Linux-Advocacy Digest #411, Volume #27 Sat, 1 Jul 00 08:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Life in the Midwest - technolife that is. ("John Porterfield")
I thought only Windows 98 SE did this! (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Ready for Linux ? The "Furniture Scale" (Cihl)
Re: Trying Linux yet again.... ("Ferdinand V. Mendoza")
Re: I'm Ready! I'm ready! I'm not ready. (Cihl)
Re: Where did all my windows go? (Nic)
Re: Ready for Linux ? The "Furniture Scale" (Aaron Kulkis)
Re: OS's ... (Pim van Riezen)
Re: I'm Ready! I'm ready! I'm not ready. (Aaron Kulkis)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "John Porterfield" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Life in the Midwest - technolife that is.
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 05:21:32 -0600
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Nathaniel Jay Lee
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It's less of an issue of whether people in the midwest have use for
computers, (farmers are actually very reilant on computer technology, do
you think they spend 500,000 on farm equipment for old technology?) It's
more of an issue that the big paying jobs are on the coasts, especially
the west coast. Gateway and Dell are the only majore computer
manufacturers in the midwest, (Gateway in South Dakota, Dell in texas) and
gateways main office moved to San Diego last year. Most of the people who
go to conventions, work on computers as a job, since most of the jobs for
computers are elsewhere (the coasts) attendance for a midwest conference
isn't going to be especially striking.
> OK, there's a bit of a debate going on at Slashdot about a Linux
> conference that flopped. There was zero advertising from it and it
> appears as if the management of it was completely wacked out, but most
> people posting seem to think that there is no way a tech conference can
> succeed in the midwest. They all feel that all technical people either
> live in the coastal states, or that all technical people should go to
> the coastal states to stay technical. I say, that's a load of crap.
>
> So, I've decided to get the reaction of COLA. How many of you live in
> the midwest? Of those people, how many would be willing to go to a
> large city in your area for a technical conference (especially one on
> Linux)?
>
> I'm out to prove that us midwesterners aren't as backasswords as they
> (Slashdot crowd) are saying we are. I say there are plenty of people in
> the midwest that would attend this sort of conference, especially about
> Linux. Myself, and at least thirty people that I know would kill for a
> chance to see a Linux conference up close, but can't afford to go or
> take the time off to go to the conferences that are on either coast
> (east or west). But the coastal people are saying they wouldn't go to a
> tech conference in the midwest so it is pointless to have a conference
> there. Apparently they really believe that we are all a bunch of hicks
> and farmers. What do you guys have to say on the matter?
>
------------------------------
Subject: I thought only Windows 98 SE did this!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 11:10:18 GMT
I shut down my Linux server, fine, no problems.
I shut down my Linux workstation and it hung in Postfix... I tried logging
in as root, but all the virtual terminals wouldn't let me even type 'root'.
So, reboot.
Now this is the second time Linux has fallen apart on shutdown. The first
was a kernel oops when it tried to dismount an smbfs mounted drive. Now it
hung in shutting down Postfix.
Is the bug in Windows 98 SE a mutating virus? Did it leap OS's!
8)
Pete
------------------------------
From: Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Ready for Linux ? The "Furniture Scale"
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 11:12:54 GMT
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > This is a pretty good description. If you've at least stripped
> > > > the paint and re-painted it, that's a good start. If you've tuned
> > > > your own car, if you've replaced a faucet, or
> > > > if you've successfully
> > > > learned to drive a stick-shift in rush-hour traffic,
> > > > then you probably
> > > > have the ability to install: [Mandrake, SuSE, or Caldera Linux]
> > >
> > > Hey, I do *all* of that! :-)
> >
> > What's so hard about driving a stick-shift in rush-hour traffic? I do
> > that every single day.
>
> Good, so you understand the benefits of a system that is slightly
> more complicated (5 speed transmission, clutch, brake, managing the
> rpm...) in exchange for more control (lower cost, better acceleration
> with smaller engines, more power and speed with larger engines,
> matching the gears to the requirements (shifting...) and have
> demonstrated a willingness to learn something which reqires more
> effort to learn (compared to an Automatic Transmission).
