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win2k sux (showing off at school related)

NathanAllan

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Joined
Jun 1, 2003
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Location
Bellevue, Colorado
I have found another reason to go with linux on the laptop.

I needed to use Linux to do my homework and all I have that works well is a boot floppy for a certain distro (can't remember which distro). I had to make the img file go to the fdd and then boot from it. When I tried to use winimage with the 166mhz win2k machine to make the floppy it kept giving me errors.

I went and did the SAME THING in the 75mhz dos laptop with the SAME floppy drive from the other computer (the two will swap) and it ran fine! I used rawrite2.exe in the dos box-- only difference.

So win2k didn't like the floppy drive of it's old computer. It doesn't liek that computer AT ALL. I'm definitely going with Linux on that damn laptop. win2k gives me too much crap about it.

Nathan
on topic cause they're both old computers[/i]
 
I tried one distro, hal91 as it had a cmd line interface only but it was buggy for some reason. I did use DSL on it with the gui running. It ran slowly but it ran.

I don't care about gui, I'm learning cmdline at school and I like it better anyway. I'm looking into suse to get it working, but I'm still looking up info on it's bash prompt and cmdline interface. If it looks good I'm gonna run it.
 
Well Evan, someone moved it.

Nathan, you could always use Solaris, but it's only downside is it's size. Huge. As for commandline only unix, you can try Ubuntu, only at the install prompt, type "Server" and it will only install the command line side of things, NO GUI. plus you would have a full feature distro to use with something else. I would use Kubunutu though, its the same thing only with KDE becuse I hate Gnome. (Yes I notice the Irony in that, the Java Desktop System looks and acts NOTHING like Gnome....)

Hope that helps!

-V
 
Solaris IS huge, I use it at school and I've seen how much space it takes on the drive. Regardless of that, I don't htink that a 166 could pull all the weight of such an os. Ubuntu, huh? I'll check it out. Can you run more than one linux on a machine? This is new to me. I like that idea, heh heh. And this is not off topic since I'm not talking about win2k, I'm talking about a 166 computer. I don't really care though.

There is hardly ANY linux stuff in El Paso. God this PLACE! I went to a store yesteday just to check it out and the guy working there greeted me with "We do everything with computers! What can I do for you?" and a big smile. I was kinda feelin cocky so I asked him about Atari parts and he looked at me like I was from another planet. "Everything" is a big word. And not a thing Linux. It was like a House of Windows Worship. Anyway, the place was like a little warehouse and not much of a store at all. He didn't have but ONE scsi drive in the whole store and nothing older than a month or two. I was a little disappointed. I guess there really are stores out there that throw away all the upgraded-from parts.
 
That sounds like something i would do. I would even go one step ferther, and visit a computer recycling plant, and snag a couple..... dozen.
 
Nathan You know whats sad? Windows Vista is like 2x as big as Solaris is. OMFG thats huge. Solaris 10 FULL OEM INSTALL is around 4.6 Gig, last I heard Vista takes like 7-8 Gig. Go Microsoft, way to conserve HD space. Makes me glad Seagate made the 500Gb Hard drive. we're gonna need em for more that RAID arrays and SAN's....

-V
 
Holy crap, I didn't know it was THAT big. I definitely am NOT gonna run it unless I am forced to (why I use win2k at all, compatability). I don't have the hardware to run it though(solaris), either Opteron or Xeon. Know anything about Ubuntu? I've been told that it has good features plus a good cmdline interface.
 
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Ubuntu? Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome) was my primary OS until the ChainTech mobo gave out. So yeah, I got pretty used to it. What do you want to know?

-V
 
vlad said:
I heard Vista takes like 7-8 Gig. Go Microsoft, way to conserve HD space.
Considering that probably noone gets a HDD less than 80 GB these days (and that is the cheap person like me), 8 GB would be 10% of the disk (or less if you get a larger HDD). It may sound like a lot, but it depends what you get. Probably a lot is optional?
 
