...never heard of 'em.. need to find out if there's any nutritional value to these things. If so, market them as A-trendy exotic organic low carb healthfood (fibril soup made with pure glacier water and like..tofu or something) and B-cheap animal feedstock. Can't miss, turn a liability into a profitable asset! Sieve the stuff outta the water before it plugs up the membranes! 3????
no, it was just a little community pots telco. they were nice about it, especially when I offered relatively trivial tech support to their tech support. It's now on their website actually, how good that is silly considering if you need the tech support to get online to see the website...hmm
Anyway but at least the call dudes (real murkins, sitting in an office someplace, sounded like bubba geek teenagers or college stoonts) know how this is done now. I also later on called them with some basic linux stuff, they appreciated that too. The linux-connect stuff was initially a puzzler for me (actually it sucked at first) until I abandoned the GUI tools that came with the distro. I have yet to see them things work for dialup. Maybe the rest of the planet they work for, but not me. If I have to hand configure and tweak 1 (one) file to make the GUI tool work,and that fix is NOT in a man page that comes with the distro install, it's not a tool, it's a hassle,and newbs won't use it. the net is TOO IMPORTANT to have it not work outta the box as near job 1 in distros. Seems I posted a rant on it last year, I'm sure I did. Anyway, that's redhats tool and kppp (RH and mandrake distros) in my experience. I just use CLI wvdial and sometimes set setserial to get online, those gui tools are still way behind the big expensive guys "get your intarweb thisaway" -> tools. (No comment on any networking beyond a dial up account here, they may be the best thing since burritos in a bag for anything else,I never tried them for that).
It IS a problem though, all kinza stuff is so blatantly microsoft only it's weird. How can people not see this is just too monopolisitic to be in their favor? How long before people bitched if all they saw was 95% belchfire autos on the road,if you pulled into the gas station and the gas was "only for belchfire autos", wouldn't that be *noticed*, by even the pointiest of headed bosses let alone joe paycheck?
rhetorical question, but really......
Back to verizon, I have their cell service, but I wonder how good their wireless data/internet service is? It's expensive.... I wish speakeasy DSL and T mobile unlimited wireless data were options were I live, I checked, no joy either place.... you got DSL lucky guy... sniff.. oh well.. still got all the rural tradeoffs, eventually we'll get broadband here, then it'll be almost perfect. I can wait.
Are verizon in bed playing kissy face with MS? Who ain't, that's an easier question to answer....
... and in similar cases involving actual human consumption FOOD, they are artifically creating a plant that can withstand the application of severe poisons, so that other plants nearby may perish, but their poison resistant plant will still live through a massive spraying.. that's it really. They want to sell more poisons,that'stheir business, which get spread throughout the environment, for "profit". Just to have marginally more "pure" golf courses. It's disgusting really. I do caretaking/mowing,etc for a living, and even I, who appreciates a sharp lawn, don't want to see this, some so called "advances" are just nuts, and a lot of the "advances" in use today should be curtailed.
Along with mankinds advances in technology has come the realisation that technology can be misused, unfortunately, we always seem to find out AFTER the fact of this misuse causing gross harm.. Some examples are all the "superfund" sites now where it was considered "acceptable" at the time to willy nilly dump toxic waste, then years later "uh oh, well fellas, guess we didn't know it would make all these folks sick and dead...sorry". Examples with "new and improved and oh so safe medicines" being recalled later, after the fact of much "testing" to "be safe".
I have several friends who have gotten plenty sick from "real safe, nothing to worry about men" Agent Orange. The government, industry "scientists" you name it all said it was "safe". Turns out it was hideously UNsafe, AFTER the fact of actually sickening and killing a lot of people. The same thing is happening now with "harmless depleted uranium munitions" -the weapon that just keeps on giving..and giving...
And so and and so forth
A good rule of thumb is, if some industry or scientist or government tells you to "don't worry, it's cool, trust us" is NOT
We need to balance potential benefits against probable potential hazards. NO ONE on slashdot is a luddite, we are all here because we enjoy technology, and it is entirely possdible to advocate technology, to use it, but to use it safely and wisely, and part of wisdom is to learn to say NO if something is just too dangerous.
We as humans have a duty to learn from our mistakes, and the one thing we should have learned is to go slow, and to not continually spread poisons or develop organisms that can be destructive. There is an exact reference here now, and a much serious problem, with poison resistant rapeseed (for canola oil) in canada now, and the "starlink" corn starting to spread all over. As a gardener, I know within a few years I won't be able to grow any of the corn I like, because starlink will have contaminated it all. I have made provisons for myself to some time in the future switch to greenhouse sealed containment food production-gardening, and have the pure food strain seeds I want stock piled and stored, because soon you won't be able to get them. Even worse coming are the "terminator" gene crops, which will, within a generation or so via air spread pollen and cross contamination, put basic food control and availability in the hands of a few corporations-across the planet. You won't be able to grow your own food without purchasing their seed and using their chemicals, and there is no guarantee that their seeds will be anything other than gross mass weight vegetables with little nutritional value, let alone the nuts cost of doing it that way. This is food we are talking about here, not just flavor of car fanboyism or even OS arguments. FOOD.
If one can't see the "wrongness" in that,in allowing the public introduction of species like that, well....
As to where the dna gets inserted, my bottom line is we got enough problems with the wild stuff, we don't need to be adding to it. Humans civilised behavior and social consciousness hasn't advanced near as well as our ability to just implement technological advances, that's why we need to go slow with the chemicals and biologicals. Humans can just get too greedy and LIE over things to completely trust them with such issues, there needs a radical slowing -not stopping-but a slowing in certain areas, especially releasing engineered organisms into the wild and spreading more poisons...
instead of closing the sites, use them for coordination of email. I will be polite here and NOT recommend DdOS attacks,but the effect of a polite but overwhelming presence becoming felt. Just encourage millions (whatever) of people to send a LOT of emails to every place that can take an email,places like newspapers (every editor and reporter there, and their advertisers), those patent offices (every employee email addy that can be found), the various politicians (all of them, their staffs, etc), broadcasters,lawyers, academecians etc, etc,etc along those lines. Make the email usage during the protest spike severely across the net. Many many emailers sending out a LOT of emails apiece. Every protester send a well written detailed statement of opposition, outlining the "why" of the protest and offering a "better solution" than software patents to every single email addy that can be found to a relevant person who has anything to do with the patents, and to anyone in a position of legal influence or in the media.
I think california in particular is in a unique position to make de-sal water, they got a LOT of hot days in the desert where the water could be desalinated using solar thermal techniques, and the water they use now is mostly piped in anyway from far away..seems like that could be coordinated somehow. Biggest expense might be pumping the salt water to the plants,maybe, I don't know how far inland you have to get there before there's enough wide open desert space to set up shop. If they make the de-sal water just burning finite quantity fossil fuels, I think it's a mistake, especially there with who knows how many ergs, therms or btus however you want to measure it solar heat going to waste, near free for the taking. And solar is clean fusion reaction, too, we already got fusion power, which people tend to forget a lot.
I would *like* to support greater useage of uranium-based nuclear heat power, after they figure out a better way to deal with the waste. So far, not impressed with the efforts.
I think the nation/region would be served better if we stepped back a bit and took another look at more decentralised power generation as a full bore government encouraged option. Not as a complete replacement, but frankly, I see no reason we can't have millions more solar panels and wind generators out there. Economy of scale in manufacturing, spurring on even more R&D, etc, works for everything else it appears. And having a lot more points of production, spread out, would help to mitigate cascading failures, especially if islanding was more precise and easier to implement in smaller areas. Wind, were the average wind is adequate enough, is especially cost effective now, approaching coal burning costs per watt. Solar is nice where applicable by climate because it can make use of dead space going to waste, millions of roofs already there.