Actually, i'm from Europe and Everybody (i know) has a stick-shift
around here. Automatic transmissions just never caught on here. I have
no idea whether an automatic is better/worse than a stickshifter, but
i'll take your word for it.
> You are the kind of person who could install Linux yourself,
> would take the time to learn the features of LINUX (as opposed
> to assuming that it should be exactly like every trade-secret,
> copyrighted, and trademarked Microsoft features and applications
> and grousing because the Icons don't look like the IE icons.
Yep, you're right. I'm working from Mandrake 7.1 right now, but i
still like SuSE more. I'm going back to them when a new one comes out.
Speaking of icons, can i use the Gnome icons in KDE, too? I haven't
tried it yet. I like the general look of KDE, but i like the loose
icons of Gnome a little more.
> The "Never buy anything but delivered furnature from Ethan Allen"
> crowd might enjoy Linux (when it reaches "Status Symbol Status")
> but will probably stick with their Imacs and Windows machines
> no matter how tempermental they are. Better to drive a tempermental
> Porche than a reliable but boring Toyota.
Yeah, but in the case of OS's the Porsche is actually cheaper than the
Toyota. I wish that was the case with cars.
Japanese cars are very good, by the way. I think you could compare
Windows more easily with an old T-Ford. Back in those days everybody
who had a car had the same one, in the exact same color (black).
--
¨I live!¨
¨I hunger!¨
¨Run, coward!¨
-- The Sinistar
------------------------------
From: "Ferdinand V. Mendoza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Trying Linux yet again....
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 15:28:23 +0400
Jeff Szarka wrote:
>
>
> My hardware is very basic, P3-550, SB Live, 3com NIC, Adaptec SCSI, HP
> printer, Geforce SDR. This is all VERY common hardware and it SHOULD
> work fine.
Who manufactured your motherboard? Some motherboards would behave well
on an older release and suddenly acts very funny when you install the
latest one.
Here's one case:
Pentium 133
SB AWE
64 Mb RAM
Creative CDROM (ATAPI)
ATI rage Pro
3com NIC
EIDE HD
No SCSI
The machine is an old HP Vectra and would install Mandrake 6.0 without any
problems. To my surprise, when I tried to install Mandrake 7.1 it would
shutdown the machine on "stage2". This is a hard disk installation, BTW.
I removed all the parts except the motherboard and the PSU and put it
in a box with my proven AOpen BX motherboard. Installation worked.
I'm not a hardware expert but Mandrake 7.1 doesn't seem to like the
Vectra's
MB.
Another case:
I again performed the same hard disk installation on a brand new Dell
Optiplex
GX1 model.
Pentium III 550
Crystal (sound)
128 MB RAM
ATI rage Pro
2 USB ports
3com NIC
Samsung CDROM
Mandrake 7.1 installed without any problems just like my AOpen MB with
a Pentium II 400 MHz.
All the PCI's are detected, sound is working. X is okay and USB port is
perfect.
Ferdinand
------------------------------
From: Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I'm Ready! I'm ready! I'm not ready.
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 11:29:23 GMT
Laura Goodwin wrote:
>
> Aaron Ginn wrote:
> >
> > If you build your own computers, why don't you forget the dual-boot
> > setup and dedicate one machine to installing Linux.
>
> That's one idea. I'm thinking of putting a second HD in my PC just for
> Linux. I (as usual) have an old one knocking around. I'm not going to
> scare up an extra case, mobo, etc. just to toy with a new OS. If I try
> it and like it I may do that later.
>
> Here's my current setup: (All EIDE)
I'll give my 2 cents worth on this.
> FIC PAG-2130 mobo (100 MHZ FSB, 1MB L2 cache) This VIA chipset board
> has onboard Trident AGP vid that shares the RAM, and onboard
> soundblaster compatible sound.
Make sure you get a recent version of a Linux distribution. There have
been problems with VIA chipsets in the past. The on-board soundcard
only works with ALSA since the beginning of June. The Trident should
work with the standard SVGA driver.
