You don't have to ask the guy in the datacenter. We have a 10square metre office. There is one big-ass laserprinter here (which is in powersave mode most of the time and thus produces not much heat), but my wife leaves her P-IV 2.6MHz HT on all the time, and my server runs 24/7 (Athlon64 2800+). With temperatures as high as 35C outside, both computers produce enough heat to heat up the room another 3C, which is very much noticable. This even tough I have the window open (Sorry, no AC here in Europe...most people don't have that)
sysctl hw indicates me that the CPU of my Athlon64 is at 44C. It's underclocked to 800MHz, and in normal temperatures it's running 39C at most.
Well, it depends a lot on your system. I have an Athlon MP 2400+ with an GeForce 5500FX slimline version. This means only a heatsink. Since both of my CPUs can produce up to 90C (according to spec...), and the ventilation in the case isn't the best (especially due to the position of the case), firing up a game like Halflife 2 works fine. About 20 minutes later, the card heats up and graphics start to be choppy (up to stallin the game). The only way is to Ctrl-Shift-Esc and kill Halflife 2.
Sure, it's clear that this is mainly because of the crappy ventilation in my system (the case can handle it, but the motherboard hasn't enough temperature-controlled-fan-connectors, and I do not want constantly rotating fans) I just want to warn that "taking a fanless graphics card" isn't enough...
I already looked at Acer.nl (serves BeNeLux... it's the "Lux" part where I live and it's a bitch to get new tech here) I'll check out the others. It's not for today anyway. My father in law wants a new company website, and I'm writing it for him. Thing is that I have no VAT number and we agreed that he'd simply buy me a laptop for the effort. He'll just have to cough up for the Turion X2 that I can find;-)
As for "Overcome Intel Monopoly": I have 4 Intel machines left: the server at my parents (P-III 800Mhz/768Meg), my old laptop (P-III 600Mhz Mobile/512Meg), my dads laptop (P-III 733MHz/256Meg) and my wifes computer (P-IV 2.6HT/2Gig RAM). I have 3 AMD64 machines (two 2800+, and one 3400+), 1 Athlon XP 2800+ machine and 1 Athlon MP 2400+ (two CPUs of course). Considering that the Intel machines are all well over 3 years old, and my AMD machines are much newer (only the MP is over 3 years old), I'm pretty much switched to AMD completely. Of course, if Intel keeps on kicking AMDs butt, I might make the switch back;-)
Well, I don't like conspiracy theories but one can look at it from a different angle.
Currently they sell us oil (gas/diesel) with a healthy profit. They know that some day this resource is going to dry up. However, increasing demand will push up prices and hence increase their profit. Now, won't it be smart to pursue the profits in their current business model until the prices get so high that few can pay them.
That point is an excellent timing to introduce a new revolutionary technology, because at that time they can pretty much ask any price they want for it. After all the energy companies are pretty much oligopolies. You see: they'll just say. Sure our new revolutionary cars cost twice what you would pay for a normal car but we have to recoup our years and years of research & development. (Even tough, in reality the tech was ripe for usage in the last 50 years) People won't have an alternative and thus will pay up.
Introducing this new revolutionary tech now would make it compete with the current offerings and thus the prices would have to come down.
I'm not saying this is the case. I'm just saying that holding off technology might provide more profit in the long run.
Having more expensive cars that have a certain "green" label do not make them magically sell better. For example, there has been a range of 3L cars (meaning 3l/100km) made by VW/Audi. As far as I know they have been pulled from the market because of low sales. ( Audi A2 3L - pulled from market 2005 , VW Lupo 3L - pulled from market in 2005 ) Okay, you might argue that they are ugly cars, but my dad has an A2 (petrol) and it's actually fun to drive:-)
Exactly! I remember seeing a movie about a german family in post-WWII. One of the guys in the movie had a coal-powered truck (not the actual model of the truck, but incinerator is clearly visible: cylindrical structure on the side). Later he upgraded to a gas powered one, but I found it pretty amazing that such things didn't exist anymore. I frankly don't know what the movie was, but it doesn't matter.
Also remember that the original Diesel engine was designed to run from a variety of fuels, including coal dust.
Just like it's a common prank to syphon out the gas/diesel out of a normal car. Oh, wait, it isn't: the compartments for refueling are locked when the car is locked.
Ever heard of "non-native english speaker"? I actually learnt most of my English because of using computers. So, indirectly he did!
