I'm quite happy with my compaq presario 1800T. It came installed with Win 98, and I resized that partition smaller to make room for BeOS 4.5 and Slackware Linux. It works great with both BeOS 4.5 and Linux, although I originally installed Slackware Linux 4 and had to upgrade the XFree86 to get the Rage Pro LT support before SlackWare Linux 7 came out.
One neat thing about it that Compaq neglects to mention on their web site and would have got me all hot and bothered for it is that it comes with integrated ethernet. No PCMCIA needed for ethernet.
There's a couple gotchas with the ethernet though. It uses some variant of the DEC Tulip chip in which the ethernet chip eeprom gets reprogrammed by windows. If you do a soft reboot from windows into Linux or BeOS, then ethernet won't work. If you power down from windows then power back up into BeOS or Linux it will work fine.
Another problem is that you need to wait until the system has come up to attach the 10baseT cable (it's a 10/100 chip).
The machine is a 450 MHz pentium III with 128 MB of ram. A pentium III is significant for laptops because pentium II laptops run the system bus at 66 MHz; pentium III laptops with the coppermine chip run at 100 MHz.
I gave my desktop PC to my fiance and now use my compaq laptop for all my consulting work - software development, server work on linux, gui stuff on windows and BeOS. I vastly prefer using a laptop to a desktop PC for my daily work. I can sit on the couch or the easy chair and I don't have to stay in one place all day. Also I like the active matrix LCD screens, I think they're easier on the eyes than vacuum tube phosphors.
I've gotten all riled up by what I read in the press and online these days, and decided to start doing something about it. The first thing is to write a semi-regular column with commentary and posts to current events of interest.
This column is meant to be accessible to anyone, not just the geek community. You may find it interesting to read, but I'd also like to ask that you forward the URL to your friends or link to it from your web pages.
As soon as 2.4.0 is released (or even before) you'll see people falling all over themselves to complain that this distro or that distro doesn't have it.
But distros are used widely by inexperienced users and this is code that is not extensively tested. Many people get their first and only experienced with Linux from some CD they buy off a store shelf for $29.
Yes, it has been worked on for years but it has not been used in production that much.
It would be better if most of the initial users of 2.4.0 were users who were competent to download and build their own kernels, until the bugs that will inevitably crop up in widespread use are found.
While it has begun too late to assist in 2.4.0, I have proposed the Linux Quality Database to make it easier and more effective for regular Linux users to give the kernel developers feedback on their builds.
It will also serve as an advocacy and education site to improve the quality of Free Software in general.
If you want to participate, please contact me at crawford@goingware.com or subscribe to the mailing list - instructions are on the site.
Michael D. Crawford GoingWare Inc
Be needs a hardware vendor
on
Be on the G4
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· Score: 2
I think that if a hardware vendor appeared who would sell systems with those motherboards installed, Be would support them in an instant.
They've got years of work and many millions invested in the PowerPC, and honestly the PowerPC is just a superior microprocessor.
They can sell in the x86 market because they can write for a few common motherboard standards and expect them to work on millions of machines. Suppose they did ship a product with G4 support, that wasn't for Apple? Who'd they sell to?
Mostly people like me, who want to upgrade their PowerPC systems but don't want to buy a new mac because the BeOS won't run on it.
Because PowerPC users are a very small fraction of the installed base, they wouldn't sell many at all.
But if somebody sold a supported system, that was BeOS only, or dual booted into Linux or BeOS - bingo!
So if you want to see BeOS supported on PowerPC in the future, call up your linux hardware vendors and ask them to offer the BeOS as an option on their systems, x86 systems to start, they'll get around to PowerPC eventually.
People who want to resell the BeOS can obtain a free eval copy and a videotape by faxing their resale license to Be (Americas only; other countries have other arrangements). Find out about this at:
I've been told by a Be executive that the BeOS bundle pricing is "very aggressive". So someone selling a machine with the OS installed would find it easy to profit on it.
And I've used the BeOS for years now, and I'm very happy with it. It's a dream to install and configure, unlike Linux, which rendered my disk unbootable the last time I tried to install and upgrade, and which took me two weeks to figure out how to change the resolution and refresh rate of my X server.
Encryption is already readily available to the masses, quality secure encryption that is free and open source. The problem is, not a lot of people use it, just people who are aware they should. Many people who really, really should encrypt don't use it.
I wrote what I think is an easy to understand page about why ordinary people should use encryption. I'd like you to check it out, comment on how I might improve it, give me links, and most importantly, link to the page and get people you care about to read and and download encryption software.
