My favorite sff machine is the biostar IDEQ. Looks like a shutte... but way cheaper. Newegg has the AMD version for $158.
Biostar iDEQ Barebone System for Socket A AMD CPU, Model IDEQ 210V http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.as p?desc ription=56-115-014&depa=0
Very nice layout and sooo quite. In fact, when I was building it up I thought is was broke. The fan would spin up when starting then stop. It was so quite I thought it wasn't running.
I put in an FX5200 dual monitor card, dvd burner, and 120G HD.
I use a Canon S820 6-ink printer I bought for $100. I use RoyalBright glossy paper from Sams which ran $25 for 200 sheets. For the printer I use $1.59 cartridges from some place on Froogle. An 8x5" full glossy print gets me 4 pictures and costs far less than having them done online. I have pictures on my wall at work that have been up for two years and still look great.
I can go hiking, take pictures, and print a few when I get back to send home with my hiking buddy. You can't do that online.
Yes, it takes some practice to get pictures right. I use canon's easy print software and need to do some test prints with each type of paper I use to find the optimal setting. That is the key... what printer setting for what paper type I am using. I have 3 glossy settings and each produces a different result.
For the last year and half I have read about 20 ebooks on my Dell Axim X5. I have read one paperback and one hardcover besides the ebooks. I prefer the ebooks.
The myth that you can't curl up with a good ebook is totally false. I turn the lights off and read in the dark with the brightness on the next to lowest setting. One flick of the finger and i'm onto the next page. I don't have an overhead light glaring down on me like an FBI meeting.
The downside is I can't read in sunlight since the screen gets washed out. Hopefully OLED screens will change that. I can't read a regualr book in sunlight either due to the glare.
I find regular books require two hands to keep from closing on me. Hardcovers are totally uncomfortable to hold. The Axim I can just find a comfortable spot to hold it and the only movement is one small flick of my finger.
Have you seen MythTV lately? I hope you are not basing your opinion on older releases of MythTV. I think MythTV looks excellent. Especially the new GANT theme. Even in the last year I have seen it get more and more polished.
Also, they now have priorities for handling conflicts so I can tell it that Trek always wins unless I choose otherwise. I can't think of the last time I couldn't record a show since most shows have repeat times to pick from.
I use a PVR250 card so that it does hardware encoding. Picture quality is excellent. I record at 720x480 so that if I want I can copy some shows onto DVD to watch while I'm traveling or whatever.
Ocassionally I will also re-encode some shows into Divx and watch them on my Dell Axim PocketPC with PocketMVP (great PPC player). I can compress the show down to 70M for a one hour show minus commercials. I can fit four shows on my pocketpc (3 on the 256M CF and one on the 128M SD). It takes about 15 minutes to convert a show using virtualdub. Picture qaulity on the pocketpc is very good. Very fun to take along camping.
I've had MythTV running for the last year and just LOVE it. 90%+ of my TV watching is from it. I have it setup as follows:
Backend (down in the basement) is an AMD 1700/512M ram, a 120G HD for root and misc data, and a 160G HD for MythTV recording. I can record about 120 hours of video (1.3G per hour with current settings). I run dual monitors on this machine so I can watch TV on one screen and do something else on the other.
The frontend is an AMD 2200/512M ram, a 120G HD. and an old packard bell IR reciever. I have an svideo cable and audio cables connected to the TV in the other room. I can watch recorded shows from either this room or the main TV in the other room.
With this setup I can watch recordings from three locations (basement, main computer, or main TV).
The best part is automatic recording of favorite shows. It keeps track of which shows I've seen so it doesn't record ones I've watched unless I tell it to. It's great to sit down and watch four one hour series shows, in order, in three hours after skipping commercials. Commercial skip is either perfect or not worth using depending on the channel. Some shows like Enterprise it's awfull on (dark show) and some shows like Deep Sea Detecives it's perfect.
Mythweb is a web interface to MythTV. With it I can see whats getting recorded from anywhere I can get a browser. I can add shows to record if someone mentions a special coming or something. Very cool.