If you really want to start a flamewar about that. Look at little gems I found on slashdot: "weather" instead of "whether" (when not talking about real weather of course), "here, here" instead of "hear, hear" (when not saying "here here kitty") or a new favourite of mine "in do case" instead of "in due case". Did I correct any of these people? Of course not! First, this is slashdot, spelling errors are mandatory and second: who am I to criticize their English? They might be non-native. They might only be 14 years old. What do I know about them?
True, cars fall into the category "usage" but "not knowledge". Still, I have yet to find a geek that doesn't know at least superficially how a powertrain works, how an internal combustion engine works. Other people don't even know *what* a powertrain is. Don't forget, we're talking about controlling such people, we're talking about controlling (young) teenagers here! They even don't know how to spell a word like "drastic" (Oops!). They even don't know how the battery in their cellphone works! I'm sure you do, because you actually learnt this in high school (at least in mine, we did.)
The thing is: geeks will always try to understand how things works, let it be a car, a computer, a washing machine. Sure, we couldn't build one, but having that knowlegde plus being able to actually read a manual and understand it gives us an egde over all those that do not. This includes kids up to 15-16 years. After that, as a parent, you should have taught then how to be (at least partially) responsible.
It was pretty easy to beat my dad. He was a proto-geek. He would have been a geek for sure if in his time computers would have been a tad bit more cheaper. He became an economist instead and never lost his geekness, but he was simply not specialised in our area. He encouraged me a lot to get into tech and so I did. In a sense, he let me win.
Unless we get a drastical technology shift (something that is not based on electricity and computers), it's quite probable that we as geeks will keep up. I don't have the time either, but when a new gizmo comes out it's usually not hard to get by. I'm usually even a late adopter. Besides, I can call up on my dad: he picked up cellphones quite nicely (and uses more functions than I do). If you have a certain talent in tech, you'll be fine. I'm confident in that.
Again: things these days tend to be dumbed down so much that understanding is not necessary, but only usage. Since (with relation to electronics/computers) we know what goes on, we will have an advantage.
They can't find you online? That's probably only because they aren't computer literate. (Not to diss your parents, I'm sure they are very fine people) Once I get kids, I'm pretty sure that I'll find them online. If only because I handle the firewall/router here and can log exactly what they visit. Even if I didn't, it very feasible to simple get on their computer and check their browser history. (Kids don't get Admin - Fuck I don't give Admin to myself for mundane tasks)
You see, the problem is not that parents don't want to know, it is because they do not know how to. For the future generation of kids this is going to change, because we grew up with computers. Actually, with the dumbing down of computers these days, it is very well possible that we will know more about computers than our kids will.
It's a bit like cellphones: I know people that pay the cellphone bills for their -13year olds. They complain that they call too much and don't know what to do. They still want the kids to have a cellphone in "case of an emergency". What most people don't know is that you can lock the numbers you want to the SIM card (or cellphone) and it won't allow other numbers to be called. People don't know. I do, my kids are going to have a hell of a time to beat me in technology. (Same way I did with my dad, because he was well informed too. I beat him, but it took its time)
I understand these kind of tasks are needed. No site goes without maintenance. Still, you could put a little notice on top of the page: "Commenting disabled: Site in Maintenance". The ideal position would be where the text "Have you meta moderated today?" appears.
Most European cars nowadays run on "super" (95 octane roz) or even "super plus" (98 octane roz)
Not really. I have a car that should get 98oct, but the manual clearly states that I can safely use 95oct with a small performance hit (at 225HP, a small performace hit isn't going to be noticed much). The car manual also states that it can be used with 91oct, but only when nothing else is available. You should not do this for a prolonged time. I used to drive my car with 95oct for a full year, with no problems at all.
As for smaller non-turbo charged engines: most run fine on 91oct. I know this from the manuals of my moms car and my dads car. Both rated 95oct, but they should run fine on 91oct.
It's close to impossible to find 91oct gas where I live. I know one gas station that has it, and I've never seen anybody buy it....
Also, beware comparing octane ratings in the US with European octane rates. 87 oct MON is the equivalent of 95 oct RON (source) In conclusion: we have the same gas, but our ratings are different and our cars do run on lower-rate octane levels.
Finally, (at least) 50% of the cars sold in the Europe have diesel engines. In that case, octane doesn't matter at all. There is however a big difference between US and European diesel: US diesel is typcially high-sulfur and European diesel is typically low-sulfur (except for trucks, afaik, but I wouldn't bet on it)
Hmmmm... I have a 2000 Audi TT which has a 1.8l engine. I most certainly have fun with it. Can it compete with a Porsche, high-end BMW or Jaguar? No, but it's still fun.