I like the "not all your eggs in one basket" approach to problems, and I believe in backups for everything.
sometimes I guess you got to let it all hang out, like we used to say in the hipster days. I read this article about MS and i got steamed over it, really. I mean, it's a hearts and minds thing, and working along similar goals for awhile and getting frustrated with it got me hot.
I appreciate what MS did initially, it got computing out there to millions of people. It got computing JOBS out there to millions of people. this was a good thing, same with apple, IBM building the cloneable box, and etc.
Time goes on though, they got sorty dinkus, and now are being professional dinkus. Open source/free is the wave of de future, you can just see it, I saw it several years ago when I realsed a ton of the younger geeks were into it. I know that is what fuels innovations in tech/society/economics/politics, young people with a lot of energy hot rodding whatever they can get their hands on. Any tech you care to name,going back in history, whatever the young people adopt to be interested in is what becomes mainstream when they are the "breadwinner" segment of the population. I may be slow but I ain't dumb enough to miss that.
.... kept me interested in computers. I was starting to learn DOS, bleech, couldn't stand it. Just wasn't (and still really isn't) my bag. I didn't own a computer, but tried out various friends 286s, it was OK, but..... it lacked. Going by a yard sale one day, spotted the 512k for sale, 50 clams. I asked the girl selling it, "well, let's get an extension cord out here, I wanna see this badboy fired up". Yep, I talk like that. Anyway, 5 minutes later I was doing more stuff with a mouse than I did fooling around with DOS, that's for sure. Graduated to an LC, that was nice, still got it, too. got nuts then, now I got all kinza boxes. I think I still got a couple of IIcs, too, have to check in the junker pile. GFs quadra is still a practical machine if ya ask me, it does about anything joe casual user would want to do, inside of surfin, sounds, email, drawing, text stuff. Probably still a lot of 68k apps out there. I never did try to put linux on any of my macs, I should try that sometime.
dial up makes it redickalus hard to try out various distros and whatnot, just keeping a kitchen sink install patched and updated is tedious.
BUT, to me the other advantages of living in north_cow_flop rural USA make up for it. Always tradeoffs.
Cool stuff living rural:
Hmm, never no problem finding a place to take a leak....
traffic jam is two bubbas parked next to each other in the road jawin'. You just wait till they are done, cuz next week you will do similar.
Lax driving laws on weird mechanized stuff being operated on the "roads", ie, no one gives a care, even the cops
The "supermarket" is out in the back yard all summer for most things
The winter heating energy crisis can be mostly solved with you + saw + handy woods next door
There's always someone with a worse looking truck than you, and his is still running, so you don't feel pressurised to go "upgrade" your pickemup so often, saves on cash you ain't got anyway...
"Steaks" are lame enough to come over to your backyard "supermarket" and turn themselves in for packaging....
You can actually see the stars at night... if you don't mind swatting mosquitoes...
and my favorite:
If your old lady is into getting a little sun outside once in awhile, it can be REAL DANG INTERESTIN'
... last night I was just getting frustrated, dragging in over emotionalism to what was a simple observation combined with a question. I've got a ton of decent responses so far, it's more than I thought existed last I looked at small distros.
Man, I gotz TOO MANY PROJECTS! HAHAHAHAHA!
I'm still accumulating parts for my MONSTER MOWER I want to build, just for a hoot. Like them monster trucks. It's a geezer suburban thing.... no one cares about your ride, bragging points are YOUR LAWNMOWER! HAHAHAHA! I guess I need a computer crammed on there too. So far it ain't monsterized, but I got a cb and an am/fm radio and dual batteries.
...on one of these boxes here to rebuild. Got a new customer today, a 4 year old kid who wants a computer of his own. He even asked me! I was in the church thrift store, I've seen him before, a very outgoing talker kid, he's a born ratchet jaw, I can relate on that issue... Anyway. So I said, "your folks got a computer you can use?" He goes "Ya they do! but I want MY OWN!!!" heheheheh WELL WHO DON'T! I talked to his mom, he got a birthday next month. We'll see what we can do here get him fixed up with something.
... because of one supreme court decision that was a huge mistake. the granting of "personhood" to a corporation. the case is US supreme court, santa clara county vs. Southern Pacifici railroad company, 1886, 118 U.S. 394. It sucks, I mean, realy, realy, really bad. I would be a large sum there was a serious cash payoff connected to that case, it's so blatantly skewed and stupid. It allows corporations to get all the benefits of being a "live" human with "born with rights", but it lets them get away with a huge near-uncrackable firewall for accountability for their actions. It is EXTREMELY difficult to get a human being in jail for decisions that a "corporation" makes, fines are hard enough for any proven malfeasance. Whereas with a "private citizen" it's really EASY to get a human being in jail for being a fug-up. Get that one single law changed and Corporate abuse would slow down considerably. They literally get a 99.99% guaranted "get out of jail free" card that no corporate executive or groups of them will ever see the inside of jail no matter how much that corporation abuses a person or another company. It occassionaly happens, but not near often enough, IMO. In my opinion it is in the top 3 or 4 worst decisions that the supreme court ever made in general (miller decision is my pet worst abuse ever, that and the creation of the IRs and income taxes with the fed reserve crap), and it's the top one that lead to monopolies,near monopolies, un accountability, rampant fiscal responsibility abuse, and a seriously bribed and paid-off governmental structure. I can't think of anything else that comes close in that regard.
... how about an audio installation? It's a gimmick, but might be nice. The installer asks the questions and gives a few potential answers for you to pick from -say Jin's frustrations with making dualboot work. Just that might help I think.
Besides that, and it's an oft observed and still true deal. it really has to come pre installed on new boxes. OR the law is significantly changed so that boxes are only offered with clean empty disks, and the consumer is forced to make a choice of OS/apps package at the retail level, but I know that will never fly so there's little point to speculate on it. It HAS to come on the box and be visible. ISPs HAVE to say that they "support" linux and be able to do so in terms of getting new customers on the net. Heck, the last place I lived when I went to get net service claimed they didn't "support" Mac! True facts! I told them I was my own support on something like just getting online, to just give me a dial in number and some DNS addys, etc, and I called their help desk,to tell the dude there "look man, this is easy, copy this down,this is what you tell Mac people if you get asked", etc. That actually worked, the ISP (local telco) started "supporting" Mac. And this was in 1999, think about that.
I digress, linux has to come on the machines and work as well as "the big guys" with normal stuff for normal folks. People who have exact specific software requirements will figure out what they need "extra" accordingly. People who just "get a computer" need the choice directly at the retail level, and it better work and not be hidden away in the back room, it has to be upfront along with all the other stuff. "computer" with MS =X, same computer -X but + linux = 100$ cheaper, staring them right in the face. The first linux OS should be free to them or they won't care, few people will (at this point in time) bother with it unless it's free, easy, relatively painless, and they aren't forced to "give up" their accumulated windows knowledge. That dual boot option is critical now for most people, they honestly do NOT want to bork their machines that they finally understand well enough to struggle by with. It has to be that significant to people or they won't make the switch. First time I made a dual boot I literally unplugged the windows hard drive and tried Linux on a spare drive. Of course, I didn't have real dual boot then, but I got to play with it to see if I liked it well enough to persue. Then I did it again with both drives plugged in. Even then I was still concerned I was going to really mess it up, because it's a little screwy for a newbie. There were too many options at first, all I wanted was a dang button to click, " do you want linux on this hard drive over here, and windows to stay on the hard drive over here where it already is?' Yes/no binary would have been psychologically easier. Of course I went ahead and screwed around with it a lot, using different swap sizes, putting it here, no there, etc until I was happy with it, but I re installed everything sever times in a rtow before I got cvomfortable with it. Joe paycheck ain't gonna be that patient usually. One or the other or a real easy way to dual boot, using one drive or two drives. I know initially I didn't want to lose my ability to have a "computer" that ran *at all*. It's a valid concern that I think most people would have when contemplating "the big switch".