About Kubuntu(thanks for the correction), is it fairly easy to set up a user and then log in as that user? I don't wanna be root all the time, and I need to have lots of users.

At startup, does it give you the option of a commandline only, or can you 'turn off' the gui once it's running? I'm basically trying to mimic the solaris machine at school as far as the cmdline.

Is it difficult to get connected to another machine through a modem with it?

I have a 20gb in the laptop and have a 20gb ready for the server(remember my server project? I haven't mentioned it lately). So I'm not gonna touch winvista till it becomes obsolete and all the hardware that it needs, heh heh. The 20gb for the server will be upgraded later. I'll probably end up with an 80gb, too.
 
I suppose Vista will not be recommended - maybe not even bootable? - on anything below 1 GHz class anyway. Dunno which vintage (pun intended) your laptop and server are.
 
Its got a text based menu system to install, its not hard. You don't even have to install a GUI, but that would make adding users a little harder. At the login screen, you can go stright to cmd line. 20 gig? I have Solaris 10 on a 6 gig. It doesint work right due to lack of space, but 20 gig would be enough to pull off Solaris. Otherwise, you could try to get stright unix from the college. they may have Tru64 or HP-UX, or some pure form of UNIX, like I dunno, the original Unix. I might try to get some type of pure Unix. From somewere......

-V
 
The laptop is my last project, the 166mhz so it doesn't even qualify as able to run solaris(maybe cmdline only) or vista anything. The server may, it's a 1.8ghz. So I might try solaris there. Not vista, I don't have enough ram to make it run smoothly.

Kubuntu it is then until I find something else better. Thanks vlad!
 
Nathan,

Sun Solaris 10 only requires a 120MHz processor Minimum. I think your laptop could pull it off. The only thing is HD space, and at 20 GB, you meet the 2 gig min. that sun recommends. 256 of RAM 512 if you PXE boot, but I doubt a 166 laptop even knows what PXE is.....

Remember this is Solaris 10, 9 and 8 would be lower requirement wise.

-V

(PXE is Pre eXcution boot Environment. It's what ThinClients use to boot from the Terminal Server.....)
 
I just looked over the Solaris HCL and I didn't see my system listed. That's okay, I can add it later after testing.

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/sol/

Linux/unix seems reayy user friendly to me. I guess it's like one of those kids in the playground where you have to go talk to him first, then you find out that they're really cool, heh heh.

I didn't see too many older computers listed at all on that hcl. Sol9 didn't have x86 listed as compatible, but 8 did. I'm gonna see how hoard it is to get the cd for it other than downloading it (big download) and run 'em both. Why the heck not? I mean Kubuntu and Solaris8. Got school, my Unix class. People are in there struggling, and I don't know why. It's my favorite class. Back soon.

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/8/
 
Thanks for the solaris 8 Link. I forgot all about 8. I have 9 but the disc's are screwed up. I have 2 versions of 10. The old first RC, and the latest with the new installer. (Not much different, but much more stable) I need to get 8 for that Optiplex that chokeing on 10. (I did the full OEM install on a 6 GB drive and it's out of space, I should have done one of the reduced installs) Anyway nothing I have ever installed Solaris on has ever been on the HCL except the Optiplex, which was a business workstation back in the day. I would tackle Solaris downloads at school though, they would be rough over dialup. They were marathons over my ADSL. (1.1 Mbps down soon to be 8Mbps down if my ISP ever gets off its lazy ass.....) I don't know about 8, but 9 was 4 CD's and 10 is the same. The original RC of 10 was 5, but they changed it and made the whole install process alot better.

-V
 
I'm gonna get 8, that's what they have at school and it'll work on the laptop, hoorah! I don't know how many disks come to a install but I'm gonna find out.

I made a live and install cd at school for Kubuntu, and then I wrote on them with a ballpoint and screwed them up. I'm getting felt tips :( Somebody slap me please? What the heck was I thinking?? It could have been the cd's too, though. But I think it was the frekkin pen. Definitly at school, or order the disks.
 
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