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Re: [Wlug] What mix of distros to learn with? Please evaluate..

by Matt Higgins

Brian, I would start by getting used to one distro before venturing out. If you are not familiar with Linux/UNIX at all there will be a steep learning curve before you build up your command line vocabulary. With that said I think RH is a great starter distro. The installer is one of the best, and for someone new to Linux rpm's are the best way to get you where you want fast (rpmfind is your friend). Matt

Oct. 4, 2003

what size/speed combo to use for a dual SCSI system?

by Brian McLinden

Hello -- I'm new here, and hoping to meet many of you soon! I want to multi-boot and play with three distros for a machine that would most likely always be a workstation, not a server. It would be for numerical work and not involve large or many audio or video files. It happens that the smaller the SCSI drive, the better the performance, and of course the smallest, fastest sizes available for SCSI are 18G and 32G. I'm planning to buy a matched pair of drives in order to spread the partitions for each distro across the two drives. Two questions: 1. I'd like to use use 2x18, but in your opinion, do I need 2x32? 2. Do you think 15000 rpm will be noticeably snappier than 10000 rpm? Thanks all, Brian 752-3033 anytime __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

Oct. 4, 2003

What mix of distros to learn with? Please evaluate..

by Brian McLinden

Hi all, Newbie here. I am purchasing a system to learn Linux with by multi-booting. The three distros I'm thinking of having the vendor pre-install are: - Slackware 9.1 - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial Debian from Canada) - some RPM approach (which of RH, Suse, or Mandrake would you go with? why?) I want to learn with diverse systems that are easy to modify/reconfigure/ maintain/upgrade after the box arrives. Would you say this a good mix of distros fo initial learning purposes, or would you suggest I consider another mix or approach--and why? Thank you all, Brian __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

Oct. 4, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by Matt Higgins

> Thanks for your comments Matt, you make alot of good points, though I > must admit that having a package management system without > dependencies isn't an ideal state of affairs. Of course, having > dependencies which you can't override is also not a good thing > either. :] I may get jeers for promoting BSD on a Linux list but if you want good package management with dependency checks the only way to go these days is *BSD ports tree. My forward facing boxen all run OpenBSD. When I need an update I simply run cvs upd; make; make install. Granted these ports trees are limited in size and you may have trouble getting Gramps to compile but it works. If you have a box ripe for a packet filter or file server you may want to give one the *BSD's a try. > > I originally came from a BSD style init background, which I liked > quite alot, then moved to the SYSV style of /etc/rc#.d/... which I > hated at first. But after thinking it through, it's a much much > better way to do things. It lets you manage application and daemon > startup in a clean and consistent manner, without having to watch out > for other packages nearly as much. I agree that the old way is just that old! I clearly see the utility in using the sysV init its much more flexible, but if you are just running a desktop and starting a small number of services the old way is just fine. Further more Slackware provides support for the new way as well. > > I also remember getting a copy of Slackware way back in 93 or so, but > since I had an Amiga back then, I was never able to play with it and > test it out. I probably missed the boat back then. *grin* Amiga sweet! I always wanted an Amiga, I had a C64 and C128. > > Thanks to all who have contributed, it's been a good discussion. > > John When you do make your decition tell us what you chose and why ? It would be interesting to read. Of course I hope you chose Slackware! > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by John Stoffel

Matt> Slackware is my distro of choice. I am a sysadmin recently turn Matt> developer and find Slackware to be a very complete package. Thanks for your comments Matt, you make alot of good points, though I must admit that having a package management system without dependencies isn't an ideal state of affairs. Of course, having dependencies which you can't override is also not a good thing either. :] I originally came from a BSD style init background, which I liked quite alot, then moved to the SYSV style of /etc/rc#.d/... which I hated at first. But after thinking it through, it's a much much better way to do things. It lets you manage application and daemon startup in a clean and consistent manner, without having to watch out for other packages nearly as much. I also remember getting a copy of Slackware way back in 93 or so, but since I had an Amiga back then, I was never able to play with it and test it out. I probably missed the boat back then. *grin* Thanks to all who have contributed, it's been a good discussion. John

Oct. 3, 2003

RE: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Karl Hiramoto

http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/index.phtml On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Simoncini, Matthew wrote: > Sorry if you don't accept attachments: > > <<...OLE_Obj...>> > > Matthew > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Keith Wright [mailto:kwright@free-comp-shop.com] > > Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 3:40 PM > > To: Worcester Linux User's Group > > Subject: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G > > > > > > Or any where else you can find it. > > > > It goes like: > > > > Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: > > > > Blackboard: > > #include <stdio.h> > > int main(void) > > { int k; > > for (k=1;k<=500;k++) > > printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); > > return(0); > > } > > > > Boy: Holds chalk. > > > > Teacher: Nice try. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wlug mailing list > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Q: How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying? A: When his lips move.