That's for joe paycheck. The business world knows about linux now, and Mac and yada yada. That nut gets cracked by this "bottom line" thing they always talk about, and there it's happening, as much as it will. Two different things there, similar, but more different than not.
I guess text would be OK, as long as it was extremely clear, straight forward, and did the job without acronym hell. Most people don't even know what a partition is, other than they got one someplace "in there".
I've got a few more good leads in the responses so far at the links, I will pursue it some more. Vector claims 32 megs, a pent 1, but recommends about double that. I'll check out the others. Being on a slow dialup means like 5$ or so per distro snail mail though. I guess I'll find one. Rules looks good, too.
hahahaha! Oh man, I r embarrassed. I'm a murkin, sure enough. I just type slang, and do stream of consciousness writing style. I admit freely it's quite unique and...strange. People don't forget it though...
pretty funny, I'm still laughing.. aww geez... that's hysterical.
Hey, it gives me an excuse now though! I just need to come up with a fictious country that sounds good enough to maybe be real, I'll claim I'm from there.. that's the ticket, ya!
... that's getting more like it. I tell you, I feel like issuing a big public coding/packaging challenge that follows my criteria *freeking exactly*. If I had prize money or something I would do it. What say, good idea or whack? My thinking is, if the coding goes back in time, if code gets written that will run excellently on these olden days machines,using those as a minimum benchmark, think how it might run on newer faster machines. From my point of view, if it could be done 15 years ago or longer off a single floppy, or even a single cd, 16 megs ram, pent 1 class, under one gig hard drive,maybe even just a half a gig, and still have E-Z GUI install, be NON confusing to run, had a dozen apps for the most popular uses in "computing", it would be a hit, a smash. The high end bleeding edge is being covered in spades, all over, by Mac, MS, and the *big* linux guys. Swell, that's cool, but that's much less than 1% of the population has these machines that that sort of effort is being designed for. It's necessary those efforts are being made,obviously, I am glad it's happening, but it's also necessary to help insure that computers are not relegated to the scrap heap after only a few years. That leaves 100 million computers + world wide out there that NONE of these high end efforts are addressing, outside a very few hobbyists, and this new MS initiative. Someone is sure missing the boat here.
Thanksagain! I'll check out the link. Still thinking about the Grande OS Challenge though, I'll write it up if anyone thinks this is a worthwile challenge and will be responded to, and if anyone wants to help me get it going offically with host space or whatnot for the (minimal) website.
I can offer a nifty scrawled certificate of mega-coolness and one (1) "Ohh it's shiny and pretty!" silver dollar as prize money to the winner who has the best offering that hits all the criteria. Miss one, no see gar.
Cool, or whack? Heck, anyone can run brute force crypto attacks using a 1700 node distributed cluster **^%,
well, maybe not but I want to see someone hit this OS challenge using free/open source. I'd be impressed with that.
thanks, you 100% got what I was saying and asking. There exists a TERMENDOUS international niche market that would go with all these millions of used machines out there, that instead of going to the landfill, could be used, with a free open source OS, would get all these third world folks juiced on computing, and using open source, but are gonna be using win 95 or 98 or close to that, because... I don't know why not. I've been looking for over a year now for a solution, haven't found it yet. Leave out one of the criteria, it's a non starter. If and when someone comes out with such a distro, it will be quite well received. I tried morphix lately it's a decent start, but still not quite there, it wouldn't run at all on most of the antiuqe boxes I have, let alone the older monitors, most of those won't use linux at all, I have to purchase 14 inch svgas and still hand tweak them to display, which ups my cost(real low semi retired fixed income, this gets pricey for me) on the give-aways. I got a shelf full of color monitors that are useless now, but they WILL run windows easily, every one of them. Not an engineer, I don't know why,(don't care, I accept it) but that's my reality. Windows goes on the boxes, much as I don't wanna.
Huge giant growing and expanding international market almost completely untapped, just opening up going *begging*,gonna be handed to microsoft on a silver platter, seems like such a waste.. oh well
isn't what I am asking, but getting closer. Look back at it again. You said "linux 2.2, 2.4", but that doesn't tell me what distro it is. Linux is a kernel, there isn't a distro called "linux". Well, there is but it's a RH clone. Anyway, did you compile it,install from a command line in a terminal, have to tweak drivers and whatnot, or dids it install from a CD pretty easily? answer a few questions, click here, clcik there? See, I have to think about the end users/kids I give this to, if it gets screwed up, THEY got to be able to fix it if it's bad by re installing from a disk.
See? I get responses, I appreciate it,but they haven't answered my questions. This winow manager is lightweight, this other one might work, etc, and such and such from the olden days, but yet no single answer, because I know why, it ain't been done, can't be done. And linux gurus wonder why man pages are hard for people to understand, regular old english can be hard to understand too.
I ain't mad, I'm just giving up on this project, I will finish out giving away the boxes I have, with windows on them, and someone else can be the linux evangelist, I won't be doing it anymore, too frustrating. I'll use it personally, but I can't recommend it yet to other people with older machines, and if they buy new machines some OS or another will be on them. It was just something I thought I could do to help some poor kids from poor families. Screw it, thanks anyway for replying though, you and the other guys. Not answering anymore on this thread, I'm getting too frustrated. That less than half a dozen spec points are too hard to understand it seems. Sheesh.
Which means that in the third world,which has the fastest growing population and is starved for computers, and is gonna get them,old and used first, but the ones that make the impression on them, that MS is gonna arrive on those machines and stay on 99% of those machines, too.
I got no dog in this fight, but some ya'all who DO got a financial dog in the OS fight might want to think on that some... that's a lotta eyeballs and people out there who could use some help, roughly along the same lines I was outlining. I'll let *someone else* tell muhammed magooba josse whatever to CLI install the 2.xxx kernel, and to be sure to roll in the fluxbox then adjust the video raster on his monitor and freq and re compile the horiontal audio module, etc, cuz I sure as heck can't tell anyone over there that.
MS is gonna slap a cd in their hands that they can click thru on ancient boxes and it will more or less work.
Over one billion people, new markets, where most of the oil comes from,.and a lot of our food in the near future, and raw materials, etc, and most will be running on MS unless this is addressed, soon. I don't code, can't help there. Since I've first used it, it's got ridiculous, I am thinking about a personal "distro freeze" and stopping upgrading, because I can't afford a new machine right now, and last install I barely squeaked through with lots more ram than 16.
Old PB still works though. for now. Jobs priced me right out of apple, no way could I get anything today from them. sigh. I feel third worlded in my own country, I'm being priced or bloat coded right out of computing, I can smell it coming.
Sorry, I am just sad, that's all, this is like pulling teeth to get what I am asking and pointing out understood, it ain't worth it. "close enough" but still 2 or 3 times off in specs and size and speed and complexity of install and use combined with vagueness is only good for warfare with hand grenades in close situations, it isn't what I have been asking for or pointing out observationally.
I do appreciate the reply though, thanks. I give up.
that's nice, back in the day. Was it a full GUI like I asked, does it install from a CD, what's it's name, is it still there, does it rerquire a ton of command line to get it installed?
