You must be a few years out of date, my friend. I've found Slack 8 to be a very full-featured, very sleek distro, with absolutely nothing lacking, and some nice extras. I wasn't paying particular attention to the install process, and I've installed too many distros to give a 'newbie' viewpoint on it, but I remember it being completely painless.
Absolutely loved being able to install from an ISO image on the Windows partition -- I'm guessing this is possible with any distro, but Slackware actually gave instructions about it. The partition editor was actually reasonable, I think I've seen that one in one of the BSDs as well. Not newbie-friendly, but relatively sane. Zero hardware problems, even with X and PCMCIA, which is very impressive when running on a relatively new laptop (Compaq Presario 1830).
In summary: very sweet, and their primary distro is no longer stuck in the 'dark ages' of requiring you to set up each little bit the same way each time. If it's still too feature-heavy for you, they still offer something called 'ZipSlack'.
Don't count Slackware out, it's in there with the big boys now.
You're sadly wrong, my friend. The DSLAM can go offline as much as it wants to (and it seems to do so), but phone service stays up as long as the pair itself still works. Their explanation is probably correct, that there was a short in that pair.
I use PacBell for DSL service, and I've been through -plenty- of outages, but phone service stays up. Interrupting phone service, as you said, is pretty much unforgivable.
On PacBell -- they're pretty decent as providers go, I think. They're unresponsive when things go wrong, but there haven't been -too- many outages. And they replaced my ADSL modem within about a day when it was determined that it was a buggy model. The tech was also very nice about my using Linux (not supported) and setting up a LAN (not really allowed). Of course, I did all the setup, but he was agreeable to that. He even asked me how I set up the ethernet interface for the ADSL modem, so he could do that for other Linux-using customers. (cool!)
Anyway... I'd recommend PacBell, if it's available. They've been reasonably nice to me, and there aren't any third and fourth parties involved. Note that their basic package no longer includes a static IP... I got mine before they changed the package options. Looks like you basically have to pay through the nose for a static IP now.
-- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
I figure I might as well throw in my own experiences, if only to be a part of one of the most popular threads I've ever seen on Slashdot.
My experience went something like: Logo in school (required), GW-BASIC at home (voluntary), Pascal at home (sorta), Visual Basic, C, C++, Delphi (all voluntary), then I got hooked on Linux and started devouring C, shell, Perl, sed, awk, php, tcl/tk, etc. I personally taught myself after a class in Logo, and one class in Data Structures in C. It's helped greatly to have a mentor along the way, though. (my dad)
Logo worked well for me as an introduction. It's a good way to start younger kids on basic concepts.
Basic was lots of fun to play with, and I believe it was a valuable experience, no matter what people say about possible damage to a young person's future programming ability. If you have a kid who -wants- to learn, give him or her a BASIC manual and turn them loose. Many kids will thrive with this sort of treatment. I know I did.
Visual Basic was a great experience. Note that I was using version 1.0, not the present new-fangled ones. I haven't tried anything past version 1.0, but I probably wouldn't recommend it anymore. I'm trying to think of something else that would be analogous... maybe Tcl/Tk with a GUI builder. The experience with VB was that I finally got interested in doing -useful- things, because it was simple to throw together a small app. I used VB on Windows like I use shell script (or the command line!) now. It also introduced me to event-driven programming, which is valuable experience.
There's nothing quite like actually getting into C. The best thing I ever did related to C was to take a class in Data Structures. It's a great way to really dig in and start learning about pointers and such in-depth. I don't recommend even thinking about C++ until later. Much later.
Experience on Unix systems encourages programming experimentation. I think everyone's noticed this. Having so many useful and usable tools handy seems to inspire some people to great heights. Give a kid a project, let them use whatever tools they want -- great learning experience.
That's basically how I got where I am. My advice to people working with kids:
-) If the kid is -asking- about programming and has a genuine interest and an ability to learn on their own, then by all means give them a book and turn them loose. Especially in languages like BASIC, kids will do great things if they're self-motivated.
-) If you want to just expose them to programming concepts, give Logo a try.
-) Try a simple event-driven language pretty early in the process. I think Tcl/TK would be a great one to start on. Interpreted languages are VERY useful for beginning programmers.
-) Don't try to teach C++ or Java right off the bat. Or even Object Pascal (ie, Delphi). Work on the programming basics first. My personal opinion of C++ is that it's way too much work to be reasonable for use in small projects -- and that's all a kid's going to be working on for a while. C++ has its place, but it shouldn't be learned as an early language.