> AMD 350 K6-2 CPU
> Generic 128 MB PC-100 SDRAM (8 for vid, 120 for system)
I never liked that system. I think it's better to have a separate
vidcard and get an extra 8 Megs of memory.
> Voodoo 2 12MB 3D (PCI)
It works, but is mostly useless. There aren't that many games
available on Linux just yet.
> Happauge WinTV (PCI)
Works with my neighbour flawlessly.
> US Robotics PnP voice/fax (ISA, *not* a winmodem)
You're lucky. Most USR-internals are Winmodems. It's ISAPnP, and Linux
(still) has some problems with that. The easiest solution is to use a
2.4.0-test kernel.
> C-it USB webcam
As of yet, useless. See above.
> Logitech Marblemouse trackball (USB, but I have it on ps/2 with an
> adapter)
It should work fine with both.
> Komodo 17" SVGA display (Spectre)
> Hi-Val 2242 CD-RW
Don't know that one.
> Generic CD-Rom, generic FDD and generic (windows-type) keyboard
> Western Digital 15.3 G HD (7200 rpm ATA 66)
>
> Like I said, I may dedicate my extra 4.3 G Quantum fireball to Linux.
> I'm not chicken about resizing partitons, etc., but I don't want to mess
> my drive with multiple non-FAT partitions and all that rot just to
> experiment. Too much hassle.
>
> Thanks for caring. :)
Phew, are there many people in the .us who have this kind of a setup?
It's really Windows-specific, you know. I hope you get it working, but
don't expect full operation on setup in your case.
I'll give my setup too. This is a setup which works mostly with Linux:
Asus P2L97 motherboard
Intel Pentium II 300 MHz
96 MB (66 MHz) RAM.
Diamond Monster Fusion (Voodoo Banshee) with 16 MB
10 Gig HD, WD on Ultra DMA-33
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410 (17" Trinitron)
HP Scanjet 4100C (USB, works with dev. kernels)
HP Deskjet 720C (works partially with PBM2PPA, Winprinter)
Standard NE-2000 Compatible PCI-NIC.
Logitech Mouseman+ wheelmouse
I particularly like how the scanner works. It doesn't lock up the
desktop like in Windows. It just scans on the background so i don't
have to wait for it to finish.
--
¨I live!¨
¨I hunger!¨
¨Run, coward!¨
-- The Sinistar
------------------------------
From: Nic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where did all my windows go?
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 23:35:13 +1200
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> All X applications disappear. A message appears briefly that looks like
> the cookie again, but I couldn't tell.
In case anyone wants to reproduce this, the URL is
http://www.dumpthepump.co.uk/ - running on NT and using the
"windows-1252" character set.
On my machine, the only thing that died was kfm, because I only use some
KDE apps, not the whole shebang. Having everything die can be the price
you pay for an "integrated" desktop. Blech.
Not sure whether to bother reporting this to the KDE folks or not, as if
memory serves me correctly, it's been totally rewritten anyway, so may
not have the bug.
Regards,
Nic.
KCharset: Wrong charset!
Charset windows-1252 not available
Rejecting cookie from http://www.dumpthepump.co.uk/
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x40638c15 in free () from /lib/libc.so.6
(gdb)
--
J. Random Coder < sky at wibble dot net >
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Ready for Linux ? The "Furniture Scale"
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 08:03:43 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cihl wrote:
>
> "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" wrote:
> >
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > > This is a pretty good description. If you've at least stripped
> > > > > the paint and re-painted it, that's a good start. If you've tuned
> > > > > your own car, if you've replaced a faucet, or
> > > > > if you've successfully
> > > > > learned to drive a stick-shift in rush-hour traffic,
> > > > > then you probably
> > > > > have the ability to install: [Mandrake, SuSE, or Caldera Linux]
> > > >
> > > > Hey, I do *all* of that! :-)
> > >
> > > What's so hard about driving a stick-shift in rush-hour traffic? I do
> > > that every single day.