It does take some tinkering to get it running, but that was half the fun for me. Very much worth the effort.
I regularly convert shows from MythTV to Divx for watching on my Dell Axim with PocketMVP. I can fit an hour long show (40 mins after commercial cut) into 70M. I can put 3 shows on a 256M CF card.
Whenever I travel I always take at least 3 or 4 shows with me as well as a number of ebooks from Baan or BlackMask.com.
It takes about 15 minutes to convert a show for the handheld.
I have read at least a dozen books this year with only one being a traditional paperback. I prefer reading on the pocketpc (Dell Axim) now. With backlight control (usually set to the next to lowest setting and all room lights off) and a side toggle for flipping up or down pages make reading a joy.
They say you can't curl up with a good computer.. but I say BS. I think it's more comfortable.
It's also the fastest way to check email via wireless! Before my PC boots I can turn on the pocketpc and check email.
I have a MythTV box which can store about 100 hours on a 120G drive right now. A MythTV box can be built for easily under $500 including the cost of the hardware encoding Hauppauge Wintv PVR 250 card and a 120G harddrive.
Keep your Tivos and your monthly subscription.... MythTV is the best/cheapest PVR out there. I can watch any live or recorded show on any linux box in my house or on the TV in the living room using the TVout of my Linux box in the other room.
I also reencode shows for watching on my Dell Axim PocketPC (they are just Mpeg2 files after all) when I travel. 3 one hours shows fit onto a 256M CF card.
I just got a Dell Axim PocketPC ($199) for Xmas which has a 3.5" screen. I encode Simpsons and Samurai Jack episodes for it and usually get about a 40M file per episode. I can fit six episodes on a 256M ($70) cf flash. I could encode a DVD for it (haven't tried yet) and most people say you will get one or two movies on a 256M card. Plus I have a 128M SD card for MP3s and have 6 ebooks on the builtin storage.
It's fun to take it to the YMCA and watch video while riding the bike.:-) It's also alot smaller than the portable DVD players I've seen like the Apex portable player ($199) at Walmart.
I used to use Personal Tax Edge... which Turbo Tax bought up. They gave me a discount to use Turbo Tax and I did. I didn't like it at all compared to Personal Tax Edge. The next year I did some searching and found TaxAct.com. It was created by former Personal Tax Edge staff. I used the free federal that year and did the state by hand. The next year (and the last few since) I have been buying the TaxAct Deluxe (fed and state with one fed electronic submission) for $19.99.
I've been very happy with it and since it imports my data from the previous year it only takes about 30 min to do both fed and state.
I have a Geforce2 Dual card which I have been trying to get seperate X screens on so I can play OpenGL games (i.e Terminus, UT2003, etc) on one screen and put XAWTV on the second to watch TV (i.e. Simpsons & Samurai Jack). Well, the new driver supports that...
Here are the highlights of the new driver:
Linux Display Driver Linux Graphics Driver Download
Version: 1.0-4191 Operating System: Linux IA32 Release Date: December 11, 2002
Release Highlights:
* OpenGL 1.4 with CineFX architecture support
* Support for AGP 8x and nForce2 IGP
* Support for index overlays on Quadro4 to support legacy applications
* Support for separate X screens on nView enabled GPUs * GLX 1.3 support
Yup, seperate X screens now with the dualhead cards. Hopefully I can put this to the test in the next few days.
The few important documents I have (all of a few megs) and the much more important family pictures (of the kids growing up & stuff) off the digital camera are always on more than one machine. Usually I download my pictures to my main PC and then dump them to my linux server over samba. The linux server runs Martain's Photoframe which is the best/easiest web-based photo gallery software I have used. But I'm getting OT now so back to the topic...
Attached to the linux server is an Exabyte tape library with 10 tapes (thanks Ebay). Every night I backup the whole server except ISO images and MP3s. Each day of the week uses a different tape automatically with sunday being tape 1 and saturday tape 7. I wrote a custom script for using mtx to change the tape based on day of the week, then tar to backup, then tar again to verify, then mtx to unload.