I also think that the 2l average for European cars is probably a tad bit high. In my (close) family there is noone that has a bigger engine than I have. Pretty much all cars we own have 1.4l engines, but of course, this is just anecdotical evidence.
These days, i find the average home PC for Average Joe Family need no more than a >2Ghz CPU, = 1GB RAM, ~80GB, GeForce 6200 or the likes.
What?
Dude... Average Joe Family needs no more than a P-III 1GHz (800MHz would do... frankly), with 512Meg RAM (yes, the RAM is more important that the CPU speed) and they could frankly live withe NVidia MX4 (which I know is crap, I have one!). Harddisk: as much as you can get....
That is what Joe Family needs.... Storage + Okay CPU + Good RAM.
Server: AMD64 2800+, underclocked to 800MHz/786Meg RAM
Wifes computer: P-IV 2.6HZ / 2Gig RAM
That's about what I run here.... I have more computers that I manage, but frankly.... all those do what I want (within expectations: I won't run a DVD rip on the P-III) Power? Not needed, unless one plays games, and usually that's fixed by using a good graphics card
I'm still looking out to get a new laptop based on a Turion64 X2....;-) Not that I really need it...
I was thinking the same thing: when exactly do you use a thumb with your mouse? I've got pretty much a plain "Logitec Optical Mouse", and I never use my thumb with it. I lay my hand on the mouse with the thumb on the side (but it doesn't ever move from there), index on left mouse button, middle finger on scrollwheel/middle mouse button and my ringfinger on the right mouse button.
Works like a charm.... I used to have wrist pains when I was younger, but that was in the day that mice were square bricks like the Genius Mouse
For those who may have been contemplating purchasing a PSP simply to play the exclusive PSP version of Grand Theft Auto now have more options,
Alas, I already bought a PSP just for that reason. I was really pissed to find out that LCS is now available for the PS2 (which I also own). Yeah, I'm an idiot. At least the PSP was on sale with two free games, so I didn't spent too much. Oh, well... Next time I'll just go Nintendo.
The guy is posting on slashdot. He isn't a typical user at all...
I was just trying to help him, not the typial Win98/ME user. Those will not migrate to Linux in any way.
Oh, and besides, you say: Even installing it on a P4, 256Mb ram, it took well over 3 hours.. . . . I can install winxp on that same crap system in 1/3 the time, critical updates included.
Did you count the installation of that WinXP machine including all latest drivers, the Microsoft Office, Abobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Nero Burning ROM, and the whole batch of stuff that make WinXP useful? Because, that's what you get when you install Linux: all the stuff you have to add in Windows comes included in the base "OS Installation" (Read: "Distribution Installation")
Personally, I count a full day to install WinXP from scratch to a fully usable machine... (Including testing and securing)
I have a stack of old CD-Rom drives. Heck there are even two burners in there (one which never really burnt well, and the other is only 2x write or so) I'd send it to you if you pay me postage, but frankly that's probably not worth it since I live in Europe. As another poster pointed out: a new CD-Rom would cost next to nothing new.
You could also temporary rip out a CD-Rom of another machine in order to do the install, then put the other drive back when you're done.
Finally, if you have broadband, just take the Debian floppy (okay, it won't be Ubuntu, but Debian is nice too) and install from network.
Most likely, he hasn't got enough RAM. WinXP works just fine on a P-III 600MHz with 512Meg RAM. It's what I have as my primary laptop and I'm happy with it. Also, I turn off all eyecandy (except ClearType), but I do that on *every* WinXP machine I use;-)
Increased demand for Linux on the desktop? Highly unlikely. The machines still running Win98/ME are probably all older machines that keep on chugging. The users didn't bother to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP in the first place, and will just keep running Win98/ME until the machine dies. When that happens, the users will simply buy a new system and then get the latest OS that comes with it. Probably XP or Vista, depending on time when the old machine dies.
While Linux may be ready for the desktop, the people that stick to Win98/ME are the most unlikely to switch to Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't have to ask the guy in the datacenter. We have a 10square metre office. There is one big-ass laserprinter here (which is in powersave mode most of the time and thus produces not much heat), but my wife leaves her P-IV 2.6MHz HT on all the time, and my server runs 24/7 (Athlon64 2800+). With temperatures as high as 35C outside, both computers produce enough heat to heat up the room another 3C, which is very much noticable. This even tough I have the window open (Sorry, no AC here in Europe...most people don't have that)
sysctl hw indicates me that the CPU of my Athlon64 is at 44C. It's underclocked to 800MHz, and in normal temperatures it's running 39C at most.