> >
> > Good, so you understand the benefits of a system that is slightly
> > more complicated (5 speed transmission, clutch, brake, managing the
> > rpm...) in exchange for more control (lower cost, better acceleration
> > with smaller engines, more power and speed with larger engines,
> > matching the gears to the requirements (shifting...) and have
> > demonstrated a willingness to learn something which reqires more
> > effort to learn (compared to an Automatic Transmission).
>
> Actually, i'm from Europe and Everybody (i know) has a stick-shift
> around here. Automatic transmissions just never caught on here. I have
> no idea whether an automatic is better/worse than a stickshifter, but
> i'll take your word for it.
Think of how you would drive, if your shifting hand had VERY painful
cuts all over your palm and fingers...
>
> > You are the kind of person who could install Linux yourself,
> > would take the time to learn the features of LINUX (as opposed
> > to assuming that it should be exactly like every trade-secret,
> > copyrighted, and trademarked Microsoft features and applications
> > and grousing because the Icons don't look like the IE icons.
>
> Yep, you're right. I'm working from Mandrake 7.1 right now, but i
> still like SuSE more. I'm going back to them when a new one comes out.
> Speaking of icons, can i use the Gnome icons in KDE, too? I haven't
> tried it yet. I like the general look of KDE, but i like the loose
> icons of Gnome a little more.
>
> > The "Never buy anything but delivered furnature from Ethan Allen"
> > crowd might enjoy Linux (when it reaches "Status Symbol Status")
> > but will probably stick with their Imacs and Windows machines
> > no matter how tempermental they are. Better to drive a tempermental
> > Porche than a reliable but boring Toyota.
>
> Yeah, but in the case of OS's the Porsche is actually cheaper than the
> Toyota. I wish that was the case with cars.
>
> Japanese cars are very good, by the way. I think you could compare
> Windows more easily with an old T-Ford. Back in those days everybody
> who had a car had the same one, in the exact same color (black).
>
> --
> ¨I live!¨
> ¨I hunger!¨
> ¨Run, coward!¨
> -- The Sinistar
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
From: Pim van Riezen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OS's ...
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 13:32:24 +0200
On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, name wrote:
> Pedro Iglesias wrote:
>
> > When Word won Wordperfect, it was not the dominant one, so it
> > won 'cause it was better. Besides, it mind me bollocks if Microsoft
> > split or not, Windows will be the dominant OS for a while. Tell me
> > a company that does not try to beat the rivals, come on.
>
> Oh, you're a really bright one aren't you. Because Word wasn't dominant,
> it is now because it was better. You might want to stop posting here
> until you gain some semblance of intelligence. Unless you like being called
> a complete moron or an idiot.
There is more to Word's gain of marketshare when it started happening
than just pushing of the product. WP's biggest momentum was in the DOS
era, when Windows 3.1 was still seen as a shell instead of an OS. At that
time, WP concentrated on making WP use a graphical environment on top of
DOS, while MS focused on getting it to run on Windows. Then, as 3.1
started gaining popularity among home users, WP had to play a bit of
catch-up, but were at a disadvantage because they had to support the same
program on two architectures, which resulted in WP for Windows being slow
as molasses at that point.
A much weirder development could be seen on the MacOS platform, though.
Word 5 was a really speedy Word Processor that ran very well even on older
68030 macs with as little as 4MB of RAM. Then, when Word 6 came out, it
was no longer really a native MacOS program but a compile of the Windows
version with enough glue stuck on top to let it stick on to Apple's
system you needed an 68040 and 16MB or you'd be looking at the lines
being drawn while sipping your coffee. Word Perfect 3.5 when it came out
(as an upgrade to 3.0 with the same amount of features as the new Word)
flied, though.
So at the same time that Word started taking over the x86 world, WP grew
stronger on Mac.
Of course at the time that WordPerfect managed to get their act together
on the Windows side, the Word / MS Works / MS Office bundles had grown too
strong. Possible anti-competitive behaviour from the side of MS with
regards to the Office suites is mostly a post Windows95 era thing, though.
The loss of momentum for WP had already happened at that point. And I
think this is typical of the way things worked: Anti-competitive tactics
were most of the times used for strongholding a market they already owned,
not as much for gaining marketshare.