-) Mentors are essential. Having a parent who knows what they're doing is a great thing if the kid has a good relationship with that parent. Otherwise, even an e-mail buddy who's willing to take time to explain things is going to help out a lot. Hmm... anyone interested in starting an online mentoring network?:)
That's all I can think of at the moment... initial experiences are going to vary greatly between programmers, so this is just what I think might work. Don't sue me if your kid renounces technology and becomes a monk after being introduced to C.;) -- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
Used to be on AOL (yes, AOL, stop looking at me like that) that you had to pay per minute. A text-based game called Federation built up a surprisingly large player base (peaked at around 1000 online at the busiest part of the day -- I think it hit more like 2000 when the link was posted on the Welcome screen to AOL). AOL came out with a feature where you could give someone else an AOL gift certificate -- essentially, a credit to their bill.
Enough background. Federation had to ban the trade of Federation cash (groats) for AOL hours, because people with Fed money were paying people with real money in order to support their habit. Almost the opposite of what's happening here.
There are a handful of text-based games out there that are almost free, but you can pay the administrator to get ahead (experience, game points, etc). Not completely related, but another trade between real and virtual worlds. -- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
I don't know much about BeOS, but just reading this thread has caused me to lose interest in it. Would anyone like to tell me why I should be interested in a commercial closed source OS with bad driver support which needs to be rebooted (!) to start networking? What's it good for, besides the fact that it looks pretty? I thought these were the reasons I left Windows behind. -- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
Don't like the idea of keystroke loggers keeping an eye on you? Use key(stroke)-based encryption!
Switch your layout around -- same letters on the keyboard translate to different letters in X11.
Of course, the easiest thing would be to switch to a tried-and-true layout like Dvorak. This has the disadvantage of being fairly commonly known. Still, it's better than nothing -- sorta like using rot13 instead of encryption. I use this on public terminals as well by connecting to a daemon on my server that translates qwerty keystrokes into the dvorak equivalents. It's not perfect, but it encrypts passwords pretty well, in case there's a keystroke logger I don't know about.
Who says you have to use Dvorak, though? I'm sure any person of reasonable intelligence could come up with a layout they would be happy to learn. Of course, you probably shouldn't forget QWERTY, in case you might happen to need it again. But still... -- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
I've been looking for a desktop replacement (I'll be going fully portable soon), and I finally settled on the Compaq Presario 1830.
It can't really be compared to sub-notebooks like the Sony Vaio. This thing is a FULL-size notebook. However, I'll never need to use external floppies, external CD-ROM drives, external modems, port-replicators, or anything else. Only thing it was lacking was an ethernet card -- popped in a Linksys PCMPC100 and everything's happy.
This baby is loaded, for one thing... PIII 450, which puts my current workstation to shame, 64meg RAM. The 6gig disk is a little on the skimpy side if you're doing disk-intensive stuff, but I'm pretty happy with it. RIVA TNT card, I believe. I haven't tried getting it working under Linux, but it should be possible. I would have preferred a Voodoo 3, but hey.:) 15" TFT screen, which is very very nice. I haven't tried much full-motion stuff on it, but at least for day-to-day stuff, it looks awesome.
It has every port you might need on the back, including serial, RGB monitor out, TV out, parallel port, and PS/2 port. Headphone out, mic in, and modem jack on the right side. You can add a port replicator, but I think it's only for adding an extra serial port.
Battery life is quite decent compared to the Vaios, at a little over 3 hours. It has a touchpad, which I was a little wary of. After trying the other pointing devices available, though, I decided to try it out. I'm very happy with it. Maybe not suitable for playing Quake 3, but that's what the PS/2 port is for.
And, most importantly, Linux installed on it flawlessly. Mandrake's current installer even has support for a network install using PCMCIA network cards. (wow!)