I think people are missing what I am asking, here is a linux enthusiast-me-asking for simple pointer to a distro that will easily install and run a full GUI on a low speed pent 1 and with 16 megs ram, and that I can turn loose to the end user to use without becomg full time cental fix it command, because I can not do that. I'm not trying to insult anyone, just looking for a win 95 equivalent, something just as good, a similar experience. win 95 you stick in the cd, click a few things it's in there. Show me the distro that does that now on a pent 1 at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 ram and I will BUY it as soon as the mailman leaves tomorrow. IF that exists now, give me the URL for it. I do NOT care about personal examples of leetness from yesteryear. I pointed out my mac experience because it was a full gui from 1985 that ran ON A FLOPPY DISK OF 400K. That was my first box I owned, but I had used others before. I was using it as an example, not to claim leethood, I do not have any sort of typing commands unix or windows background, I tried dos for awhile and hated it with a passion, discovere a GUI on mac and use them for years. So WHAT.. I DO use linux now, but I WOULDN'T if I hadn't been given a copy and my machine had had less than the minimum amount of ram, lucky for me I got it to install or I would have tossed it in the trash. And that was 64 megs, I've tried since then, many, many times, I can't make any of the distros I've tried install on these low end machines with GUI. Sorry I ain't leet! I was wondering why we don't have a decent example now that can do what windows, mac, and probably many others (amiga?) could do 15 years ago. It's a VALID observation,a question, and I don't need to take a shred of abuse overit, because it's true.
Excuse me, I am taking time off pushing linux to other folks now, thanks for your wonderful encouragement.
Hey,you BSD guys! Any of you folks got a distro will do what I want, given my exact specs? Let me know,BECAUSE I'LL FOR DANG SURE SWITCH. I'm getting tired of LEET.
Someplace I'll find a distro or OS home where folks can get helped and welcomed, not put down for non-leethood, or ignored like what happens on those IRC channels. Screw this crap.
what am I talking about? What are YOU reading, and why is this difficult to understand? 48 megs of RAM, you are OVER the top by a factor of 3x as much RAM by my criteria. I have a lot of old pent 1s at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 megs of ram, and hunting down and getting after market RAM sticks is extremely cost prohibitive, and a lot of these older machines take very precise sticks. Extremely, even if you can find the crap. The best I have done is on a 166 mghz machine that had a single stick of 64 megs in it, I got both redhat and knoppix to (barely) run on it. I'm on a 200PP right now, and it works OK,I like it actually, *after* I bought another 64stick, and then another stick of 128 megs ram,now it works swell, before it had come with 32 and wouldn't run (or install) RH7.1, the first distro I owned and tried. I've got 7.1, 7.2, mandrake 8.0, RH 8.0, various knoppix and a morphix, and FC1 here, and around 128 seems to be the magic number in non-guru land, for me anyway.
See the problem really is the ram, not the cpu speed, near as I can see, and a free or 5$ machine is not worth spending literally 60-70 dollars on just to try and track down some oddball RAM. I'd add another stick of 128 to my own machine, but they want 90$ for it!!!! Not happening. I've borked a few machines now using RAM that alleged gurus told me "would work in your machine".
Now imagine you are joe third world, how hard it is going to be to get more RAM of the exact correct kind, or even maybe another hard drive that is large wenough to both install the system and have enough swap space. A lot of these machines only have like 600 meg hard drives. It's a pain in the tush to make anything but windows work on them. I don't even try, I mean after you've tried a dozen times, it gets old, and I'm not command line tweaking installing compiling all kinza crap for a freebie give away machine, I got other things to do.
I'm not trying to say it can't be done, but I am merely asking for a pointer to a distro with any example where someone has a normal system running a full fledged easy to install and config GUI on 16 megs on a low end pent 1, and I ain't seen it yet. Every example I have seen requires a lot of command line, and when you get done you still have to comamand line some window like thing, then do this that and the otherand it's still not much of a GUI. No thanks. I'm not a guru, just someone who gives away old boxes to kids who's families are so poor they don't even own telephones (yes, this is USA I am talking about), and until I can find a linux equivalent, these boxes go out the door with 95 or 98 on them, because at least those will boot and run and install easy on 16 megs, you get a window system, etc, and I *wish* it weren't so, because I'd love to turn these kids onto linux.
I repeat, it needs to run on 16 megs RAM, 32 at the most, be able to easily install from a cd without using a geek dictionary for acronyms and vague man commands that make little sense, and to be run almost 100% GUI after installation.
And no matter WHAT I type, someone leeter than me who can't read is gonna retort they got foodows window like-experience desktopping manager running after tweaking the config sys/etc/stab yo momma file blather yada yada, etc, well, except for the video and audio and the drives don't seem to work and.......
Nope
I don't care about that, these are going to end users even lamer than I am. I am between aunt tillie and.. whatever, and if I can't install and run it, sure as heck the end users are gonna be frustrated within 5 minutes and borrow their cuzzin leroys copy of windows and install it anyway.
I think it's better to just admit that X is a full bore no doubt about it gross resource hog, and not pretend it ain't. I'm not a coder and I don't know why, but it sure is or seems to be. I am not complaining, I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the price is right, but I think my observations are *true facts*. If someone can point me to a Distro th
not easily anyway, not any modern distro with a windowing desktop that a non guru can install and operate. Not on them old 16 meg ram machines they won't. 95 will though, and will work perfectly fine, it will surf, email whatever, type a report,etc. I have this problem all the time the olden antiques I refurb and give away, I haven't found a linux equivalent that will do all this with a GUI on these pent 1s.
I still have my old mac 512k. This has a nice GUI that ran off a dang undersized floppy, and I think if I recall it has one meg of RAM, something small like that anyway. Maybe it even has only half a meg, hence the name, I disremember now, but it ain't much, but IT WORKED.
What is it, why can't we (I mean linux) have something that will even come close now without requiring at least 128 megs? Is it just technically impossible because of the way a unix like system is designed? I find even 64megs RAM to be the bare-ly minimum for anything at all practically speaking, and even then it's a kludgy buggy slow exasperating experience. And no, I don't mean installing a CLI only thing, or having to hand carve your desktop windowing gui-like thing out of rocks and old sticks and spending half your spare time keeping it running muttering incantantions and entering runeish commands from a terminal, I mean a slide in a CD and install it and it works thing. Nothing fancy,it don't got to be real fast, just a GUI and a few normal apps.
MS is smart in this case, even with piracy over there as a norm, it costs them almost nothing, and we're talking about a still mostly untapped market of hundreds of millions of people, over a billion easy really. Hearts and minds.....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yep, more or less how my dad sounds. He's a crank,and a cobjob back yard tinkerer/inventor, guess that's where I get my disposition and interests from from.
Funny, he HATES computers, but is a retired mainframe hardware guy. My mom uses a webTV for surfin and email, but he will have naught to do with personal computers.
I don't throw nuthin out now! I make packrats look like someone in atlantic city with lottery winnings in their pocket!
I remember when I finally made it to A DOLLAH A WEEK allowance for chores. Geez it was like a millyun bucks.
--no independent or third party will ever "have a chance" until more people follow through and vote for them, in sequential elections, and refuse to vote D or R. It just "is" is all, and, hhmmmm, like the adoption of free/open source, has to be done one user at a time. Once some do it, then others, then masses, that's how it works.
What's expression, voting for the lesser of two evils? You are still voting for e-vile.
The other positive thing to do is like what we are doing here, using the new technology to bypass the traditional massaged media, get our own news, read more diverse opinions, have access to more data and more truthful data, etc, THEN SHARE IT AROUND.
That, and work locally, in meatworld. Every alternative non D or non R that gets in any local office is a *good thing*. That's how political power gets established.
I spend quite a bit of my time doing it, it's the least I can do, the "news and information" sharing. I just moved to my location less than a year ago, so I am going to wait some time before running around here, but I am seriously contemplating it right now. Have heard of too many examples where people with a constitutional bent are having good luck locally, but you won't hardly hear of it in the mass media of course..
There is one guy I have heard lately on the radio, you might like him, I certainly did, he hit some good high points for me, lemme find his site..
Slashdot Mirror
...never heard of 'em.. need to find out if there's any nutritional value to these things. If so, market them as A-trendy exotic organic low carb healthfood (fibril soup made with pure glacier water and like ..tofu or something) and B-cheap animal feedstock. Can't miss, turn a liability into a profitable asset! Sieve the stuff outta the water before it plugs up the membranes! 3????
