Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Walt Zarnoch]

Forgot the link...

http://ftp.lanet.lv/ftp/mirror/Slackware/isolinux/sbootmgr/

Walt
On Dec 1, 2011 10:43 AM, "Walt Zarnoch"  wrote:

> Here you go, follow the instructions here, and you should have a floppy
> that allows a generic CD boot.
>
> I used it back in 2K5 when I was first starting with *nix and it worked
> fine. You of course get the luxury of nicely laid out instructions! ;)
>
> Walt
> On Dec 1, 2011 10:36 AM, "Walt Zarnoch"  wrote:
>
>> Iirc arch still has a boot floppy you can use, that will search for the
>> cd drive and load from it.
>>
>> There may also be a netinstall floppy, can't remember.
>>
>> When I have some more spare time I'll do some digging and see if I can
>> find any more info for you.
>>
>> Walt
>> On Dec 1, 2011 10:26 AM, "Rich Thomas" <
>> richthomas79td...@constructivity.net> wrote:
>>
>>> So how do I get these wondrous softwares on these machines?  The old
>>> Tpad has a non-bootable CDROM and a 1.44 floppy drive I guess it would boot
>>> from, it is somewhat flaky now booting from the HD as it seems to be
>>> finding a corrupt driver sometimes.  The Compaq might or might not boot
>>> from the CD, not sure.  Neither has a USB but they do have network
>>> connections.  Can I get a dual-boot option for the winders flavor/*nix or
>>> is it one or the other?  If I download the software from the net is there
>>> then an install procedure for it?  I am a noob on *nix but willing to
>>> follow directions (if understandable to a noob).  Tell me what to do and I
>>> will be dangerous!
>>>
>>> I was looking up info on the Antix and one of the pages kept blowing up
>>> Firefox on the iMac when I tried to close the tab, interesting.  The pages
>>> I looked at all kinda started with "now that you have "*nix on the
>>> machine...".
>>>
>>> --R
>>>
>>> On 12/1/11 12:34 AM, Walt Zarnoch wrote:
>>>
 Yep, keep it light, and it'll romp circles around other stuff.

 I run LXDE on my laptop, but may swap back to XFCE4 in the future.

 Walt
 On Dec 1, 2011 12:23 AM, "Fmiser"  wrote:

  Rich Thomas writes:
>>>
>>> I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
>>> [?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
>>> ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
>>> and CD drives.
>>> So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
>>> could do with them at this point that would take advantage
>>> of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
>>> linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
>>> Something?
>>>
>> Allan Streib wrote:
>>
>> The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.
>>
> X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
> modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
> Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.
>
>  If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
>> usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.
>>
> I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
> distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.
>
> --   Philip
>
> __**_
> http://www.okiebenz.com
> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
> To search list archives 
> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>
>  __**_
 http://www.okiebenz.com
 For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
 To search list archives 
 http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/

 To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
 http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com


>>> __**_
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
>>> To search list archives 
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>>>
>>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>>>
>>
___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Walt Zarnoch]

Here you go, follow the instructions here, and you should have a floppy
that allows a generic CD boot.

I used it back in 2K5 when I was first starting with *nix and it worked
fine. You of course get the luxury of nicely laid out instructions! ;)

Walt
On Dec 1, 2011 10:36 AM, "Walt Zarnoch"  wrote:

> Iirc arch still has a boot floppy you can use, that will search for the cd
> drive and load from it.
>
> There may also be a netinstall floppy, can't remember.
>
> When I have some more spare time I'll do some digging and see if I can
> find any more info for you.
>
> Walt
> On Dec 1, 2011 10:26 AM, "Rich Thomas" <
> richthomas79td...@constructivity.net> wrote:
>
>> So how do I get these wondrous softwares on these machines?  The old Tpad
>> has a non-bootable CDROM and a 1.44 floppy drive I guess it would boot
>> from, it is somewhat flaky now booting from the HD as it seems to be
>> finding a corrupt driver sometimes.  The Compaq might or might not boot
>> from the CD, not sure.  Neither has a USB but they do have network
>> connections.  Can I get a dual-boot option for the winders flavor/*nix or
>> is it one or the other?  If I download the software from the net is there
>> then an install procedure for it?  I am a noob on *nix but willing to
>> follow directions (if understandable to a noob).  Tell me what to do and I
>> will be dangerous!
>>
>> I was looking up info on the Antix and one of the pages kept blowing up
>> Firefox on the iMac when I tried to close the tab, interesting.  The pages
>> I looked at all kinda started with "now that you have "*nix on the
>> machine...".
>>
>> --R
>>
>> On 12/1/11 12:34 AM, Walt Zarnoch wrote:
>>
>>> Yep, keep it light, and it'll romp circles around other stuff.
>>>
>>> I run LXDE on my laptop, but may swap back to XFCE4 in the future.
>>>
>>> Walt
>>> On Dec 1, 2011 12:23 AM, "Fmiser"  wrote:
>>>
>>>  Rich Thomas writes:
>>
>> I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
>> [?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
>> ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
>> and CD drives.
>> So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
>> could do with them at this point that would take advantage
>> of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
>> linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
>> Something?
>>
> Allan Streib wrote:
>
> The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.
>
 X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
 modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
 Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.

