And it's free. And that includes not having to pay for anti-virus
software on top of paying for the O/S (though in this case apparently
Win 7 is already there), or reboot for the ever-coming patches. And even
if you use the free AV software, it still takes up valuable CPU and
memory resources, which on a smaller machine can be a killer.
Uptime on this PC, by the way, is currently 224 days. OpenSuSE 12.1, on
an old 2 ghz AMD Sempron. I think I have 3gb of RAM installed, but it
used to have a lot less 224 days ago (under a gig, if I recall). My PC
at work is running OpenSusE 11.4, and it's been up for well over 200
days as well. I also run VMPlayer with Windows 7 inside, but it's up and
down like a yo-yo with the corporate-driven patches that get applied.
APRSIS/32, if you want to run APRS, works excellently in Wine on Linux,
much better in my opinion than XASTIR. I have also run several of the
Windows-based satellite tracking programs in Wine, if you need
compatibility, though I prefer gpredict.
Ubuntu is a very popular Linux distro, but I prefer OpenSuSE. The user
experience is more main-stream (but without being too Windows-like), and
all of the system configuration utilities are bundled into a single
setup tool, so they're easy to find and have the same look & feel.
Greg KO6TH
gordon...@gjcp.net wrote:
On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 10:33:18AM -0400, Philip Jenkins wrote:
The refurbs are pretty cheap, so I may get two and install XP on one and
some flavor of Linux on the other (I'm the most familiar with Ubuntu (but
that isn't saying much), but open to suggestions.) Does Linux still support
serial ports?
Yes, of course! There's the added advantage that you don't need additional
drivers for USB-to-serial converters, too, which takes a bit more uncertainty
out of things.
If it ever was supported, it should be supported now. Okay, the kernel-mode
soundmodem stuff has gone, but that was a stupid idea ;-) Remember those old
floppy connector tape drives? They're still supported - if you can get a real
genuine FDC to play with...
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