I'd like you all to consider making an active effort to teach people in your companies and community to use encryption. For example, you could bring a PC down to a community center for an evening and teach people how to use PGP and Speak Freely, then hand them out on CD's (by a burner if you have to, or pay a service to burn 50 of them for you, it won't cost much). Advertise this on bulletin boards, community access TV and so on, radio station community service announcements, etc.
Do you support a particular political candidate? Volunteer to teach them and their staff how to encrypt.
Mike Crawford
GoingWare - Expert Software Development and Consulting
Slashdot Mirror
One neat thing about it that Compaq neglects to mention on their web site and would have got me all hot and bothered for it is that it comes with integrated ethernet. No PCMCIA needed for ethernet.
There's a couple gotchas with the ethernet though. It uses some variant of the DEC Tulip chip in which the ethernet chip eeprom gets reprogrammed by windows. If you do a soft reboot from windows into Linux or BeOS, then ethernet won't work. If you power down from windows then power back up into BeOS or Linux it will work fine.
Another problem is that you need to wait until the system has come up to attach the 10baseT cable (it's a 10/100 chip).
The machine is a 450 MHz pentium III with 128 MB of ram. A pentium III is significant for laptops because pentium II laptops run the system bus at 66 MHz; pentium III laptops with the coppermine chip run at 100 MHz.
I gave my desktop PC to my fiance and now use my compaq laptop for all my consulting work - software development, server work on linux, gui stuff on windows and BeOS. I vastly prefer using a laptop to a desktop PC for my daily work. I can sit on the couch or the easy chair and I don't have to stay in one place all day. Also I like the active matrix LCD screens, I think they're easier on the eyes than vacuum tube phosphors.
I have a web page that addresses my laptop briefly at http://www.goingware.com/laptop
Mike Crawford
GoingWare - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com
crawford@goingware.com
This column is meant to be accessible to anyone, not just the geek community. You may find it interesting to read, but I'd also like to ask that you forward the URL to your friends or link to it from your web pages.
Today's column in Today's Comments"> is Modern Technology and the Death of Copyright
Comments and suggest links for future articles are most welcome
Regards, Mike Crawford
GoingWare - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com
crawford@goingware.com
But distros are used widely by inexperienced users and this is code that is not extensively tested. Many people get their first and only experienced with Linux from some CD they buy off a store shelf for $29.
Yes, it has been worked on for years but it has not been used in production that much.
It would be better if most of the initial users of 2.4.0 were users who were competent to download and build their own kernels, until the bugs that will inevitably crop up in widespread use are found.
Then let the distros ship with 2.4.1.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
It will also serve as an advocacy and education site to improve the quality of Free Software in general.
If you want to participate, please contact me at crawford@goingware.com or subscribe to the mailing list - instructions are on the site.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
They've got years of work and many millions invested in the PowerPC, and honestly the PowerPC is just a superior microprocessor.
They can sell in the x86 market because they can write for a few common motherboard standards and expect them to work on millions of machines. Suppose they did ship a product with G4 support, that wasn't for Apple? Who'd they sell to?
Mostly people like me, who want to upgrade their PowerPC systems but don't want to buy a new mac because the BeOS won't run on it.
Because PowerPC users are a very small fraction of the installed base, they wouldn't sell many at all.
But if somebody sold a supported system, that was BeOS only, or dual booted into Linux or BeOS - bingo!
So if you want to see BeOS supported on PowerPC in the future, call up your linux hardware vendors and ask them to offer the BeOS as an option on their systems, x86 systems to start, they'll get around to PowerPC eventually.
People who want to resell the BeOS can obtain a free eval copy and a videotape by faxing their resale license to Be (Americas only; other countries have other arrangements). Find out about this at:
http://www-classic.be.com/resellers/
I've been told by a Be executive that the BeOS bundle pricing is "very aggressive". So someone selling a machine with the OS installed would find it easy to profit on it.
And I've used the BeOS for years now, and I'm very happy with it. It's a dream to install and configure, unlike Linux, which rendered my disk unbootable the last time I tried to install and upgrade, and which took me two weeks to figure out how to change the resolution and refresh rate of my X server.
I wrote what I think is an easy to understand page about why ordinary people should use encryption. I'd like you to check it out, comment on how I might improve it, give me links, and most importantly, link to the page and get people you care about to read and and download encryption software.
It's at http://www.goingware.com/encryption
I'd like you all to consider making an active effort to teach people in your companies and community to use encryption. For example, you could bring a PC down to a community center for an evening and teach people how to use PGP and Speak Freely, then hand them out on CD's (by a burner if you have to, or pay a service to burn 50 of them for you, it won't cost much). Advertise this on bulletin boards, community access TV and so on, radio station community service announcements, etc.
Do you support a particular political candidate? Volunteer to teach them and their staff how to encrypt.
Mike Crawford
GoingWare - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com
crawford@goingware.com