WAY OT -- computer question

John Thompson said:

dreaded said:

i had this drive that was all screwed up by windows or boot virus so just
for fun i downloaded red hat 9 (three disks) and installed it. it works
great, it's free, and there's lots of free stuff to download! first step in
quitting the ms habit.

RedHat 9 is old enough that it is no longer maintained. If you're going
to install linux, you may as well go for something more modern like Fedora
Core 2 or any of the numerous options on http://linuxiso.org/

I just installed Mandrake 10 on my laptop, considering Fedora for the
kids' desktop (it has 2 hard drives and they want to play with it) and
really mulling over what I want to put on the new 2nd hard drive on my
desktop. Would you happen to know what distribution is best for a home
LAN with XP boxes on it -- one of which is physically connected to the
shared printer? Currently, my laptop can neither find the home network
nor the shared printer, although I can get to the internet with it.

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

S o r n i wrote:
:: Roger Zoul wrote:
::: S o r n i wrote: {snipz fore and aft}
::
::::: Then re-started, and Windows threw me into Update mode -- finally
::::: time to DL & install Service Pack Two.
::
::: Yeah, SP2 is known to cause woes. MS ought to be shot for making it
::: available as an auto update for the unsuspecting.
::
:: Well, to be fair, I /chose/ to DL the damned thing; not like it did
:: it automatically at 3 am or something. Still, a PITA...

Right....and many others will make the same choice not realizing the
potential for SP2 to make their systems foobar. Many of MSs updates are to
close a hole or prevent some hacker attacks, but SP2 is supposed to be an
improvement on XP itself.

the black rose said:

Quoted message said:

RedHat 9 is old enough that it is no longer maintained. If you're going
to install linux, you may as well go for something more modern like
Fedora Core 2 or any of the numerous options on http://linuxiso.org/

I recommend debian. I've been using it for several years, and it is
trouble-free (for me) and has plenty of available programs that you can
install with just a couple simple commands.

Quoted message said:

shared printer? Currently, my laptop can neither find the home network
nor the shared printer, although I can get to the internet with it.

Well, with the printer on a Windows box that may be difficult, depending
on how windows does that. Typical XP installations do not have any
"server" capabilities, so your linux box would not be able to talk to it.
Windows-to-windows there may be other ways to share the printer.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | "Business!" cried the Ghost. "Mankind was my business. The
_`\(,_ | common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
(_)/ (_) | and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my
trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my
business!" --Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"

the black rose said:

I appreciate that data shouldn't be smack on top of other data, but how
many programs really NEED 30 GB of free space on either side of them? I
mean really?

Of course not, but you expected the defrag program to take care of that,
and it won't. Defragmentaion worries about getting all of each
file on contiguous locations on the disk, not in moving everything
to the front of the disk (although there is some slight advantage
in that for files that you don't ever modify).

Quoted message said:

So I rootled around online and ordered a new hard drive. If Linux has
to share a machine with XP, it'll probably be happier on its own hard
drive.

Possibly, but you may have headaches with the boot process. lilo in
particular has a manual that seems to be translated, word for word, from
Martian.

Quoted message said:

the hard drive. Urk. Now I have to go Read The Fine Manual. *sigh*

Hate to tell you this, but that is not what the F stands for in RTFM....

--

David L. Johnson

__o | It is a scientifically proven fact that a mid life crisis can
_`\(,_ | only be cured by something racy and Italian. Bianchis and
(_)/ (_) | Colnagos are a lot cheaper than Maserattis and Ferraris. --
Glenn Davies

David L. Johnson said:

the black rose said:

the hard drive. Urk. Now I have to go Read The Fine Manual. *sigh*

Hate to tell you this, but that is not what the F stands for in RTFM....

Oh, I know what it means. I just believe that regular use of it dilutes
its effect. I reserve it mainly to refer to my first husband when the
son we had together demonstrates yet again what an inadequate parent he was.

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

the black rose said:

What happened was, I put Linux on my laptop, after going 10 years
without Linux. And I realized just how much fun I have with the darned

Does that mean you have already tried Linux 10 years ago? (I'm not
entirely sure how to grok your sentence.) If so, what distro were you
using?

Quoted message said:

I appreciate that data shouldn't be smack on top of other data, but how
many programs really NEED 30 GB of free space on either side of them? I

It's not a question of requiring free space; defrag simply is too afraid
to move certain files, most notably files flagged as system or hidden.
(It all harks back to the bygone days of IO.SYS and IBMBIO.COM.) That,
and the swap file.

If you know what you're doing, you can hunt down these files, and
re-ATTRIB -H -S them. Good luck if you do. Me, I prefer not to fight
such battles with any Microsoft product -- there lies the road to
madness. (Ironically, re-installing would probably be easier.)