One of the nicest built-in features is hibernation. I don't know if all laptops these days support it, but this one handles it very nicely. Hitting the power button (or running out of batteries) while it's on causes it to save the entire RAM state to disk, then power down completely. Powering back up brings everything back where it was. Remarkably, this actually works with Linux. All I have to do is ifdown and ifup the ethernet interface to get it back, and reload the sound drivers. This can all be automated using apmd. Only complication with using hibernation is that you have to leave a minimally-sized DOS partition with the hibernation executable on it. Not a problem at all, really.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with this purchase. It was around $3k at Fry's Electronics, which had a 15-day no-questions-asked return policy. Very nice of them, but I didn't need it.:)
Anyway... feel free to ask if you have questions about it. I highly recommend it as a full-blown desktop replacement. Maybe not as a super-portable, but it's not too shabby for that either. -- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
A few days after getting my LEGO Mindstorms set, I hit upon the idea of using a joystick as an input sensor. I had an Atari 2600 in the closet with a few good controllers left, so I hacked together a method to use it with the RCX.
Briefly, with any switch-based joystick, you can use different resistors between each direction wire and ground so that unique sensor values result which can be read by the RCX.
When it's done, you have a 10-position switch that's very useful -- discrete values for joystick in the center, all 8 positions, and fire button pressed. (trigger RCX-mounted weaponry? Mmmm...)
Have fun, and let me know if you do anything interesting with this sensor, or even if you manage to build one correctly. - $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
I'm extremely curious about how it got taken down though. I'm assuming a vhost? What happens if you run your own server (like I do)? Do guys in trenchcoats who talk to their watches show up at your door? (good luck at MY door:P)
You may run your own server, but who provides your bandwidth? Unless you have cables running out the window to the MAE-East building next door, you're going to have a hard time staying connected if the powers that be don't want you connected. Where there's brute strength, there's a way. - $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
This isn't the final demo, but a demo test. id doesn't want non-final versions of the demo floating around permanently, especially not on magazine discs. This is the primary reason for that clause... I seriously doubt if anyone would care if you do just about anything else with it.
- $ more ~/.sig ********.sig: Not a text file ********
By the way, has anyone figured out what's different between 4.6 and 4.7? Besides the "Shop" button, that is. ALL the bugs I found in 4.6 are still in 4.7. What the hell was the point of that release?
4.7 seems to be more stable on my system. It still crashes intermittently, and I've never figured out why, but it seems to do so less frequently. As far as new features, I don't know of any. (no, I don't count an extra button on the toolbar and a few extra links from the 'Window' menu features)
When you're talking about X crashes, btw, it matters whether you're talking about an end user or a guru. To an end user, an X crash is just as bad as a Losedows crash -- it requires a reboot. To the guru, the crash is simply an inconvenience which rarely does any damage. IE, the important services are still running, just have to open all those shell windows again.
I don't remember who stated that an X crash leaves Linux in an unusable state, but it's completely false. At worst, you may have to telnet in and kill running X servers, but it doesn't leave anything unusable. Rebooting won't help any, at least.
First off, there are 8 identical FTP servers containing Netscape 4.7. ftp1.netscape.com through ftp8.netscape.com.
Secondly, my connections were timing out at the first 'ls' -- until I switched my FTP client to PASSIVE mode. After that, I didn't even notice that the FTP site was busy -- in fact, I just finished my download, and ncftp says:
I'm using PacBell's ADSL service in the Bay Area, and it's working perfectly. I'll outline the few snags I had below.
If you want objective speed testing, try out speedtest.mybc.com. I just wish there was something analogous to this for upload speeds. Anyway, I'm getting 1.1 to 1.2 Mbps there. Practical download speeds of 100 K/s + from well-connected sites, double-digit K/s from pretty much anything.
First, the network: Linux box and Win95 box on a private ethernet. Win95 used SOCKS for connectivity to Linux, which had a 56k dialup almost full-time.
The install went beautifully... the first snag was setting it up to work with the Linux box. While I was playing with routing tables, the tech was becoming noticably fidgety, so we went over to the Win95 box and set it up, so the tech could try everything out and go home. This went smoothly after a couple of reboots.
After a few routing table rearrangements, the Linux box was working with it instead, but it could no longer talk to the Win95 box. Sparing you the details, I wound up needing to set up two seperate ethernet segments, with two different NICs in the Linux box. One was plugged straight into the ADSL modem (which is why they give you that handy MDI-X cable) and configured for the single static IP address I got, while the other card ran to the hub and talked to the Win98 box using the private IP subnet. SOCKS is still used to give the Win98 box connectivity.
ADSL rocks... in my case, the only problems were network-related. I never tried to contact PacBell, but I wouldn't have been surprised if they couldn't offer any help at all.
