. Norberto Thanks for the help everybody!!! I'll just buy me some more RAM, and run debian with a light wm. If its slow it wont be the end of the world... Cheers Vegard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 13:17 -0300, Norberto Altalef wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] 16 MB is not enough for Open Office . Forget your idea, your father is going to believe that Win98 is better than linux :) Some time ago, I was testing several slow machines in order to replace some Windows 98 boxes. Running Win98, Office97 and IE 5 with 16 MB RAM the machine is very very slow, but is usable. To obtain something similar or may be worst performance you need a light window-manager (like IceWM) and at leat 64 MB RAM. Instead of OOo the pig, why not AbiWord? -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. Clearly the allies may not like it, and I think that's our great concern - where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity: they're now climbing into a box and they will have enormous difficulty not following up on this if there is not compliance. John Kerry - CNN Crossfire / November 12, 1997 http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00076.htm signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 16:51 +, Sue Spence wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 15:53 +, Sue Spence wrote: Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: [snip] hence an easier sell. Supporting really old kit is IMO a royal time-wasting pain at the best of times. I know some people enjoy it, but I can think of more fun things to do. Better said: it's a geek hobby, not fit for human consumption. ;) Your correction misses my point. I said *supporting* really old kit is a pain. I play with the stuff fairly regularly for my own purposes. There is a tidy pile of scavenger fodder next to my desk right now, and boxes of it on racks in our office. However, for various reasons, I really don't like to do IT support for family and friends on old gear. It's a mug's game. Some people think it's *fun* to work on the old stuff. You sound like you might be one. I agree, though, that supporting someone else's ancient kit is a pain. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. There never was a good war or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin Well, I think I have to disagree with Mr. Franklin... signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 12:16 -0500, donald szatkowski wrote: I am running Debian v 2.4.27-1-386/gcc 3.3.4 and Debian 1:3.3.4-9 (testing) on an OLD Gateway 100 mhz with 128 mb ram. Command line operation is great, gui is less than desireable, in fact unusable due to time lags. This is still a very usable box! Go for it! You do us a great disservice by not mentioning which GUI you use. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows that the average man can see much better than he can think. Ladies' Home Journal signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian on an old PC
* Vegard Lundby Rekaa [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005 Jan 05 16:49 -0600]: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? I recently upgraded my old 486/100 to Woody (stable). Debian is on a 1.5 GB partition and it has 28 MB of RAM. I have XFree-3 set up on it and use IceWM instead of another environment. It is booting kernel 2.4.18 without any problem. It's too pokey for a daily desktop system anymore and I really only plan to do some ham radio stuff on it. Heh, I started with Slackware Linux on that box back in '96 and even had XFree running from a 150 MB partition! - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
* Vegard Lundby Rekaa [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005 Jan 05 16:50 -0600]: For the window-manager I had xfce in mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small wm's. Disclaimer, I've barely used XFCE and then only from a Morphix CD. My first impression was that XFCE would be very foreign to someone used to Windows. I would recommend IceWM with simple thme like Nice or Blue Curve for someone used to Windows. The hot-keys are largely the same as is the look and fell although it can be themed wildly. It's also quite light-weight and works well on a slower box. - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
Ron Johnson wrote: On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 06:44 -0800, James Vahn wrote: I held the top slot in the BogoMIPS-HOWTO for slowest system for many years- a 386SX/16 w/8 megs of RAM. Used a pair of them (and Hercules MDA) to get Netscape on the internet (orange hi-res screen). One ran X, the other ran Netscape. Held 'em together with duct tape. ;-) XFree 3.1 and Netscape 1.x? Don't know about X, but that sounds right for Netscape - I'd guess 1.47 .. No window manager, it was a text mode UUCP leaf for news/email. All X did was run Netscape through the xinit startup script. I used a PLIP connection (parallel port network) between the two boxes. Yes, yours'll work. Take a peek at WindowMaker (wmaker), I ran it on a 486DX4/100 w/24 megs for quite some time before moving to a P133 w/64 megs running KDE. KDE 1.x? KDE 2.x on the P133, didn't think KDE 1.x had a chance on the 486 and have never seen/used it. By the time my hardware was capable, KDE 1.x was no longer current. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 05:54 am, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)? It'll happen. But be prepared for a very slow, console-only system. Wouldn't make a bad router or small mail server... -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.dyndns.org/~baloo/ pgpZakQqvKvS8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 06:36 am, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote: With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some scientific documents. Just not going to happen with that machine. Spending a couple dozen dollars on a newer old machine will go a *long* way for usability and performance, however. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org and some other simple programs. OpenOffice.org raises the bar to a recent (5 years) machine. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.dyndns.org/~baloo/ pgp2r8bWeuMxi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian on an old PC
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 08:43 am, Alvin Smith wrote: No. You need a minimum of a Pentium 233 with 64 MB RAM to have much success running any GUI + Openoffice, even xfce. And realistically on the user-side, you're looking more at getting a machine that will run KDE with decent performance if you're trying to convince a Windows user. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.dyndns.org/~baloo/ pgpPj0x8PDBtL.pgp Description: PGP signature
