Many many thanks Civilme, I will not buy one of those little buggers. On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Civileme mewed: > Many moons ago, August, I believe, "Good Morning America" was scheduled to > carry a short article about the Personal Internet Appliance. The show was > postphoned, and I am not sure that segment ever aired (I don't have television > service, anyway.) It was revolutionary in two ways.... It promised internet > connectivity with word processing, browsing, etc and a 333MHz processor with 32M > RAM and a 2G or larger HDD. And the Price tag was an astounding $199. > > I ordered one, and the order was confirmed, and I was offered "customization" > in a separate email where for only $29.95 the "codes" for my ISP of choice > would be preloaded. I ignored the email and waited for the device,... and > waited, and waited.... > > Well, tow months later, I called and they said they had no record of my order. > > OK snafus happen, particularly in startups, so I forgot about it. > > Later, someone approached me who has a son living 2400 miles away in Washington > and who wanted to get him connected to email as cheaply as possible without > trying the WEBTV type stuff. I remembered the PIA and said it should probably > be stable, at least on the software side. I also presented several other > alternatives without making any recommendation. He opted for the PIA from > www.thelinuxstore.com. I recommended additional memory, so the PIA was > purchased with 64M. > > Well, it was my opportunity to support the device. So, I dealt with it over > the phone. Naturally, the high-schooler turned it off without shutting down. > Then we discovered that the root password was nowhere in the documentation. > (Everything was preinstalled, one ordinary user defined, named tux with pw tux). > > The Linux store folk I could find over the phone could not locate the one who > knew the root password, so an email was sent and a response was received and, > after > > e2fsck -c /dev/hda3 > > everything was working again. Debian was the distro, and KDE was the wm and > level5 was how it booted (no LILO, no linux 1, no floppy drive for a rescue > floppy, no CD drive to boot a CD to use it as a rescue). Everything worked > like a charm. The modem was at /dev/modem, and Kppp was all set up except for > the ISP specific stuff. > > Then we tried to go to eskimo.com > > No Carrier, nine times out of 10. > > Dropped lines, trashy performance. One login successful out of 74 attempts, > and that one stayed up 3 whole minutes. Looked like Netscape loading knocked > it down.... > > What is WORSE than a Rockwell HCF chipset? > > The PCTel HSP! That is what it had. A LINMODEM! > > And the Motherboard? PCChips M748R or something slightly newer which will run > up to 500MHz P-IIIs and of course Celerons of all descriptions .... Most > likely PPGA with perhaps a slot as well on board. > > Well, this is NOT one to try at home. This is NOT one to mention to friends. > I found my friend a nice 56K external serial modem from Compaq for $54.50 plus > $9.00 shipping. Now I just hope the PCChips board holds together for a while. > > As you know, PCChips boards are made by a company of geniuses who specialize in > ECCR (elimination of cost-complicating redundancies) In 1996, it was > discovered that motherboards produced by them had worthless pieces of plastic > in the cache sockets (obviously, if there is no cache memory on board to fail, > then the board will fail less frequently, and the cost complications are > greatly reduced). I have seen Houston Tech, Hsin tech, Lucky Star, Matsonic, > Eurome, Alton, and Amptron brands on PCChips made boards, and all seem to be > basically the same. Never use two inductors when one will do. Never use a > tantalum capacitor when an electrolytic can do the same task, and never, ever > buy a chipset from a chipset manufacturer that the manufacturer is willing to > put his own name on. Don't forget to use terms like AGP to mean "Advanced > Graphics Processor" for your PCI/ISA boards without Accelerated Graphics > Processor slots, either. After all, the Accelerated graphics Processor was at > the time of MMX Socket 7 just another Cost Complication. > > Whew, long post, but you folk have been warned. Warn others. This is a BAD > ONE. This is a Packard bell of the linux world. > > Also, there is a web site where the purchasers of these unhappy devices can > update their software. It is called PlanetPIA, http://www.planetPIA.com, and > it has been "Coming Soon" since September. > > This device will likely and deservedly fail. It is truly a shame that some > will be blaming the operating system on it instead of the Ebiz Enterprises > company handling it ... they seem predatory and into anything that is hot. > > But one note of light in all this darkness. EBiz did manage to make a nice > installation of linux on very very marginal hardware. > > Sorry to have strayed from the Mandrake topic, but this one was too much to > contain. > > Ebiz seems to have the linux store, CPU Micromart (which handles PCChips stuff > and used to handle Multias), and a few other enterprises. None seem to have > the resources to do much more than sell to you and produce product for sale. A > number of items have appeared on their various web sites as things one would > see and "gotta have" which have quickly disappeared. Whether it was "loss > leader", "bait and switch vaporware", or something else, I cannot say, because > they haven't yet learned how to ship to Alaska (fortunately for me, since my > first impulse is to trust those involved with linux). > > Civileme -- My new linux web server with Apache http://kittypuss.penguinpowered.com