The popularity of Office on Mac has not been on the merits of quality for
sure, instead it was mostly attributable to the Cousin Ned effect (there's
only so much Word documents you can get in the mail before you start using
Office, especially if it's available for your platform).
Cheers,
Pi
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I'm Ready! I'm ready! I'm not ready.
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 08:07:46 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cihl wrote:
>
> Laura Goodwin wrote:
> >
> > Aaron Ginn wrote:
> > >
> > > If you build your own computers, why don't you forget the dual-boot
> > > setup and dedicate one machine to installing Linux.
> >
> > That's one idea. I'm thinking of putting a second HD in my PC just for
> > Linux. I (as usual) have an old one knocking around. I'm not going to
> > scare up an extra case, mobo, etc. just to toy with a new OS. If I try
> > it and like it I may do that later.
> >
> > Here's my current setup: (All EIDE)
>
> I'll give my 2 cents worth on this.
>
> > FIC PAG-2130 mobo (100 MHZ FSB, 1MB L2 cache) This VIA chipset board
> > has onboard Trident AGP vid that shares the RAM, and onboard
> > soundblaster compatible sound.
>
> Make sure you get a recent version of a Linux distribution. There have
> been problems with VIA chipsets in the past. The on-board soundcard
> only works with ALSA since the beginning of June. The Trident should
> work with the standard SVGA driver.
>
> > AMD 350 K6-2 CPU
> > Generic 128 MB PC-100 SDRAM (8 for vid, 120 for system)
>
> I never liked that system. I think it's better to have a separate
> vidcard and get an extra 8 Megs of memory.
>
> > Voodoo 2 12MB 3D (PCI)
>
> It works, but is mostly useless. There aren't that many games
> available on Linux just yet.
>
> > Happauge WinTV (PCI)
>
> Works with my neighbour flawlessly.
>
> > US Robotics PnP voice/fax (ISA, *not* a winmodem)
>
> You're lucky. Most USR-internals are Winmodems. It's ISAPnP, and Linux
> (still) has some problems with that. The easiest solution is to use a
> 2.4.0-test kernel.
>
> > C-it USB webcam
>
> As of yet, useless. See above.
>
> > Logitech Marblemouse trackball (USB, but I have it on ps/2 with an
> > adapter)
>
> It should work fine with both.
>
> > Komodo 17" SVGA display (Spectre)
> > Hi-Val 2242 CD-RW
>
> Don't know that one.
>
> > Generic CD-Rom, generic FDD and generic (windows-type) keyboard
> > Western Digital 15.3 G HD (7200 rpm ATA 66)
> >
> > Like I said, I may dedicate my extra 4.3 G Quantum fireball to Linux.
> > I'm not chicken about resizing partitons, etc., but I don't want to mess
> > my drive with multiple non-FAT partitions and all that rot just to
> > experiment. Too much hassle.
> >
> > Thanks for caring. :)
>
> Phew, are there many people in the .us who have this kind of a setup?
> It's really Windows-specific, you know. I hope you get it working, but
You don't know how difficult it is to get non-LoseDOS oriented hardware
over here.
You have to be pretty well informed to step through the minefield
and get up-to-date equipment which isn't LoseWare.
> don't expect full operation on setup in your case.
>
> I'll give my setup too. This is a setup which works mostly with Linux:
>
> Asus P2L97 motherboard
> Intel Pentium II 300 MHz
> 96 MB (66 MHz) RAM.
> Diamond Monster Fusion (Voodoo Banshee) with 16 MB
> 10 Gig HD, WD on Ultra DMA-33
> Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410 (17" Trinitron)
> HP Scanjet 4100C (USB, works with dev. kernels)
> HP Deskjet 720C (works partially with PBM2PPA, Winprinter)
> Standard NE-2000 Compatible PCI-NIC.
> Logitech Mouseman+ wheelmouse
>
> I particularly like how the scanner works. It doesn't lock up the
> desktop like in Windows. It just scans on the background so i don't
> have to wait for it to finish.
>
> --
> ¨I live!¨
> ¨I hunger!¨
> ¨Run, coward!¨
> -- The Sinistar
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
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