Slashdot Mirror
You must be a few years out of date, my friend. I've found Slack 8 to be a very full-featured, very sleek distro, with absolutely nothing lacking, and some nice extras. I wasn't paying particular attention to the install process, and I've installed too many distros to give a 'newbie' viewpoint on it, but I remember it being completely painless.
Absolutely loved being able to install from an ISO image on the Windows partition -- I'm guessing this is possible with any distro, but Slackware actually gave instructions about it. The partition editor was actually reasonable, I think I've seen that one in one of the BSDs as well. Not newbie-friendly, but relatively sane. Zero hardware problems, even with X and PCMCIA, which is very impressive when running on a relatively new laptop (Compaq Presario 1830).
In summary: very sweet, and their primary distro is no longer stuck in the 'dark ages' of requiring you to set up each little bit the same way each time. If it's still too feature-heavy for you, they still offer something called 'ZipSlack'.
Don't count Slackware out, it's in there with the big boys now.
You're sadly wrong, my friend. The DSLAM can go offline as much as it wants to (and it seems to do so), but phone service stays up as long as the pair itself still works. Their explanation is probably correct, that there was a short in that pair.
.sig: Not a text file ********
I use PacBell for DSL service, and I've been through -plenty- of outages, but phone service stays up. Interrupting phone service, as you said, is pretty much unforgivable.
On PacBell -- they're pretty decent as providers go, I think. They're unresponsive when things go wrong, but there haven't been -too- many outages. And they replaced my ADSL modem within about a day when it was determined that it was a buggy model. The tech was also very nice about my using Linux (not supported) and setting up a LAN (not really allowed). Of course, I did all the setup, but he was agreeable to that. He even asked me how I set up the ethernet interface for the ADSL modem, so he could do that for other Linux-using customers. (cool!)
Anyway... I'd recommend PacBell, if it's available. They've been reasonably nice to me, and there aren't any third and fourth parties involved. Note that their basic package no longer includes a static IP... I got mine before they changed the package options. Looks like you basically have to pay through the nose for a static IP now.
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
I figure I might as well throw in my own experiences, if only to be a part of one of the most popular threads I've ever seen on Slashdot.
:)
;) .sig: Not a text file ********
My experience went something like: Logo in school (required), GW-BASIC at home (voluntary), Pascal at home (sorta), Visual Basic, C, C++, Delphi (all voluntary), then I got hooked on Linux and started devouring C, shell, Perl, sed, awk, php, tcl/tk, etc. I personally taught myself after a class in Logo, and one class in Data Structures in C. It's helped greatly to have a mentor along the way, though. (my dad)
Logo worked well for me as an introduction. It's a good way to start younger kids on basic concepts.
Basic was lots of fun to play with, and I believe it was a valuable experience, no matter what people say about possible damage to a young person's future programming ability. If you have a kid who -wants- to learn, give him or her a BASIC manual and turn them loose. Many kids will thrive with this sort of treatment. I know I did.
Visual Basic was a great experience. Note that I was using version 1.0, not the present new-fangled ones. I haven't tried anything past version 1.0, but I probably wouldn't recommend it anymore. I'm trying to think of something else that would be analogous... maybe Tcl/Tk with a GUI builder. The experience with VB was that I finally got interested in doing -useful- things, because it was simple to throw together a small app. I used VB on Windows like I use shell script (or the command line!) now. It also introduced me to event-driven programming, which is valuable experience.
There's nothing quite like actually getting into C. The best thing I ever did related to C was to take a class in Data Structures. It's a great way to really dig in and start learning about pointers and such in-depth. I don't recommend even thinking about C++ until later. Much later.
Experience on Unix systems encourages programming experimentation. I think everyone's noticed this. Having so many useful and usable tools handy seems to inspire some people to great heights. Give a kid a project, let them use whatever tools they want -- great learning experience.
That's basically how I got where I am. My advice to people working with kids:
-) If the kid is -asking- about programming and has a genuine interest and an ability to learn on their own, then by all means give them a book and turn them loose. Especially in languages like BASIC, kids will do great things if they're self-motivated.
-) If you want to just expose them to programming concepts, give Logo a try.
-) Try a simple event-driven language pretty early in the process. I think Tcl/TK would be a great one to start on. Interpreted languages are VERY useful for beginning programmers.
-) Don't try to teach C++ or Java right off the bat. Or even Object Pascal (ie, Delphi). Work on the programming basics first. My personal opinion of C++ is that it's way too much work to be reasonable for use in small projects -- and that's all a kid's going to be working on for a while. C++ has its place, but it shouldn't be learned as an early language.