Oct. 3, 2003

RE: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Simoncini, Matthew

Sorry if you don't accept attachments: <<...OLE_Obj...>> Matthew > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Wright [mailto:kwright@free-comp-shop.com] > Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 3:40 PM > To: Worcester Linux User's Group > Subject: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G > > > Or any where else you can find it. > > It goes like: > > Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: > > Blackboard: > #include <stdio.h> > int main(void) > { int k; > for (k=1;k<=500;k++) > printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); > return(0); > } > > Boy: Holds chalk. > > Teacher: Nice try. > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

Oct. 3, 2003

Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Keith Wright

Or any where else you can find it. It goes like: Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: Blackboard: #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { int k; for (k=1;k<=500;k++) printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); return(0); } Boy: Holds chalk. Teacher: Nice try.

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: Old hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by Keith Wright

> From: Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)zoop.org> > > > for the last few years. I've been running a 486SX-25 with 8M RAM and > 100M HD here at my work as a print server. I rescued the box from a > pile of garbage. I'm running slackware 3.6 with a 2.0.39 kernel > though. Just setup samba and lpd to do the printing. The machine has > excellent reliability. > > These old boxes work fine for print servers, routers, firewalls, > > Old machines work great to for automation of real world things. Set a > voltage, read a voltage, set bit, clear bit control applications. You're my kind of guy. This would maybe be better as a reply to someone else, but I'de rather talk to someone who doesn't think 12Mb of RAM is too small to bother with. To those thinking of upgrading old hardware to a newer RedHat: Although I can't find any documentation of the fact anywhere, (the 'hardware requirements' section of the manual talks about disk space but not RAM), I know from hard experience that RH9.0 flatly refuses to install on 32MB and works only after giving you some backtalk on 64MB. It says something like "You lamer, if you won't give me a better machine, I'm going to turn on swapping bfore installing a boot sector, and trash anything you might have had on this disk. Then maybe I'll reboot". Why can't kids these days copy a 12K file in less than 16M? I don't know, but suspect that it has to do with making the install process "easier" by sending a human wave at it. Now nobody can say Overwrite partition table (y/n)? without first installing the X window, GtK, CORBA, Qt, Python, and Perl. -- Keith

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: Old hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by gboyce＠badbelly.com

Old boxes are great for low CPU jobs, as long as you don't take it too far. Eventually, even machines that run fine for their purposes can be a drain on resources. I've been trying to get my girlfriend's dad to retire this box for a while now: exponent:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 386 model : unknown vendor_id : unknown stepping : unknown fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : no cpuid : no wp : no flags : bogomips : 4.39 exponent:~$ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 6 6 0 4 0 2 -/+ buffers: 3 3 Swap: 34 2 32 GCC/Glibc/other utilities and libraries are so old on this thing that cross compiling for it is difficult at best, and building large packages directly on it take forever. These days, you can get low end pentium's for cheap and/or free, so there's no real point in keeping 386/486 machines around except for the geek factor of it. On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Karl Hiramoto wrote: > for the last few years. I've been running a 486SX-25 with 8M RAM and > 100M HD here at my work as a print server. I rescued the box from a > pile of garbage. I'm running slackware 3.6 with a 2.0.39 kernel > though. Just setup samba and lpd to do the printing. The machine has > excellent reliability. > > These old boxes work fine for print servers, routers, firewalls, > > Old machines work great to for automation of real world things. Set a > voltage, read a voltage, set bit, clear bit control applications. > > here is the box: > #df > Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on > /dev/hda2 97271 83435 8813 90% / > > # cat /proc/cpuinfo > processor : 0 > cpu : 486 > model : Cx486 > vendor_id : CyrixInstead > stepping : unknown, core/bus clock ratio: unknownx > fdiv_bug : no > hlt_bug : no > f00f_bug : no > fpu : no > fpu_exception : no > cpuid : no > wp : yes > flags : > bogomips : 4.71 > > # free > total used free shared buffers > cached > Mem: 6684 6300 384 4500 1960 > 2200 > -/+ buffers/cache: 2140 4544 > Swap: 16432 536 15896 > > >

Oct. 3, 2003