Profit!
quote from this raty-os dude
"It costs us $500 to $1,000 a line to review our source code. It would cost billions of dollars to review Linux."
Say whut? It actually costs this? why? where can I sign up???? I'll sub my per-line auditing out, rake it in...
Naw, cmon, really? the government charges this, or he just pays this cost? Because..huh?
no, it was just a little community pots telco. they were nice about it, especially when I offered relatively trivial tech support to their tech support. It's now on their website actually, how good that is silly considering if you need the tech support to get online to see the website...hmm
Anyway but at least the call dudes (real murkins, sitting in an office someplace, sounded like bubba geek teenagers or college stoonts) know how this is done now. I also later on called them with some basic linux stuff, they appreciated that too. The linux-connect stuff was initially a puzzler for me (actually it sucked at first) until I abandoned the GUI tools that came with the distro. I have yet to see them things work for dialup. Maybe the rest of the planet they work for, but not me. If I have to hand configure and tweak 1 (one) file to make the GUI tool work,and that fix is NOT in a man page that comes with the distro install, it's not a tool, it's a hassle,and newbs won't use it. the net is TOO IMPORTANT to have it not work outta the box as near job 1 in distros. Seems I posted a rant on it last year, I'm sure I did. Anyway, that's redhats tool and kppp (RH and mandrake distros) in my experience. I just use CLI wvdial and sometimes set setserial to get online, those gui tools are still way behind the big expensive guys "get your intarweb thisaway" -> tools. (No comment on any networking beyond a dial up account here, they may be the best thing since burritos in a bag for anything else,I never tried them for that).
It IS a problem though, all kinza stuff is so blatantly microsoft only it's weird. How can people not see this is just too monopolisitic to be in their favor? How long before people bitched if all they saw was 95% belchfire autos on the road,if you pulled into the gas station and the gas was "only for belchfire autos", wouldn't that be *noticed*, by even the pointiest of headed bosses let alone joe paycheck?
rhetorical question, but really......
Back to verizon, I have their cell service, but I wonder how good their wireless data/internet service is? It's expensive.... I wish speakeasy DSL and T mobile unlimited wireless data were options were I live, I checked, no joy either place.... you got DSL lucky guy... sniff.. oh well.. still got all the rural tradeoffs, eventually we'll get broadband here, then it'll be almost perfect. I can wait.
Are verizon in bed playing kissy face with MS? Who ain't, that's an easier question to answer....
... and in similar cases involving actual human consumption FOOD, they are artifically creating a plant that can withstand the application of severe poisons, so that other plants nearby may perish, but their poison resistant plant will still live through a massive spraying.. that's it really. They want to sell more poisons,that'stheir business, which get spread throughout the environment, for "profit". Just to have marginally more "pure" golf courses. It's disgusting really. I do caretaking/mowing,etc for a living, and even I, who appreciates a sharp lawn, don't want to see this, some so called "advances" are just nuts, and a lot of the "advances" in use today should be curtailed.
Along with mankinds advances in technology has come the realisation that technology can be misused, unfortunately, we always seem to find out AFTER the fact of this misuse causing gross harm.. Some examples are all the "superfund" sites now where it was considered "acceptable" at the time to willy nilly dump toxic waste, then years later "uh oh, well fellas, guess we didn't know it would make all these folks sick and dead...sorry". Examples with "new and improved and oh so safe medicines" being recalled later, after the fact of much "testing" to "be safe".
I have several friends who have gotten plenty sick from "real safe, nothing to worry about men" Agent Orange. The government, industry "scientists" you name it all said it was "safe". Turns out it was hideously UNsafe, AFTER the fact of actually sickening and killing a lot of people. The same thing is happening now with "harmless depleted uranium munitions" -the weapon that just keeps on giving..and giving...
And so and and so forth
A good rule of thumb is, if some industry or scientist or government tells you to "don't worry, it's cool, trust us" is NOT
We need to balance potential benefits against probable potential hazards. NO ONE on slashdot is a luddite, we are all here because we enjoy technology, and it is entirely possdible to advocate technology, to use it, but to use it safely and wisely, and part of wisdom is to learn to say NO if something is just too dangerous.
We as humans have a duty to learn from our mistakes, and the one thing we should have learned is to go slow, and to not continually spread poisons or develop organisms that can be destructive. There is an exact reference here now, and a much serious problem, with poison resistant rapeseed (for canola oil) in canada now, and the "starlink" corn starting to spread all over. As a gardener, I know within a few years I won't be able to grow any of the corn I like, because starlink will have contaminated it all. I have made provisons for myself to some time in the future switch to greenhouse sealed containment food production-gardening, and have the pure food strain seeds I want stock piled and stored, because soon you won't be able to get them. Even worse coming are the "terminator" gene crops, which will, within a generation or so via air spread pollen and cross contamination, put basic food control and availability in the hands of a few corporations-across the planet. You won't be able to grow your own food without purchasing their seed and using their chemicals, and there is no guarantee that their seeds will be anything other than gross mass weight vegetables with little nutritional value, let alone the nuts cost of doing it that way. This is food we are talking about here, not just flavor of car fanboyism or even OS arguments. FOOD.
If one can't see the "wrongness" in that,in allowing the public introduction of species like that, well....
As to where the dna gets inserted, my bottom line is we got enough problems with the wild stuff, we don't need to be adding to it. Humans civilised behavior and social consciousness hasn't advanced near as well as our ability to just implement technological advances, that's why we need to go slow with the chemicals and biologicals. Humans can just get too greedy and LIE over things to completely trust them with such issues, there needs a radical slowing -not stopping-but a slowing in certain areas, especially releasing engineered organisms into the wild and spreading more poisons...
instead of closing the sites, use them for coordination of email. I will be polite here and NOT recommend DdOS attacks,but the effect of a polite but overwhelming presence becoming felt. Just encourage millions (whatever) of people to send a LOT of emails to every place that can take an email,places like newspapers (every editor and reporter there, and their advertisers), those patent offices (every employee email addy that can be found), the various politicians (all of them, their staffs, etc), broadcasters,lawyers, academecians etc, etc,etc along those lines. Make the email usage during the protest spike severely across the net. Many many emailers sending out a LOT of emails apiece. Every protester send a well written detailed statement of opposition, outlining the "why" of the protest and offering a "better solution" than software patents to every single email addy that can be found to a relevant person who has anything to do with the patents, and to anyone in a position of legal influence or in the media.
what them things?
I think california in particular is in a unique position to make de-sal water, they got a LOT of hot days in the desert where the water could be desalinated using solar thermal techniques, and the water they use now is mostly piped in anyway from far away..seems like that could be coordinated somehow. Biggest expense might be pumping the salt water to the plants,maybe, I don't know how far inland you have to get there before there's enough wide open desert space to set up shop. If they make the de-sal water just burning finite quantity fossil fuels, I think it's a mistake, especially there with who knows how many ergs, therms or btus however you want to measure it solar heat going to waste, near free for the taking. And solar is clean fusion reaction, too, we already got fusion power, which people tend to forget a lot.
I would *like* to support greater useage of uranium-based nuclear heat power, after they figure out a better way to deal with the waste. So far, not impressed with the efforts.
I think the nation/region would be served better if we stepped back a bit and took another look at more decentralised power generation as a full bore government encouraged option. Not as a complete replacement, but frankly, I see no reason we can't have millions more solar panels and wind generators out there. Economy of scale in manufacturing, spurring on even more R&D, etc, works for everything else it appears. And having a lot more points of production, spread out, would help to mitigate cascading failures, especially if islanding was more precise and easier to implement in smaller areas. Wind, were the average wind is adequate enough, is especially cost effective now, approaching coal burning costs per watt. Solar is nice where applicable by climate because it can make use of dead space going to waste, millions of roofs already there.