-) Mentors are essential. Having a parent who knows what they're doing is a great thing if the kid has a good relationship with that parent. Otherwise, even an e-mail buddy who's willing to take time to explain things is going to help out a lot. Hmm... anyone interested in starting an online mentoring network?
That's all I can think of at the moment... initial experiences are going to vary greatly between programmers, so this is just what I think might work. Don't sue me if your kid renounces technology and becomes a monk after being introduced to C.
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
Enough background. Federation had to ban the trade of Federation cash (groats) for AOL hours, because people with Fed money were paying people with real money in order to support their habit. Almost the opposite of what's happening here.
There are a handful of text-based games out there that are almost free, but you can pay the administrator to get ahead (experience, game points, etc). Not completely related, but another trade between real and virtual worlds. .sig: Not a text file ********
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
I don't know much about BeOS, but just reading this thread has caused me to lose interest in it. Would anyone like to tell me why I should be interested in a commercial closed source OS with bad driver support which needs to be rebooted (!) to start networking? What's it good for, besides the fact that it looks pretty? I thought these were the reasons I left Windows behind. .sig: Not a text file ********
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
Don't like the idea of keystroke loggers keeping an eye on you? Use key(stroke)-based encryption!
.sig: Not a text file ********
Switch your layout around -- same letters on the keyboard translate to different letters in X11.
Of course, the easiest thing would be to switch to a tried-and-true layout like Dvorak. This has the disadvantage of being fairly commonly known. Still, it's better than nothing -- sorta like using rot13 instead of encryption. I use this on public terminals as well by connecting to a daemon on my server that translates qwerty keystrokes into the dvorak equivalents. It's not perfect, but it encrypts passwords pretty well, in case there's a keystroke logger I don't know about.
Who says you have to use Dvorak, though? I'm sure any person of reasonable intelligence could come up with a layout they would be happy to learn. Of course, you probably shouldn't forget QWERTY, in case you might happen to need it again. But still...
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
I've been looking for a desktop replacement (I'll be going fully portable soon), and I finally settled on the Compaq Presario 1830.
:) 15" TFT screen, which is very very nice. I haven't tried much full-motion stuff on it, but at least for day-to-day stuff, it looks awesome.
:)
.sig: Not a text file ********
It can't really be compared to sub-notebooks like the Sony Vaio. This thing is a FULL-size notebook. However, I'll never need to use external floppies, external CD-ROM drives, external modems, port-replicators, or anything else. Only thing it was lacking was an ethernet card -- popped in a Linksys PCMPC100 and everything's happy.
This baby is loaded, for one thing... PIII 450, which puts my current workstation to shame, 64meg RAM. The 6gig disk is a little on the skimpy side if you're doing disk-intensive stuff, but I'm pretty happy with it. RIVA TNT card, I believe. I haven't tried getting it working under Linux, but it should be possible. I would have preferred a Voodoo 3, but hey.
It has every port you might need on the back, including serial, RGB monitor out, TV out, parallel port, and PS/2 port. Headphone out, mic in, and modem jack on the right side. You can add a port replicator, but I think it's only for adding an extra serial port.
Battery life is quite decent compared to the Vaios, at a little over 3 hours. It has a touchpad, which I was a little wary of. After trying the other pointing devices available, though, I decided to try it out. I'm very happy with it. Maybe not suitable for playing Quake 3, but that's what the PS/2 port is for.
And, most importantly, Linux installed on it flawlessly. Mandrake's current installer even has support for a network install using PCMCIA network cards. (wow!)
One of the nicest built-in features is hibernation. I don't know if all laptops these days support it, but this one handles it very nicely. Hitting the power button (or running out of batteries) while it's on causes it to save the entire RAM state to disk, then power down completely. Powering back up brings everything back where it was. Remarkably, this actually works with Linux. All I have to do is ifdown and ifup the ethernet interface to get it back, and reload the sound drivers. This can all be automated using apmd. Only complication with using hibernation is that you have to leave a minimally-sized DOS partition with the hibernation executable on it. Not a problem at all, really.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with this purchase. It was around $3k at Fry's Electronics, which had a 15-day no-questions-asked return policy. Very nice of them, but I didn't need it.
Anyway... feel free to ask if you have questions about it. I highly recommend it as a full-blown desktop replacement. Maybe not as a super-portable, but it's not too shabby for that either.
