Meshing gears are far more expensive than chain & sprockets and require greater precision when installed or they'll wear out quickly. They also need more protection from the elements and do not like at all to be dirty.
As for axles, I assume your friend can weld a shaft onto a standard spindle.
If you can afford timing belts and toothed sprockets, you can maybe eliminate the need to regularly lubricate the thing - so long as you use sealed bearings.
If you insist on gears, try Boston Gear and they'll tell you who your local vendors are.
I used Mandriva for a few years and switched, eventually to Kubuntu. I tried Suse, Fedora, and Mepis. I really liked Mepis (based on Ubuntu) but switched to Kubuntu based on a sound driver problem. The switch was almost effortless.
There is no question Mandriva is a polished distro. Desktop usability is certainly it's forte. My problem with it was package availability, especially when it's popularity began to slide. I ended up running cooker to try to keep up to date and try packages that were not available as stable. Switching to Mepis, based on Ubuntu, solved that for me. The management tools are not as good or as complete as the drake tools, but they are generally sufficient.
I can't say though that I recall desktop usability being a strength of Ubunutu's. It's for everyone, as in many languages and affordable to all. If Mandriva gives you what you need, VERY COOL! If something isn't there, doesn't work, or isn't being kept up to date, a switch to Ubuntu will probably solve the problem.
I'm running Mandrake 9.2, and I'll grant you that I've never had a "Blue screen of death" and the install was a breeze compared to M$ Windoze.
Instead of a blue screen, Mandrake doesn't even seem to know about it when it freezes. I can't even salute my way out of it. In the last month, Drake 9.2 has frozen on me 4 times while using basic programs like mozilla. Then I must push the button on the box. If there's a better way, please let me know CTRL_ALT _BS is a joke. So much for not rebooting Linux.
Where it obviously excells beyond measure to me is that I don't have to reboot it just because it's been running for 3 days and is therefor out of memory. I thought when I went to 512 MB I'd be beyond that. Windoze literally has an infinite appetite for memory. It's a good thing for dozers that dimms and simms keep getting cheaper.
I grew up in the burbs and also used to think of rural farmer types as something like crazy country folk. Then I got a job working for Honda in Ohio - out in the country. Those supposedly low tech country folk sure know how to make some GREAT cars and those tractor mechanics they hired to maintain some of the most automated factories in the world sure can program a robot. They would do just fine with their digitized lines, if only they could get them. Some of them spend alot more than you likely do so they can download via sattelite.
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Meshing gears are far more expensive than chain & sprockets and require greater precision when installed or they'll wear out quickly. They also need more protection from the elements and do not like at all to be dirty. As for axles, I assume your friend can weld a shaft onto a standard spindle. If you can afford timing belts and toothed sprockets, you can maybe eliminate the need to regularly lubricate the thing - so long as you use sealed bearings. If you insist on gears, try Boston Gear and they'll tell you who your local vendors are.
I used Mandriva for a few years and switched, eventually to Kubuntu. I tried Suse, Fedora, and Mepis. I really liked Mepis (based on Ubuntu) but switched to Kubuntu based on a sound driver problem. The switch was almost effortless. There is no question Mandriva is a polished distro. Desktop usability is certainly it's forte. My problem with it was package availability, especially when it's popularity began to slide. I ended up running cooker to try to keep up to date and try packages that were not available as stable. Switching to Mepis, based on Ubuntu, solved that for me. The management tools are not as good or as complete as the drake tools, but they are generally sufficient. I can't say though that I recall desktop usability being a strength of Ubunutu's. It's for everyone, as in many languages and affordable to all. If Mandriva gives you what you need, VERY COOL! If something isn't there, doesn't work, or isn't being kept up to date, a switch to Ubuntu will probably solve the problem.
$99,999,999.00 Wow, is Warren Buffet bidding?
I'm running Mandrake 9.2, and I'll grant you that I've never had a "Blue screen of death" and the install was a breeze compared to M$ Windoze. Instead of a blue screen, Mandrake doesn't even seem to know about it when it freezes. I can't even salute my way out of it. In the last month, Drake 9.2 has frozen on me 4 times while using basic programs like mozilla. Then I must push the button on the box. If there's a better way, please let me know CTRL_ALT _BS is a joke. So much for not rebooting Linux. Where it obviously excells beyond measure to me is that I don't have to reboot it just because it's been running for 3 days and is therefor out of memory. I thought when I went to 512 MB I'd be beyond that. Windoze literally has an infinite appetite for memory. It's a good thing for dozers that dimms and simms keep getting cheaper.
I grew up in the burbs and also used to think of rural farmer types as something like crazy country folk. Then I got a job working for Honda in Ohio - out in the country. Those supposedly low tech country folk sure know how to make some GREAT cars and those tractor mechanics they hired to maintain some of the most automated factories in the world sure can program a robot. They would do just fine with their digitized lines, if only they could get them. Some of them spend alot more than you likely do so they can download via sattelite.