I like the "not all your eggs in one basket" approach to problems, and I believe in backups for everything.
sometimes I guess you got to let it all hang out, like we used to say in the hipster days. I read this article about MS and i got steamed over it, really. I mean, it's a hearts and minds thing, and working along similar goals for awhile and getting frustrated with it got me hot.
I appreciate what MS did initially, it got computing out there to millions of people. It got computing JOBS out there to millions of people. this was a good thing, same with apple, IBM building the cloneable box, and etc.
Time goes on though, they got sorty dinkus, and now are being professional dinkus. Open source/free is the wave of de future, you can just see it, I saw it several years ago when I realsed a ton of the younger geeks were into it. I know that is what fuels innovations in tech/society/economics/politics, young people with a lot of energy hot rodding whatever they can get their hands on. Any tech you care to name,going back in history, whatever the young people adopt to be interested in is what becomes mainstream when they are the "breadwinner" segment of the population. I may be slow but I ain't dumb enough to miss that.
.... kept me interested in computers. I was starting to learn DOS, bleech, couldn't stand it. Just wasn't (and still really isn't) my bag. I didn't own a computer, but tried out various friends 286s, it was OK, but..... it lacked. Going by a yard sale one day, spotted the 512k for sale, 50 clams. I asked the girl selling it, "well, let's get an extension cord out here, I wanna see this badboy fired up". Yep, I talk like that. Anyway, 5 minutes later I was doing more stuff with a mouse than I did fooling around with DOS, that's for sure. Graduated to an LC, that was nice, still got it, too. got nuts then, now I got all kinza boxes. I think I still got a couple of IIcs, too, have to check in the junker pile. GFs quadra is still a practical machine if ya ask me, it does about anything joe casual user would want to do, inside of surfin, sounds, email, drawing, text stuff. Probably still a lot of 68k apps out there. I never did try to put linux on any of my macs, I should try that sometime.
dial up makes it redickalus hard to try out various distros and whatnot, just keeping a kitchen sink install patched and updated is tedious.
BUT, to me the other advantages of living in north_cow_flop rural USA make up for it. Always tradeoffs.
Cool stuff living rural:
Hmm, never no problem finding a place to take a leak....
traffic jam is two bubbas parked next to each other in the road jawin'. You just wait till they are done, cuz next week you will do similar.
Lax driving laws on weird mechanized stuff being operated on the "roads", ie, no one gives a care, even the cops
The "supermarket" is out in the back yard all summer for most things
The winter heating energy crisis can be mostly solved with you + saw + handy woods next door
There's always someone with a worse looking truck than you, and his is still running, so you don't feel pressurised to go "upgrade" your pickemup so often, saves on cash you ain't got anyway...
"Steaks" are lame enough to come over to your backyard "supermarket" and turn themselves in for packaging....
You can actually see the stars at night... if you don't mind swatting mosquitoes...
and my favorite:
If your old lady is into getting a little sun outside once in awhile, it can be REAL DANG INTERESTIN'
... last night I was just getting frustrated, dragging in over emotionalism to what was a simple observation combined with a question. I've got a ton of decent responses so far, it's more than I thought existed last I looked at small distros.
Man, I gotz TOO MANY PROJECTS! HAHAHAHAHA!
I'm still accumulating parts for my MONSTER MOWER I want to build, just for a hoot. Like them monster trucks. It's a geezer suburban thing.... no one cares about your ride, bragging points are YOUR LAWNMOWER! HAHAHAHA! I guess I need a computer crammed on there too. So far it ain't monsterized, but I got a cb and an am/fm radio and dual batteries.
...on one of these boxes here to rebuild. Got a new customer today, a 4 year old kid who wants a computer of his own. He even asked me! I was in the church thrift store, I've seen him before, a very outgoing talker kid, he's a born ratchet jaw, I can relate on that issue... Anyway. So I said, "your folks got a computer you can use?" He goes "Ya they do! but I want MY OWN!!!" heheheheh WELL WHO DON'T! I talked to his mom, he got a birthday next month. We'll see what we can do here get him fixed up with something.
... because of one supreme court decision that was a huge mistake. the granting of "personhood" to a corporation. the case is US supreme court, santa clara county vs. Southern Pacifici railroad company, 1886, 118 U.S. 394. It sucks, I mean, realy, realy, really bad. I would be a large sum there was a serious cash payoff connected to that case, it's so blatantly skewed and stupid. It allows corporations to get all the benefits of being a "live" human with "born with rights", but it lets them get away with a huge near-uncrackable firewall for accountability for their actions. It is EXTREMELY difficult to get a human being in jail for decisions that a "corporation" makes, fines are hard enough for any proven malfeasance. Whereas with a "private citizen" it's really EASY to get a human being in jail for being a fug-up. Get that one single law changed and Corporate abuse would slow down considerably. They literally get a 99.99% guaranted "get out of jail free" card that no corporate executive or groups of them will ever see the inside of jail no matter how much that corporation abuses a person or another company. It occassionaly happens, but not near often enough, IMO. In my opinion it is in the top 3 or 4 worst decisions that the supreme court ever made in general (miller decision is my pet worst abuse ever, that and the creation of the IRs and income taxes with the fed reserve crap), and it's the top one that lead to monopolies,near monopolies, un accountability, rampant fiscal responsibility abuse, and a seriously bribed and paid-off governmental structure. I can't think of anything else that comes close in that regard.
... how about an audio installation? It's a gimmick, but might be nice. The installer asks the questions and gives a few potential answers for you to pick from -say Jin's frustrations with making dualboot work. Just that might help I think.
Besides that, and it's an oft observed and still true deal. it really has to come pre installed on new boxes. OR the law is significantly changed so that boxes are only offered with clean empty disks, and the consumer is forced to make a choice of OS/apps package at the retail level, but I know that will never fly so there's little point to speculate on it. It HAS to come on the box and be visible. ISPs HAVE to say that they "support" linux and be able to do so in terms of getting new customers on the net. Heck, the last place I lived when I went to get net service claimed they didn't "support" Mac! True facts! I told them I was my own support on something like just getting online, to just give me a dial in number and some DNS addys, etc, and I called their help desk,to tell the dude there "look man, this is easy, copy this down,this is what you tell Mac people if you get asked", etc. That actually worked, the ISP (local telco) started "supporting" Mac. And this was in 1999, think about that.
I digress, linux has to come on the machines and work as well as "the big guys" with normal stuff for normal folks. People who have exact specific software requirements will figure out what they need "extra" accordingly. People who just "get a computer" need the choice directly at the retail level, and it better work and not be hidden away in the back room, it has to be upfront along with all the other stuff. "computer" with MS =X, same computer -X but + linux = 100$ cheaper, staring them right in the face. The first linux OS should be free to them or they won't care, few people will (at this point in time) bother with it unless it's free, easy, relatively painless, and they aren't forced to "give up" their accumulated windows knowledge. That dual boot option is critical now for most people, they honestly do NOT want to bork their machines that they finally understand well enough to struggle by with. It has to be that significant to people or they won't make the switch. First time I made a dual boot I literally unplugged the windows hard drive and tried Linux on a spare drive. Of course, I didn't have real dual boot then, but I got to play with it to see if I liked it well enough to persue. Then I did it again with both drives plugged in. Even then I was still concerned I was going to really mess it up, because it's a little screwy for a newbie. There were too many options at first, all I wanted was a dang button to click, " do you want linux on this hard drive over here, and windows to stay on the hard drive over here where it already is?' Yes/no binary would have been psychologically easier. Of course I went ahead and screwed around with it a lot, using different swap sizes, putting it here, no there, etc until I was happy with it, but I re installed everything sever times in a rtow before I got cvomfortable with it. Joe paycheck ain't gonna be that patient usually. One or the other or a real easy way to dual boot, using one drive or two drives. I know initially I didn't want to lose my ability to have a "computer" that ran *at all*. It's a valid concern that I think most people would have when contemplating "the big switch".