Before an upgrade (every 6 months or so with Redhat/now Mandrake 9) I also do a special backup to tape 10 after doing a cleaning tape.
So to sum it up... important data is always on more than one machine and backups are always done daily with more than one tape.
I should run tape 10 over to my in-laws for safe keeping though. I have been more worried about a harddrive crash (especially with one year warrenties now) than fire. Flood is not an issue if you saw street I climb when returning from work you would agree.
I have used RealProducer (yes, there is a linux version. thanks for asking) in the past to encode reealvideo to stream home movies to my family who lives 465 miles south. I don't like having to tell them to install realplayer so I have played around with Divx encoding. The problem is streaming.... divx doesn't start playing until the entire clip is downloaded (unlike realvideo which starts after the buffer rquirement is met). Will the new player and/or Helix server support streaming of different media?
Anyone know of a way to stream video under linux?
Maybe video-on-demand-over-IP is moving a step closer to reality.
I have looked at WebVCR+ (http://webvcrplus.sourceforge.net) in the past and would love to get it working. I haven't been able to, but that's a different story. It would be nice to capture direct to SVCD format.
What mpeg2 encoders are there for linux? I know http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net can do it, but can it capture on the fly?
Any others? I really hate the thought of capturing in one format, re-encoding into SVCD, creating the SVCD image, and burning.
I see all the video stuff for linux still in the beginning stages, like early MP3 creating when you had to rip and THEN encode your music. Now Grip makes it silly easy (GRIP FOR DUMMIES(tm): insert CD, check tracks, left click button). I hope in another year I'll have an SVCDvcr(tm) program like Grip. All the tools are almost there... but not bundled yet.
How many extensions can you put on a PC based system? WHat kind of cost would a normal install be?
The reason I ask is we have two building with Avaya equipment in them. The main building has about 200 extensions and the other 100. We do all the usual stuff like automated attendant, voice mail, transfer, etc. What would it cost to replicate this system with a linux based phone system. Could we use the existing handsets (some analog, some digital)?
I bought a Kodak DC5000 2.1M for xmas last year. I can go hiking, take 50 pictures (the memory card will hold over 100), come home and print a few for a friend before he even heads home. Glossy paper is cheap and the quality out of my photo printer (2400x1200) is decent when printed on glossy. Also, I don't print the crappy pictures which you get when developing film. I can dump all the pictures to my webserver and have the family (several hundred miles away) look at them within minutes of a family event (i.e. Children's birthday party).
Yes, film prints better. But with film I would do a roll of 24 about every 6 months... and then it would be weeks before I would take it in and spend the $7 to develope and buy then buy more film.
For me, film has passed into history. I will never go back to film. In the future when I get a better photo printer I can always reprint my favorites and they will be better since I am dumbing them down with my current photo printer.
One of my side projects lately has been converting analog camcorder tapes into SVCDs... but that's a different topic. Digital... it's the only way to go.
Jeff
RH8... the good, the bad, the ugly....
on
Red Hat 8.0 Released
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I downloaded the 3 ISOs on monday and installed Redhat 8 on my laptop and home server server yesterday. FWIW, I installed Mandrake 9 on my laptop and home workstation on monday to see how it will compare to RH8.
The Good... Very polished... no really... VERY POLISHED! Way impressed. The new theme is nice. Yes some stuff is moved around... so what. No technical hitches at all. Everything was detected great.
The Bad... 2.4.18... what's up with that. I guess it's been in testing too long. Actually, for a X.0 release things look pretty good.
The Ugly... Apache 2.0+PHP.... none of my PHP stuff seems to work. This was mounted straight from my 7.3 install. Some real ugly errors.
The verdict.... Apache 2.0+PHP problem is a show stopper for me. Wiped the machine and installed Mandrake 9.0. Sad since 8 is very slick. Hats off (pun intended) to Redhat for a great release. I may come back to it if I can get the PHP stuff resolved.