Well, it depends a lot on your system. I have an Athlon MP 2400+ with an GeForce 5500FX slimline version. This means only a heatsink. Since both of my CPUs can produce up to 90C (according to spec...), and the ventilation in the case isn't the best (especially due to the position of the case), firing up a game like Halflife 2 works fine. About 20 minutes later, the card heats up and graphics start to be choppy (up to stallin the game). The only way is to Ctrl-Shift-Esc and kill Halflife 2.
Sure, it's clear that this is mainly because of the crappy ventilation in my system (the case can handle it, but the motherboard hasn't enough temperature-controlled-fan-connectors, and I do not want constantly rotating fans) I just want to warn that "taking a fanless graphics card" isn't enough...
I already looked at Acer.nl (serves BeNeLux... it's the "Lux" part where I live and it's a bitch to get new tech here) I'll check out the others. It's not for today anyway. My father in law wants a new company website, and I'm writing it for him. Thing is that I have no VAT number and we agreed that he'd simply buy me a laptop for the effort. He'll just have to cough up for the Turion X2 that I can find ;-)
As for "Overcome Intel Monopoly": I have 4 Intel machines left: the server at my parents (P-III 800Mhz/768Meg), my old laptop (P-III 600Mhz Mobile/512Meg), my dads laptop (P-III 733MHz/256Meg) and my wifes computer (P-IV 2.6HT/2Gig RAM). I have 3 AMD64 machines (two 2800+, and one 3400+), 1 Athlon XP 2800+ machine and 1 Athlon MP 2400+ (two CPUs of course). Considering that the Intel machines are all well over 3 years old, and my AMD machines are much newer (only the MP is over 3 years old), I'm pretty much switched to AMD completely. Of course, if Intel keeps on kicking AMDs butt, I might make the switch back ;-)
Wikipedia agrees with you
I'd like to have a Turion 64 X2 laptop, but I don't know where to buy one where I live :-(
Well, I don't like conspiracy theories but one can look at it from a different angle.
Currently they sell us oil (gas/diesel) with a healthy profit. They know that some day this resource is going to dry up. However, increasing demand will push up prices and hence increase their profit. Now, won't it be smart to pursue the profits in their current business model until the prices get so high that few can pay them.
That point is an excellent timing to introduce a new revolutionary technology, because at that time they can pretty much ask any price they want for it. After all the energy companies are pretty much oligopolies. You see: they'll just say. Sure our new revolutionary cars cost twice what you would pay for a normal car but we have to recoup our years and years of research & development. (Even tough, in reality the tech was ripe for usage in the last 50 years) People won't have an alternative and thus will pay up.
Introducing this new revolutionary tech now would make it compete with the current offerings and thus the prices would have to come down.
I'm not saying this is the case. I'm just saying that holding off technology might provide more profit in the long run.
Having more expensive cars that have a certain "green" label do not make them magically sell better. For example, there has been a range of 3L cars (meaning 3l/100km) made by VW/Audi. As far as I know they have been pulled from the market because of low sales. ( Audi A2 3L - pulled from market 2005 , VW Lupo 3L - pulled from market in 2005 ) Okay, you might argue that they are ugly cars, but my dad has an A2 (petrol) and it's actually fun to drive :-)
Exactly! I remember seeing a movie about a german family in post-WWII. One of the guys in the movie had a coal-powered truck (not the actual model of the truck, but incinerator is clearly visible: cylindrical structure on the side). Later he upgraded to a gas powered one, but I found it pretty amazing that such things didn't exist anymore. I frankly don't know what the movie was, but it doesn't matter.
Also remember that the original Diesel engine was designed to run from a variety of fuels, including coal dust.
Just like it's a common prank to syphon out the gas/diesel out of a normal car. Oh, wait, it isn't: the compartments for refueling are locked when the car is locked.
Ever heard of "non-native english speaker"? I actually learnt most of my English because of using computers. So, indirectly he did!