  If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
> usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.
>
 I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
 distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.

 --   Philip

 __**_
 http://www.okiebenz.com
 For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
 To search list archives 
 http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/

 To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
 http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com

  __**_
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
>>> To search list archives 
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>>>
>>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>>>
>>>
>> __**_
>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
>> To search list archives 
>> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>>
>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>>
>
___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Walt Zarnoch]

Iirc arch still has a boot floppy you can use, that will search for the cd
drive and load from it.

There may also be a netinstall floppy, can't remember.

When I have some more spare time I'll do some digging and see if I can find
any more info for you.

Walt
On Dec 1, 2011 10:26 AM, "Rich Thomas" 
wrote:

> So how do I get these wondrous softwares on these machines?  The old Tpad
> has a non-bootable CDROM and a 1.44 floppy drive I guess it would boot
> from, it is somewhat flaky now booting from the HD as it seems to be
> finding a corrupt driver sometimes.  The Compaq might or might not boot
> from the CD, not sure.  Neither has a USB but they do have network
> connections.  Can I get a dual-boot option for the winders flavor/*nix or
> is it one or the other?  If I download the software from the net is there
> then an install procedure for it?  I am a noob on *nix but willing to
> follow directions (if understandable to a noob).  Tell me what to do and I
> will be dangerous!
>
> I was looking up info on the Antix and one of the pages kept blowing up
> Firefox on the iMac when I tried to close the tab, interesting.  The pages
> I looked at all kinda started with "now that you have "*nix on the
> machine...".
>
> --R
>
> On 12/1/11 12:34 AM, Walt Zarnoch wrote:
>
>> Yep, keep it light, and it'll romp circles around other stuff.
>>
>> I run LXDE on my laptop, but may swap back to XFCE4 in the future.
>>
>> Walt
>> On Dec 1, 2011 12:23 AM, "Fmiser"  wrote:
>>
>>  Rich Thomas writes:
>
> I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
> [?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
> ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
> and CD drives.
> So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
> could do with them at this point that would take advantage
> of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
> linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
> Something?
>
 Allan Streib wrote:

 The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.

>>> X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
>>> modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
>>> Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.
>>>
>>>  If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
 usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.

>>> I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
>>> distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.
>>>
>>> --   Philip
>>>
>>> __**_
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
>>> To search list archives 
>>> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>>>
>>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>>>
>>>  __**_
>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
>> To search list archives 
>> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>>
>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>>
>>
> __**_
> http://www.okiebenz.com
> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
> To search list archives 
> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>
___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Rich Thomas]

So how do I get these wondrous softwares on these machines?  The old 
Tpad has a non-bootable CDROM and a 1.44 floppy drive I guess it would 
boot from, it is somewhat flaky now booting from the HD as it seems to 
be finding a corrupt driver sometimes.  The Compaq might or might not 
boot from the CD, not sure.  Neither has a USB but they do have network 
connections.  Can I get a dual-boot option for the winders flavor/*nix 
or is it one or the other?  If I download the software from the net is 
there then an install procedure for it?  I am a noob on *nix but willing 
to follow directions (if understandable to a noob).  Tell me what to do 
and I will be dangerous!


I was looking up info on the Antix and one of the pages kept blowing up 
Firefox on the iMac when I tried to close the tab, interesting.  The 
pages I looked at all kinda started with "now that you have "*nix on the 
machine...".


--R

On 12/1/11 12:34 AM, Walt Zarnoch wrote:

Yep, keep it light, and it'll romp circles around other stuff.

I run LXDE on my laptop, but may swap back to XFCE4 in the future.