That's for joe paycheck. The business world knows about linux now, and Mac and yada yada. That nut gets cracked by this "bottom line" thing they always talk about, and there it's happening, as much as it will. Two different things there, similar, but more different than not.
I guess text would be OK, as long as it was extremely clear, straight forward, and did the job without acronym hell. Most people don't even know what a partition is, other than they got one someplace "in there".
I've got a few more good leads in the responses so far at the links, I will pursue it some more. Vector claims 32 megs, a pent 1, but recommends about double that. I'll check out the others. Being on a slow dialup means like 5$ or so per distro snail mail though. I guess I'll find one. Rules looks good, too.
hahahaha! Oh man, I r embarrassed. I'm a murkin, sure enough. I just type slang, and do stream of consciousness writing style. I admit freely it's quite unique and ...strange. People don't forget it though...
pretty funny, I'm still laughing.. aww geez... that's hysterical.
Hey, it gives me an excuse now though! I just need to come up with a fictious country that sounds good enough to maybe be real, I'll claim I'm from there.. that's the ticket, ya!
... that's getting more like it. I tell you, I feel like issuing a big public coding/packaging challenge that follows my criteria *freeking exactly*. If I had prize money or something I would do it. What say, good idea or whack? My thinking is, if the coding goes back in time, if code gets written that will run excellently on these olden days machines,using those as a minimum benchmark, think how it might run on newer faster machines. From my point of view, if it could be done 15 years ago or longer off a single floppy, or even a single cd, 16 megs ram, pent 1 class, under one gig hard drive,maybe even just a half a gig, and still have E-Z GUI install, be NON confusing to run, had a dozen apps for the most popular uses in "computing", it would be a hit, a smash. The high end bleeding edge is being covered in spades, all over, by Mac, MS, and the *big* linux guys. Swell, that's cool, but that's much less than 1% of the population has these machines that that sort of effort is being designed for. It's necessary those efforts are being made,obviously, I am glad it's happening, but it's also necessary to help insure that computers are not relegated to the scrap heap after only a few years. That leaves 100 million computers + world wide out there that NONE of these high end efforts are addressing, outside a very few hobbyists, and this new MS initiative. Someone is sure missing the boat here.
Thanksagain! I'll check out the link. Still thinking about the Grande OS Challenge though, I'll write it up if anyone thinks this is a worthwile challenge and will be responded to, and if anyone wants to help me get it going offically with host space or whatnot for the (minimal) website.
I can offer a nifty scrawled certificate of mega-coolness and one (1) "Ohh it's shiny and pretty!" silver dollar as prize money to the winner who has the best offering that hits all the criteria. Miss one, no see gar.
Cool, or whack? Heck, anyone can run brute force crypto attacks using a 1700 node distributed cluster **^%,
well, maybe not but I want to see someone hit this OS challenge using free/open source. I'd be impressed with that.
thanks, you 100% got what I was saying and asking. There exists a TERMENDOUS international niche market that would go with all these millions of used machines out there, that instead of going to the landfill, could be used, with a free open source OS, would get all these third world folks juiced on computing, and using open source, but are gonna be using win 95 or 98 or close to that, because... I don't know why not. I've been looking for over a year now for a solution, haven't found it yet. Leave out one of the criteria, it's a non starter. If and when someone comes out with such a distro, it will be quite well received. I tried morphix lately it's a decent start, but still not quite there, it wouldn't run at all on most of the antiuqe boxes I have, let alone the older monitors, most of those won't use linux at all, I have to purchase 14 inch svgas and still hand tweak them to display, which ups my cost(real low semi retired fixed income, this gets pricey for me) on the give-aways. I got a shelf full of color monitors that are useless now, but they WILL run windows easily, every one of them. Not an engineer, I don't know why,(don't care, I accept it) but that's my reality. Windows goes on the boxes, much as I don't wanna.
Huge giant growing and expanding international market almost completely untapped, just opening up going *begging*,gonna be handed to microsoft on a silver platter, seems like such a waste.. oh well
isn't what I am asking, but getting closer. Look back at it again. You said "linux 2.2, 2.4", but that doesn't tell me what distro it is. Linux is a kernel, there isn't a distro called "linux". Well, there is but it's a RH clone. Anyway, did you compile it,install from a command line in a terminal, have to tweak drivers and whatnot, or dids it install from a CD pretty easily? answer a few questions, click here, clcik there? See, I have to think about the end users/kids I give this to, if it gets screwed up, THEY got to be able to fix it if it's bad by re installing from a disk.
See? I get responses, I appreciate it,but they haven't answered my questions. This winow manager is lightweight, this other one might work, etc, and such and such from the olden days, but yet no single answer, because I know why, it ain't been done, can't be done. And linux gurus wonder why man pages are hard for people to understand, regular old english can be hard to understand too.
I ain't mad, I'm just giving up on this project, I will finish out giving away the boxes I have, with windows on them, and someone else can be the linux evangelist, I won't be doing it anymore, too frustrating. I'll use it personally, but I can't recommend it yet to other people with older machines, and if they buy new machines some OS or another will be on them. It was just something I thought I could do to help some poor kids from poor families. Screw it, thanks anyway for replying though, you and the other guys. Not answering anymore on this thread, I'm getting too frustrated. That less than half a dozen spec points are too hard to understand it seems. Sheesh.
Which means that in the third world,which has the fastest growing population and is starved for computers, and is gonna get them,old and used first, but the ones that make the impression on them, that MS is gonna arrive on those machines and stay on 99% of those machines, too.
I got no dog in this fight, but some ya'all who DO got a financial dog in the OS fight might want to think on that some... that's a lotta eyeballs and people out there who could use some help, roughly along the same lines I was outlining. I'll let *someone else* tell muhammed magooba josse whatever to CLI install the 2.xxx kernel, and to be sure to roll in the fluxbox then adjust the video raster on his monitor and freq and re compile the horiontal audio module, etc, cuz I sure as heck can't tell anyone over there that.
MS is gonna slap a cd in their hands that they can click thru on ancient boxes and it will more or less work.
Over one billion people, new markets, where most of the oil comes from,.and a lot of our food in the near future, and raw materials, etc, and most will be running on MS unless this is addressed, soon. I don't code, can't help there. Since I've first used it, it's got ridiculous, I am thinking about a personal "distro freeze" and stopping upgrading, because I can't afford a new machine right now, and last install I barely squeaked through with lots more ram than 16.
Old PB still works though. for now. Jobs priced me right out of apple, no way could I get anything today from them. sigh. I feel third worlded in my own country, I'm being priced or bloat coded right out of computing, I can smell it coming.
Sorry, I am just sad, that's all, this is like pulling teeth to get what I am asking and pointing out understood, it ain't worth it. "close enough" but still 2 or 3 times off in specs and size and speed and complexity of install and use combined with vagueness is only good for warfare with hand grenades in close situations, it isn't what I have been asking for or pointing out observationally.
I do appreciate the reply though, thanks. I give up.
that's nice, back in the day. Was it a full GUI like I asked, does it install from a CD, what's it's name, is it still there, does it rerquire a ton of command line to get it installed?