If you really want to start a flamewar about that. Look at little gems I found on slashdot: "weather" instead of "whether" (when not talking about real weather of course), "here, here" instead of "hear, hear" (when not saying "here here kitty") or a new favourite of mine "in do case" instead of "in due case". Did I correct any of these people? Of course not! First, this is slashdot, spelling errors are mandatory and second: who am I to criticize their English? They might be non-native. They might only be 14 years old. What do I know about them?
True, cars fall into the category "usage" but "not knowledge". Still, I have yet to find a geek that doesn't know at least superficially how a powertrain works, how an internal combustion engine works. Other people don't even know *what* a powertrain is. Don't forget, we're talking about controlling such people, we're talking about controlling (young) teenagers here! They even don't know how to spell a word like "drastic" (Oops!). They even don't know how the battery in their cellphone works! I'm sure you do, because you actually learnt this in high school (at least in mine, we did.)
The thing is: geeks will always try to understand how things works, let it be a car, a computer, a washing machine. Sure, we couldn't build one, but having that knowlegde plus being able to actually read a manual and understand it gives us an egde over all those that do not. This includes kids up to 15-16 years. After that, as a parent, you should have taught then how to be (at least partially) responsible.
It was pretty easy to beat my dad. He was a proto-geek. He would have been a geek for sure if in his time computers would have been a tad bit more cheaper. He became an economist instead and never lost his geekness, but he was simply not specialised in our area. He encouraged me a lot to get into tech and so I did. In a sense, he let me win.
Unless we get a drastical technology shift (something that is not based on electricity and computers), it's quite probable that we as geeks will keep up. I don't have the time either, but when a new gizmo comes out it's usually not hard to get by. I'm usually even a late adopter. Besides, I can call up on my dad: he picked up cellphones quite nicely (and uses more functions than I do). If you have a certain talent in tech, you'll be fine. I'm confident in that.
Again: things these days tend to be dumbed down so much that understanding is not necessary, but only usage. Since (with relation to electronics/computers) we know what goes on, we will have an advantage.
They can't find you online? That's probably only because they aren't computer literate. (Not to diss your parents, I'm sure they are very fine people) Once I get kids, I'm pretty sure that I'll find them online. If only because I handle the firewall/router here and can log exactly what they visit. Even if I didn't, it very feasible to simple get on their computer and check their browser history. (Kids don't get Admin - Fuck I don't give Admin to myself for mundane tasks)
You see, the problem is not that parents don't want to know, it is because they do not know how to. For the future generation of kids this is going to change, because we grew up with computers. Actually, with the dumbing down of computers these days, it is very well possible that we will know more about computers than our kids will.
It's a bit like cellphones: I know people that pay the cellphone bills for their -13year olds. They complain that they call too much and don't know what to do. They still want the kids to have a cellphone in "case of an emergency". What most people don't know is that you can lock the numbers you want to the SIM card (or cellphone) and it won't allow other numbers to be called. People don't know. I do, my kids are going to have a hell of a time to beat me in technology. (Same way I did with my dad, because he was well informed too. I beat him, but it took its time)
I understand these kind of tasks are needed. No site goes without maintenance. Still, you could put a little notice on top of the page: "Commenting disabled: Site in Maintenance". The ideal position would be where the text "Have you meta moderated today?" appears.
Most European cars nowadays run on "super" (95 octane roz) or even "super plus" (98 octane roz)
Not really. I have a car that should get 98oct, but the manual clearly states that I can safely use 95oct with a small performance hit (at 225HP, a small performace hit isn't going to be noticed much). The car manual also states that it can be used with 91oct, but only when nothing else is available. You should not do this for a prolonged time. I used to drive my car with 95oct for a full year, with no problems at all.
As for smaller non-turbo charged engines: most run fine on 91oct. I know this from the manuals of my moms car and my dads car. Both rated 95oct, but they should run fine on 91oct.
It's close to impossible to find 91oct gas where I live. I know one gas station that has it, and I've never seen anybody buy it....
Also, beware comparing octane ratings in the US with European octane rates. 87 oct MON is the equivalent of 95 oct RON (source) In conclusion: we have the same gas, but our ratings are different and our cars do run on lower-rate octane levels.
Finally, (at least) 50% of the cars sold in the Europe have diesel engines. In that case, octane doesn't matter at all. There is however a big difference between US and European diesel: US diesel is typcially high-sulfur and European diesel is typically low-sulfur (except for trucks, afaik, but I wouldn't bet on it)
Hmmmm... I have a 2000 Audi TT which has a 1.8l engine. I most certainly have fun with it. Can it compete with a Porsche, high-end BMW or Jaguar? No, but it's still fun.