--
$ more ~/.sig
********
A few days after getting my LEGO Mindstorms set, I hit upon the idea of using a joystick as an input sensor. I had an Atari 2600 in the closet with a few good controllers left, so I hacked together a method to use it with the RCX.
.sig: Not a text file ********
Briefly, with any switch-based joystick, you can use different resistors between each direction wire and ground so that unique sensor values result which can be read by the RCX.
When it's done, you have a 10-position switch that's very useful -- discrete values for joystick in the center, all 8 positions, and fire button pressed. (trigger RCX-mounted weaponry? Mmmm...)
Complete info is available at http://xidus.xidus.net/joystick.html
Have fun, and let me know if you do anything interesting with this sensor, or even if you manage to build one correctly.
-
$ more ~/.sig
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3:03
3:02
3:01
2:00
2:59
2:58
They had this problem in all four US timezones, for the entire countdown. Seems like a REALLY stupid error to overlook.
Not Y2K related of course, but still an interesting 'bug'. .sig: Not a text file ********
-
$ more ~/.sig
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You may run your own server, but who provides your bandwidth? Unless you have cables running out the window to the MAE-East building next door, you're going to have a hard time staying connected if the powers that be don't want you connected. Where there's brute strength, there's a way. .sig: Not a text file ********
-
$ more ~/.sig
********
This isn't the final demo, but a demo test. id doesn't want non-final versions of the demo floating around permanently, especially not on magazine discs. This is the primary reason for that clause... I seriously doubt if anyone would care if you do just about anything else with it.
.sig: Not a text file ********
-
$ more ~/.sig
********
By the way, has anyone figured out what's different between 4.6 and 4.7? Besides the "Shop" button, that is. ALL the bugs I found in 4.6 are still in 4.7. What the hell was the point of that release?
4.7 seems to be more stable on my system. It still crashes intermittently, and I've never figured out why, but it seems to do so less frequently. As far as new features, I don't know of any. (no, I don't count an extra button on the toolbar and a few extra links from the 'Window' menu features)
When you're talking about X crashes, btw, it matters whether you're talking about an end user or a guru. To an end user, an X crash is just as bad as a Losedows crash -- it requires a reboot. To the guru, the crash is simply an inconvenience which rarely does any damage. IE, the important services are still running, just have to open all those shell windows again.
I don't remember who stated that an X crash leaves Linux in an unusable state, but it's completely false. At worst, you may have to telnet in and kill running X servers, but it doesn't leave anything unusable. Rebooting won't help any, at least.
First off, there are 8 identical FTP servers containing Netscape 4.7. ftp1.netscape.com through ftp8.netscape.com.
Secondly, my connections were timing out at the first 'ls' -- until I switched my FTP client to PASSIVE mode. After that, I didn't even notice that the FTP site was busy -- in fact, I just finished my download, and ncftp says:
...nuxglibc2.0.tar.gz: 11.32 MB 149.41 kB/s
Passive mode is definitely the way to go...
Xidus
I'm using PacBell's ADSL service in the Bay Area, and it's working perfectly. I'll outline the few snags I had below.
If you want objective speed testing, try out speedtest.mybc.com. I just wish there was something analogous to this for upload speeds. Anyway, I'm getting 1.1 to 1.2 Mbps there. Practical download speeds of 100 K/s + from well-connected sites, double-digit K/s from pretty much anything.
First, the network: Linux box and Win95 box on a private ethernet. Win95 used SOCKS for connectivity to Linux, which had a 56k dialup almost full-time.
The install went beautifully... the first snag was setting it up to work with the Linux box. While I was playing with routing tables, the tech was becoming noticably fidgety, so we went over to the Win95 box and set it up, so the tech could try everything out and go home. This went smoothly after a couple of reboots.
After a few routing table rearrangements, the Linux box was working with it instead, but it could no longer talk to the Win95 box. Sparing you the details, I wound up needing to set up two seperate ethernet segments, with two different NICs in the Linux box. One was plugged straight into the ADSL modem (which is why they give you that handy MDI-X cable) and configured for the single static IP address I got, while the other card ran to the hub and talked to the Win98 box using the private IP subnet. SOCKS is still used to give the Win98 box connectivity.
ADSL rocks... in my case, the only problems were network-related. I never tried to contact PacBell, but I wouldn't have been surprised if they couldn't offer any help at all.