Mandrake 9 comments: I've had issues with stability in previous Mandrake releases. So far I haven't had one with 9. I like the autologin and tv card setup. It almost setup my dual monitor... jsut a little tweaking. Mandrake SEEMS faster and more responsive than Redhat. Haven't benchmarked though so it's just an impression. This could be the release which makes me a Mandrake Convert... and I've been using Redhat since 3.0.3! Only extra package I needed was mtx for my tape library (Redhat includes it).
[long story]
I have degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I spent my last semester as in intern at EDS/Saturn Finance group. Then a year with GM as a temp IS worker. So far no Unix. Then I went into public health for 5.5 years and had to maintain Novell and SCO unix systems. During this I had my first trials with Linux. Then into healthcare (now for 5+ years). I now manage an AS/400, a pair of SCO Unix systems, and a Linux intranet server (among other things). My official title is IS Manager, but my real job is administrating all the hosts (and running the Dept). Someone else handles the PCs. I use Linux for all kinds of stuff and have it as my main workstation.
[short story]
I would go for it. If it's a job you think you will like it's never too late. Why spend the rest of you days doing something you KNOW you don't like. With your prior experience I would find a job as an IS manager in a field you know (finance, etc). You will have an easier time stepping in as a manager than a tech position. That doesn't mean you won't do tech work. It's your dept, do as much tech work as your comfortable. I never want to get to the point where I don't have my hands in the nuts-and-bolts of a problem. I still get excited when installing a switch or a new server and seeing how much better things run afterwords.
I've tried (unsuccessfully) to ge one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE games (i.e DIABLO) to run under WINE. Anyone had success? I also tried ATF GOLD unsuccessfully. About my only WINE success is Solitaire... for about five minutes till boredom bounced my head off the screen and woke me up. At least Quake, Quake2, LXdoom, and linux-hexen work great. DIABLO2 would be great. I like the ability to run Quake1 & 2 under both. I hope Diablo2 includes that.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite sff machine is the biostar IDEQ. Looks like a shutte... but way cheaper. Newegg has the AMD version for $158.
s p?desc ription=56-115-014&depa=0
Biostar iDEQ Barebone System for Socket A AMD CPU, Model IDEQ 210V
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.a
Very nice layout and sooo quite. In fact, when I was building it up I thought is was broke. The fan would spin up when starting then stop. It was so quite I thought it wasn't running.
I put in an FX5200 dual monitor card, dvd burner, and 120G HD.
Jeff
I use a Canon S820 6-ink printer I bought for $100. I use RoyalBright glossy paper from Sams which ran $25 for 200 sheets. For the printer I use $1.59 cartridges from some place on Froogle. An 8x5" full glossy print gets me 4 pictures and costs far less than having them done online. I have pictures on my wall at work that have been up for two years and still look great.
I can go hiking, take pictures, and print a few when I get back to send home with my hiking buddy. You can't do that online.
Yes, it takes some practice to get pictures right. I use canon's easy print software and need to do some test prints with each type of paper I use to find the optimal setting. That is the key... what printer setting for what paper type I am using. I have 3 glossy settings and each produces a different result.
Jeff
For the last year and half I have read about 20 ebooks on my Dell Axim X5. I have read one paperback and one hardcover besides the ebooks. I prefer the ebooks.
The myth that you can't curl up with a good ebook is totally false. I turn the lights off and read in the dark with the brightness on the next to lowest setting. One flick of the finger and i'm onto the next page. I don't have an overhead light glaring down on me like an FBI meeting.
The downside is I can't read in sunlight since the screen gets washed out. Hopefully OLED screens will change that. I can't read a regualr book in sunlight either due to the glare.
I find regular books require two hands to keep from closing on me. Hardcovers are totally uncomfortable to hold. The Axim I can just find a comfortable spot to hold it and the only movement is one small flick of my finger.
Jeff
Have you seen MythTV lately? I hope you are not basing your opinion on older releases of MythTV. I think MythTV looks excellent. Especially the new GANT theme. Even in the last year I have seen it get more and more polished.
Also, they now have priorities for handling conflicts so I can tell it that Trek always wins unless I choose otherwise. I can't think of the last time I couldn't record a show since most shows have repeat times to pick from.