I think people are missing what I am asking, here is a linux enthusiast-me-asking for simple pointer to a distro that will easily install and run a full GUI on a low speed pent 1 and with 16 megs ram, and that I can turn loose to the end user to use without becomg full time cental fix it command, because I can not do that. I'm not trying to insult anyone, just looking for a win 95 equivalent, something just as good, a similar experience. win 95 you stick in the cd, click a few things it's in there. Show me the distro that does that now on a pent 1 at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 ram and I will BUY it as soon as the mailman leaves tomorrow. IF that exists now, give me the URL for it. I do NOT care about personal examples of leetness from yesteryear. I pointed out my mac experience because it was a full gui from 1985 that ran ON A FLOPPY DISK OF 400K. That was my first box I owned, but I had used others before. I was using it as an example, not to claim leethood, I do not have any sort of typing commands unix or windows background, I tried dos for awhile and hated it with a passion, discovere a GUI on mac and use them for years. So WHAT.. I DO use linux now, but I WOULDN'T if I hadn't been given a copy and my machine had had less than the minimum amount of ram, lucky for me I got it to install or I would have tossed it in the trash. And that was 64 megs, I've tried since then, many, many times, I can't make any of the distros I've tried install on these low end machines with GUI. Sorry I ain't leet! I was wondering why we don't have a decent example now that can do what windows, mac, and probably many others (amiga?) could do 15 years ago. It's a VALID observation,a question, and I don't need to take a shred of abuse overit, because it's true.
Excuse me, I am taking time off pushing linux to other folks now, thanks for your wonderful encouragement.
Hey,you BSD guys! Any of you folks got a distro will do what I want, given my exact specs? Let me know,BECAUSE I'LL FOR DANG SURE SWITCH. I'm getting tired of LEET.
Someplace I'll find a distro or OS home where folks can get helped and welcomed, not put down for non-leethood, or ignored like what happens on those IRC channels. Screw this crap.
what am I talking about? What are YOU reading, and why is this difficult to understand? 48 megs of RAM, you are OVER the top by a factor of 3x as much RAM by my criteria. I have a lot of old pent 1s at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 megs of ram, and hunting down and getting after market RAM sticks is extremely cost prohibitive, and a lot of these older machines take very precise sticks. Extremely, even if you can find the crap. The best I have done is on a 166 mghz machine that had a single stick of 64 megs in it, I got both redhat and knoppix to (barely) run on it. I'm on a 200PP right now, and it works OK,I like it actually, *after* I bought another 64stick, and then another stick of 128 megs ram,now it works swell, before it had come with 32 and wouldn't run (or install) RH7.1, the first distro I owned and tried. I've got 7.1, 7.2, mandrake 8.0, RH 8.0, various knoppix and a morphix, and FC1 here, and around 128 seems to be the magic number in non-guru land, for me anyway.
.......
See the problem really is the ram, not the cpu speed, near as I can see, and a free or 5$ machine is not worth spending literally 60-70 dollars on just to try and track down some oddball RAM. I'd add another stick of 128 to my own machine, but they want 90$ for it!!!! Not happening. I've borked a few machines now using RAM that alleged gurus told me "would work in your machine".
Now imagine you are joe third world, how hard it is going to be to get more RAM of the exact correct kind, or even maybe another hard drive that is large wenough to both install the system and have enough swap space. A lot of these machines only have like 600 meg hard drives. It's a pain in the tush to make anything but windows work on them. I don't even try, I mean after you've tried a dozen times, it gets old, and I'm not command line tweaking installing compiling all kinza crap for a freebie give away machine, I got other things to do.
I'm not trying to say it can't be done, but I am merely asking for a pointer to a distro with any example where someone has a normal system running a full fledged easy to install and config GUI on 16 megs on a low end pent 1, and I ain't seen it yet. Every example I have seen requires a lot of command line, and when you get done you still have to comamand line some window like thing, then do this that and the otherand it's still not much of a GUI. No thanks. I'm not a guru, just someone who gives away old boxes to kids who's families are so poor they don't even own telephones (yes, this is USA I am talking about), and until I can find a linux equivalent, these boxes go out the door with 95 or 98 on them, because at least those will boot and run and install easy on 16 megs, you get a window system, etc, and I *wish* it weren't so, because I'd love to turn these kids onto linux.
I repeat, it needs to run on 16 megs RAM, 32 at the most, be able to easily install from a cd without using a geek dictionary for acronyms and vague man commands that make little sense, and to be run almost 100% GUI after installation.
And no matter WHAT I type, someone leeter than me who can't read is gonna retort they got foodows window like-experience desktopping manager running after tweaking the config sys/etc/stab yo momma file blather yada yada, etc, well, except for the video and audio and the drives don't seem to work and
Nope
I don't care about that, these are going to end users even lamer than I am. I am between aunt tillie and.. whatever, and if I can't install and run it, sure as heck the end users are gonna be frustrated within 5 minutes and borrow their cuzzin leroys copy of windows and install it anyway.
I think it's better to just admit that X is a full bore no doubt about it gross resource hog, and not pretend it ain't. I'm not a coder and I don't know why, but it sure is or seems to be. I am not complaining, I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the price is right, but I think my observations are *true facts*. If someone can point me to a Distro th
not easily anyway, not any modern distro with a windowing desktop that a non guru can install and operate. Not on them old 16 meg ram machines they won't. 95 will though, and will work perfectly fine, it will surf, email whatever, type a report,etc. I have this problem all the time the olden antiques I refurb and give away, I haven't found a linux equivalent that will do all this with a GUI on these pent 1s.
I still have my old mac 512k. This has a nice GUI that ran off a dang undersized floppy, and I think if I recall it has one meg of RAM, something small like that anyway. Maybe it even has only half a meg, hence the name, I disremember now, but it ain't much, but IT WORKED.
What is it, why can't we (I mean linux) have something that will even come close now without requiring at least 128 megs? Is it just technically impossible because of the way a unix like system is designed? I find even 64megs RAM to be the bare-ly minimum for anything at all practically speaking, and even then it's a kludgy buggy slow exasperating experience. And no, I don't mean installing a CLI only thing, or having to hand carve your desktop windowing gui-like thing out of rocks and old sticks and spending half your spare time keeping it running muttering incantantions and entering runeish commands from a terminal, I mean a slide in a CD and install it and it works thing. Nothing fancy,it don't got to be real fast, just a GUI and a few normal apps.
MS is smart in this case, even with piracy over there as a norm, it costs them almost nothing, and we're talking about a still mostly untapped market of hundreds of millions of people, over a billion easy really. Hearts and minds.....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yep, more or less how my dad sounds. He's a crank,and a cobjob back yard tinkerer/inventor, guess that's where I get my disposition and interests from from.
Funny, he HATES computers, but is a retired mainframe hardware guy. My mom uses a webTV for surfin and email, but he will have naught to do with personal computers.
I don't throw nuthin out now! I make packrats look like someone in atlantic city with lottery winnings in their pocket!
I remember when I finally made it to A DOLLAH A WEEK allowance for chores. Geez it was like a millyun bucks.
--no independent or third party will ever "have a chance" until more people follow through and vote for them, in sequential elections, and refuse to vote D or R. It just "is" is all, and, hhmmmm, like the adoption of free/open source, has to be done one user at a time. Once some do it, then others, then masses, that's how it works.
What's expression, voting for the lesser of two evils? You are still voting for e-vile.
The other positive thing to do is like what we are doing here, using the new technology to bypass the traditional massaged media, get our own news, read more diverse opinions, have access to more data and more truthful data, etc, THEN SHARE IT AROUND.
That, and work locally, in meatworld. Every alternative non D or non R that gets in any local office is a *good thing*. That's how political power gets established.
I spend quite a bit of my time doing it, it's the least I can do, the "news and information" sharing. I just moved to my location less than a year ago, so I am going to wait some time before running around here, but I am seriously contemplating it right now. Have heard of too many examples where people with a constitutional bent are having good luck locally, but you won't hardly hear of it in the mass media of course..
There is one guy I have heard lately on the radio, you might like him, I certainly did, he hit some good high points for me, lemme find his site..
that was easy, it's russoforpresident.com