Walt
On Dec 1, 2011 12:23 AM, "Fmiser"  wrote:


Rich Thomas writes:

I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
[?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
and CD drives.
So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
could do with them at this point that would take advantage
of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
Something?

Allan Streib wrote:

The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.

X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.


If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.

I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.

--   Philip

___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com


___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com



___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Walt Zarnoch]

Yep, keep it light, and it'll romp circles around other stuff.

I run LXDE on my laptop, but may swap back to XFCE4 in the future.

Walt
On Dec 1, 2011 12:23 AM, "Fmiser"  wrote:

> > > Rich Thomas writes:
> > >
> > > I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
> > > [?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
> > > ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
> > > and CD drives.
>
> > > So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
> > > could do with them at this point that would take advantage
> > > of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
> > > linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
> > > Something?
>
> > Allan Streib wrote:
> >
> > The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.
>
> X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
> modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
> Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.
>
> > If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
> > usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.
>
> I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
> distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.
>
> --   Philip
>
> ___
> http://www.okiebenz.com
> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
>
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
>
___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Fmiser]

> > Rich Thomas writes:
> > 
> > I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98
> > [?], 486 with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400
> > ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both have docking stations
> > and CD drives.

> > So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I
> > could do with them at this point that would take advantage
> > of their vast capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of
> > linux would be best to try to put on them to get them to Do
> > Something?

> Allan Streib wrote:
>
> The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.

X isn't too bad.  It's the likes of Gnome, KDE, and all the
modern, hungry programs.  Don't run Firefox, the Gimp, Adobe
Acrobat, etc and even X does okay.

> If you can do without the GUI they can be surprisingly
> usable.  OpenBSD can be a decent choice on older hardware.

I think any of the *nix can do alright - so long as the
distribution allows you to NOT install the big boys.

--   Philip

___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Allan Streib]

The killer on that old a machine is going to be running X11.  If you can
do without the GUI they can be surprisingly usable.  OpenBSD can be a
decent choice on older hardware.

Rich Thomas  writes:

> I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98[?], 486
> with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400 ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB
> RAM), both have docking stations and CD drives.  Both still cranking
> along (slowly), the Tpad gets a VTP error occasionally and does not
> want to boot, which I think is a video driver or something.   I put
> Ubuntu on the Tpad some time ago, but it doesn't fire up.
>
> So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I could do
> with them at this point that would take advantage of their vast
> capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of linux would be best to try
> to put on them to get them to Do Something?
>
> --R

-- 
1983 300D
1979 300SD

___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Mountain Man]

Walt wrote:
> Arch or antix would be my vote. Either one will work exceptionally well on
> old hardware.

Arch here on 9 year old mobo pc.
mao

___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Walt Zarnoch]

Arch or antix would be my vote. Either one will work exceptionally well on
old hardware.

As far as what to do with them, you could flip the screen back and frame
them in a photo frame, use some scripting to load photos from the drive in
a slideshow, and have a nice digital photo frame.

Add in a bit more trickery and you could even have it tell you the weather,
show who's at the front door, display stock prices, sports stats, the list
traffic, etc.

Walt
On Nov 30, 2011 6:03 PM, "Rich Thomas" 
wrote:

> I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98[?], 486 with
> 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400 ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB RAM), both
> have docking stations and CD drives.  Both still cranking along (slowly),
> the Tpad gets a VTP error occasionally and does not want to boot, which I
> think is a video driver or something.   I put Ubuntu on the Tpad some time
> ago, but it doesn't fire up.
>
> So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I could do with
> them at this point that would take advantage of their vast capabilities.
>  Any ideas?  What flavor of linux would be best to try to put on them to
> get them to Do Something?
>
> --R
>
> __**_
> http://www.okiebenz.com
> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
> To search list archives 
> http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/
>
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com
>
___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

[MBZ] OT for old laptop geeks

[Rich Thomas]

I just fired up an old Thinkpad (early 96 vintage, with Win98[?], 486 
with 36MB RAM) and a Compaq laptop LTE 5400 ( Win95, 96 vintage, 80MB 
RAM), both have docking stations and CD drives.  Both still cranking 
along (slowly), the Tpad gets a VTP error occasionally and does not want 
to boot, which I think is a video driver or something.   I put Ubuntu on 
the Tpad some time ago, but it doesn't fire up.


So these things work, more or less, I am wondering what I could do with 
them at this point that would take advantage of their vast 
capabilities.  Any ideas?  What flavor of linux would be best to try to 
put on them to get them to Do Something?


--R

___
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com