Jeff
Oh, one other point...
I use a PVR250 card so that it does hardware encoding. Picture quality is excellent. I record at 720x480 so that if I want I can copy some shows onto DVD to watch while I'm traveling or whatever.
Ocassionally I will also re-encode some shows into Divx and watch them on my Dell Axim PocketPC with PocketMVP (great PPC player). I can compress the show down to 70M for a one hour show minus commercials. I can fit four shows on my pocketpc (3 on the 256M CF and one on the 128M SD). It takes about 15 minutes to convert a show using virtualdub. Picture qaulity on the pocketpc is very good. Very fun to take along camping.
Jeff
I've had MythTV running for the last year and just LOVE it. 90%+ of my TV watching is from it. I have it setup as follows:
Backend (down in the basement) is an AMD 1700/512M ram, a 120G HD for root and misc data, and a 160G HD for MythTV recording. I can record about 120 hours of video (1.3G per hour with current settings). I run dual monitors on this machine so I can watch TV on one screen and do something else on the other.
The frontend is an AMD 2200/512M ram, a 120G HD. and an old packard bell IR reciever. I have an svideo cable and audio cables connected to the TV in the other room. I can watch recorded shows from either this room or the main TV in the other room.
With this setup I can watch recordings from three locations (basement, main computer, or main TV).
The best part is automatic recording of favorite shows. It keeps track of which shows I've seen so it doesn't record ones I've watched unless I tell it to. It's great to sit down and watch four one hour series shows, in order, in three hours after skipping commercials. Commercial skip is either perfect or not worth using depending on the channel. Some shows like Enterprise it's awfull on (dark show) and some shows like Deep Sea Detecives it's perfect.
Mythweb is a web interface to MythTV. With it I can see whats getting recorded from anywhere I can get a browser. I can add shows to record if someone mentions a special coming or something. Very cool.
It does take some tinkering to get it running, but that was half the fun for me. Very much worth the effort.
Jeff
I regularly convert shows from MythTV to Divx for watching on my Dell Axim with PocketMVP. I can fit an hour long show (40 mins after commercial cut) into 70M. I can put 3 shows on a 256M CF card.
Whenever I travel I always take at least 3 or 4 shows with me as well as a number of ebooks from Baan or BlackMask.com.
It takes about 15 minutes to convert a show for the handheld.
I have read at least a dozen books this year with only one being a traditional paperback. I prefer reading on the pocketpc (Dell Axim) now. With backlight control (usually set to the next to lowest setting and all room lights off) and a side toggle for flipping up or down pages make reading a joy.
They say you can't curl up with a good computer.. but I say BS. I think it's more comfortable.
It's also the fastest way to check email via wireless! Before my PC boots I can turn on the pocketpc and check email.
I have a MythTV box which can store about 100 hours on a 120G drive right now. A MythTV box can be built for easily under $500 including the cost of the hardware encoding Hauppauge Wintv PVR 250 card and a 120G harddrive.
Keep your Tivos and your monthly subscription.... MythTV is the best/cheapest PVR out there. I can watch any live or recorded show on any linux box in my house or on the TV in the living room using the TVout of my Linux box in the other room.
I also reencode shows for watching on my Dell Axim PocketPC (they are just Mpeg2 files after all) when I travel. 3 one hours shows fit onto a 256M CF card.
No proprietary formats to mess with either.
Now that you've mentioned Redhat....
When is Redhat 8.1 due out? They've had three betas. I think it's due pretty soon. Is this press release going to coincide with a OS release soon?
Jeff
I just got a Dell Axim PocketPC ($199) for Xmas which has a 3.5" screen. I encode Simpsons and Samurai Jack episodes for it and usually get about a 40M file per episode. I can fit six episodes on a 256M ($70) cf flash. I could encode a DVD for it (haven't tried yet) and most people say you will get one or two movies on a 256M card. Plus I have a 128M SD card for MP3s and have 6 ebooks on the builtin storage.