I also think that the 2l average for European cars is probably a tad bit high. In my (close) family there is noone that has a bigger engine than I have. Pretty much all cars we own have 1.4l engines, but of course, this is just anecdotical evidence.
No, you are absolutely right. I was just going to post the same thing. Moores law is about transistors doubling. Clock speed? What's that?
You need more "memory" (where memory = either ram or HD),
No. Usually it's memory and not HD. If only they would understand the difference.
What?
Dude... Average Joe Family needs no more than a P-III 1GHz (800MHz would do... frankly), with 512Meg RAM (yes, the RAM is more important that the CPU speed) and they could frankly live withe NVidia MX4 (which I know is crap, I have one!). Harddisk: as much as you can get....
That is what Joe Family needs.... Storage + Okay CPU + Good RAM.
Laptop: P-III 600MHz / 512Meg RAM
Desktop: 2x AMD 2400+ MP / 4Gig RAM
Server: AMD64 2800+, underclocked to 800MHz/786Meg RAM
Wifes computer: P-IV 2.6HZ / 2Gig RAM
That's about what I run here.... I have more computers that I manage, but frankly.... all those do what I want (within expectations: I won't run a DVD rip on the P-III) Power? Not needed, unless one plays games, and usually that's fixed by using a good graphics card
I'm still looking out to get a new laptop based on a Turion64 X2.... ;-) Not that I really need it...
P-III 600MHz mobile with 512Meg RAM here. Works absolutely fine on WinXP/FreeBSD....
I was thinking the same thing: when exactly do you use a thumb with your mouse? I've got pretty much a plain "Logitec Optical Mouse", and I never use my thumb with it. I lay my hand on the mouse with the thumb on the side (but it doesn't ever move from there), index on left mouse button, middle finger on scrollwheel/middle mouse button and my ringfinger on the right mouse button.
Works like a charm.... I used to have wrist pains when I was younger, but that was in the day that mice were square bricks like the Genius Mouse
Yes, you get penetration by lying... Especially, when talking to women ;-)
For those who may have been contemplating purchasing a PSP simply to play the exclusive PSP version of Grand Theft Auto now have more options,
Alas, I already bought a PSP just for that reason. I was really pissed to find out that LCS is now available for the PS2 (which I also own). Yeah, I'm an idiot. At least the PSP was on sale with two free games, so I didn't spent too much. Oh, well... Next time I'll just go Nintendo.
The guy is posting on slashdot. He isn't a typical user at all...
I was just trying to help him, not the typial Win98/ME user. Those will not migrate to Linux in any way.
Oh, and besides, you say: Even installing it on a P4, 256Mb ram, it took well over 3 hours.. . . . I can install winxp on that same crap system in 1/3 the time, critical updates included.
Did you count the installation of that WinXP machine including all latest drivers, the Microsoft Office, Abobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Nero Burning ROM, and the whole batch of stuff that make WinXP useful? Because, that's what you get when you install Linux: all the stuff you have to add in Windows comes included in the base "OS Installation" (Read: "Distribution Installation")
Personally, I count a full day to install WinXP from scratch to a fully usable machine... (Including testing and securing)
I have a stack of old CD-Rom drives. Heck there are even two burners in there (one which never really burnt well, and the other is only 2x write or so) I'd send it to you if you pay me postage, but frankly that's probably not worth it since I live in Europe. As another poster pointed out: a new CD-Rom would cost next to nothing new.
You could also temporary rip out a CD-Rom of another machine in order to do the install, then put the other drive back when you're done.
Finally, if you have broadband, just take the Debian floppy (okay, it won't be Ubuntu, but Debian is nice too) and install from network.
You do have a lot of options....
Most likely, he hasn't got enough RAM. WinXP works just fine on a P-III 600MHz with 512Meg RAM. It's what I have as my primary laptop and I'm happy with it. Also, I turn off all eyecandy (except ClearType), but I do that on *every* WinXP machine I use ;-)
Increased demand for Linux on the desktop? Highly unlikely. The machines still running Win98/ME are probably all older machines that keep on chugging. The users didn't bother to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP in the first place, and will just keep running Win98/ME until the machine dies. When that happens, the users will simply buy a new system and then get the latest OS that comes with it. Probably XP or Vista, depending on time when the old machine dies.
While Linux may be ready for the desktop, the people that stick to Win98/ME are the most unlikely to switch to Linux.