:-) It's also alot smaller than the portable DVD players I've seen like the Apex portable player ($199) at Walmart.
It's fun to take it to the YMCA and watch video while riding the bike.
Jeff
I used to use Personal Tax Edge... which Turbo Tax bought up. They gave me a discount to use Turbo Tax and I did. I didn't like it at all compared to Personal Tax Edge. The next year I did some searching and found TaxAct.com. It was created by former Personal Tax Edge staff. I used the free federal that year and did the state by hand. The next year (and the last few since) I have been buying the TaxAct Deluxe (fed and state with one fed electronic submission) for $19.99.
I've been very happy with it and since it imports my data from the previous year it only takes about 30 min to do both fed and state.
Jeff
I have a Geforce2 Dual card which I have been trying to get seperate X screens on so I can play OpenGL games (i.e Terminus, UT2003, etc) on one screen and put XAWTV on the second to watch TV (i.e. Simpsons & Samurai Jack). Well, the new driver supports that...
Here are the highlights of the new driver:
Linux Display Driver
Linux Graphics Driver Download
Version: 1.0-4191
Operating System: Linux IA32
Release Date: December 11, 2002
Release Highlights:
* OpenGL 1.4 with CineFX architecture support
* Support for AGP 8x and nForce2 IGP
* Support for index overlays on Quadro4 to support legacy applications
* Support for separate X screens on nView enabled GPUs
* GLX 1.3 support
Yup, seperate X screens now with the dualhead cards. Hopefully I can put this to the test in the next few days.
BTW, Don't try this on Windows kids....
Jeff
The few important documents I have (all of a few megs) and the much more important family pictures (of the kids growing up & stuff) off the digital camera are always on more than one machine. Usually I download my pictures to my main PC and then dump them to my linux server over samba. The linux server runs Martain's Photoframe which is the best/easiest web-based photo gallery software I have used. But I'm getting OT now so back to the topic...
Attached to the linux server is an Exabyte tape library with 10 tapes (thanks Ebay). Every night I backup the whole server except ISO images and MP3s. Each day of the week uses a different tape automatically with sunday being tape 1 and saturday tape 7. I wrote a custom script for using mtx to change the tape based on day of the week, then tar to backup, then tar again to verify, then mtx to unload.
Before an upgrade (every 6 months or so with Redhat/now Mandrake 9) I also do a special backup to tape 10 after doing a cleaning tape.
So to sum it up... important data is always on more than one machine and backups are always done daily with more than one tape.
I should run tape 10 over to my in-laws for safe keeping though. I have been more worried about a harddrive crash (especially with one year warrenties now) than fire. Flood is not an issue if you saw street I climb when returning from work you would agree.
Jeff
I have used RealProducer (yes, there is a linux version. thanks for asking) in the past to encode reealvideo to stream home movies to my family who lives 465 miles south. I don't like having to tell them to install realplayer so I have played around with Divx encoding. The problem is streaming.... divx doesn't start playing until the entire clip is downloaded (unlike realvideo which starts after the buffer rquirement is met). Will the new player and/or Helix server support streaming of different media?
Anyone know of a way to stream video under linux?
Maybe video-on-demand-over-IP is moving a step closer to reality.
Jeff
I have looked at WebVCR+ (http://webvcrplus.sourceforge.net) in the past and would love to get it working. I haven't been able to, but that's a different story. It would be nice to capture direct to SVCD format.
What mpeg2 encoders are there for linux? I know http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net can do it, but can it capture on the fly?
Any others? I really hate the thought of capturing in one format, re-encoding into SVCD, creating the SVCD image, and burning.
I see all the video stuff for linux still in the beginning stages, like early MP3 creating when you had to rip and THEN encode your music. Now Grip makes it silly easy (GRIP FOR DUMMIES(tm): insert CD, check tracks, left click button). I hope in another year I'll have an SVCDvcr(tm) program like Grip. All the tools are almost there... but not bundled yet.
Jeff
How many extensions can you put on a PC based system? WHat kind of cost would a normal install be?
The reason I ask is we have two building with Avaya equipment in them. The main building has about 200 extensions and the other 100. We do all the usual stuff like automated attendant, voice mail, transfer, etc. What would it cost to replicate this system with a linux based phone system. Could we use the existing handsets (some analog, some digital)?
Jeff
I bought a Kodak DC5000 2.1M for xmas last year. I can go hiking, take 50 pictures (the memory card will hold over 100), come home and print a few for a friend before he even heads home. Glossy paper is cheap and the quality out of my photo printer (2400x1200) is decent when printed on glossy. Also, I don't print the crappy pictures which you get when developing film. I can dump all the pictures to my webserver and have the family (several hundred miles away) look at them within minutes of a family event (i.e. Children's birthday party).
Yes, film prints better. But with film I would do a roll of 24 about every 6 months... and then it would be weeks before I would take it in and spend the $7 to develope and buy then buy more film.
For me, film has passed into history. I will never go back to film. In the future when I get a better photo printer I can always reprint my favorites and they will be better since I am dumbing them down with my current photo printer.
One of my side projects lately has been converting analog camcorder tapes into SVCDs... but that's a different topic. Digital... it's the only way to go.
Jeff
I downloaded the 3 ISOs on monday and installed Redhat 8 on my laptop and home server server yesterday. FWIW, I installed Mandrake 9 on my laptop and home workstation on monday to see how it will compare to RH8.
The Good...
Very polished... no really... VERY POLISHED! Way impressed. The new theme is nice. Yes some stuff is moved around... so what. No technical hitches at all. Everything was detected great.
The Bad...
2.4.18... what's up with that. I guess it's been in testing too long. Actually, for a X.0 release things look pretty good.
The Ugly...
Apache 2.0+PHP.... none of my PHP stuff seems to work. This was mounted straight from my 7.3 install. Some real ugly errors.
The verdict....
Apache 2.0+PHP problem is a show stopper for me. Wiped the machine and installed Mandrake 9.0. Sad since 8 is very slick. Hats off (pun intended) to Redhat for a great release. I may come back to it if I can get the PHP stuff resolved.
Mandrake 9 comments: I've had issues with stability in previous Mandrake releases. So far I haven't had one with 9. I like the autologin and tv card setup. It almost setup my dual monitor... jsut a little tweaking. Mandrake SEEMS faster and more responsive than Redhat. Haven't benchmarked though so it's just an impression. This could be the release which makes me a Mandrake Convert... and I've been using Redhat since 3.0.3! Only extra package I needed was mtx for my tape library (Redhat includes it).
Jeff
[long story]
I have degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I spent my last semester as in intern at EDS/Saturn Finance group. Then a year with GM as a temp IS worker. So far no Unix. Then I went into public health for 5.5 years and had to maintain Novell and SCO unix systems. During this I had my first trials with Linux. Then into healthcare (now for 5+ years). I now manage an AS/400, a pair of SCO Unix systems, and a Linux intranet server (among other things). My official title is IS Manager, but my real job is administrating all the hosts (and running the Dept). Someone else handles the PCs. I use Linux for all kinds of stuff and have it as my main workstation.
[short story]
I would go for it. If it's a job you think you will like it's never too late. Why spend the rest of you days doing something you KNOW you don't like. With your prior experience I would find a job as an IS manager in a field you know (finance, etc). You will have an easier time stepping in as a manager than a tech position. That doesn't mean you won't do tech work. It's your dept, do as much tech work as your comfortable. I never want to get to the point where I don't have my hands in the nuts-and-bolts of a problem. I still get excited when installing a switch or a new server and seeing how much better things run afterwords.
Good luck,
Jeff
I've tried (unsuccessfully) to ge one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE games (i.e DIABLO) to run under WINE. Anyone had success? I also tried ATF GOLD unsuccessfully. About my only WINE success is Solitaire... for about five minutes till boredom bounced my head off the screen and woke me up. At least Quake, Quake2, LXdoom, and linux-hexen work great. DIABLO2 would be great. I like the ability to run Quake1 & 2 under both. I hope Diablo2 includes that.