Quoted message said:

mean really? There's data scattered all over the hard drive, including
some that makes it look like the most I could get for a Linux partition
would be maybe 20 GB. That's ludicrous.

My, how far we've come to label 20GB as ludicrous...

Quoted message said:

So I rootled around online and ordered a new hard drive. If Linux has
to share a machine with XP, it'll probably be happier on its own hard drive.

Linux will be happy anywhere you put it.

(Home is where the root partition is.)

--
Frederic Briere <*> [email hidden]

=> <[email hidden]> IS NO MORE: <http://www.abacomsucks.com> <=

the black rose said:

So I rootled around online and ordered a new hard drive. If Linux has
to share a machine with XP, it'll probably be happier on its own hard drive.

I don't know, both this laptop and the desktop it's connected to are
dual-booting on one drive (each).

Quoted message said:

The power supply, well, that can be worked around. My desktop IS using
all six connections -- hard drive, floppy drive, DVD, CD-RW, zip drive
and a bleeding edge video card with an onboard fan that requires its own
power connection. It's a Dell Dimension 8100, by the way, bought in
2001, with several upgraded components (like the video card) because I
can't leave things alone. *grin*

Check out your local computer store. You know, the one that will sell
you a white box without Winblows pre-installed. They should have a
splitter that will let you use one PS connector and connect two (or
more) devices.

Oh BTW, you may want to check and make sure you're not using all the
power that supply can put out already.

And BTW2, Dell hasn't always used standard power supplies. Or
motherboards or MB mounting spacing, either. I've found it more
expedient to buy new white boxes on occasion, rather than upgrade a
Dell.

Quoted message said:

The bigger issue is the fact that the zip drive is on the ribbon with
the hard drive. Urk. Now I have to go Read The Fine Manual. *sigh*

Uh, yeah, that's probably slowing disk access. Hope you have enough
memory you aren't paging much.

Pat

Email address works as is.

the black rose said:

I just installed Mandrake 10 on my laptop, considering Fedora for the
kids' desktop (it has 2 hard drives and they want to play with it) and
really mulling over what I want to put on the new 2nd hard drive on my
desktop. Would you happen to know what distribution is best for a home
LAN with XP boxes on it -- one of which is physically connected to the
shared printer? Currently, my laptop can neither find the home network
nor the shared printer, although I can get to the internet with it.

Why not put the printer on a Linux box, and let the XP boxes print
through that? Works like a charm with XP -- 98 and earlier had some
issues using a networked printer.

Pat

Email address works as is.

the black rose said:

David L. Johnson said:

the black rose said:

the hard drive. Urk. Now I have to go Read The Fine Manual. *sigh*

Hate to tell you this, but that is not what the F stands for in RTFM....

Oh, I know what it means. I just believe that regular use of it dilutes
its effect. I reserve it mainly to refer to my first husband when the son
we had together demonstrates yet again what an inadequate parent he was.

You call him a fine father?

--

David L. Johnson

__o | "It doesn't get any easier, you just go faster." --Greg LeMond
_`\(,_ |
(_)/ (_) |

David L. Johnson said:

I recommend debian. I've been using it for several years, and it is

As much as I love Debian, I find it ever harder to recommend because of
its release schedule (or lack thereof). woody is hopelessly outdated
for a desktop, and although sarge is finally looming on the horizon, I
just know that in two years it'll be in the same state that woody is
now, decrepit and waiting for etch (or whatever the next release will be
called) to be released.

Of course, if you can stand to run unstable/sid, then Debian is
sweeeeet!

(Never thought I'd add to a distro thread on r.b.m.)

--
Frederic Briere <*> [email hidden]

=> <[email hidden]> IS NO MORE: <http://www.abacomsucks.com> <=

"Frederic Briere" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My, how far we've come to label 20GB as ludicrous...

The new computer that I am using right now has 320 GB and my old
computer that is right next to it has 370 GB. They will be connected
at 1000 Mbps as soon as I can get a switch and a network card
for my old computer. Hard drives have gotten big and inexpensive.

"Patrick Lamb" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Oh BTW, you may want to check and make sure you're not using all the
power that supply can put out already.

That is very important. I have had this computer for a little over
a week and I am already looking at some upgrade parts.

A 600W power supply will be one of the first upgrades, followed
by a more powerful video card. This should happen before the
end of the year.

David L. Johnson said:

the black rose said:

David L. Johnson said:

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:12:51 +0000, the black rose wrote:

>the hard drive. Urk. Now I have to go Read The Fine Manual. *sigh*

Hate to tell you this, but that is not what the F stands for in RTFM....

Oh, I know what it means. I just believe that regular use of it dilutes
its effect. I reserve it mainly to refer to my first husband when the son
we had together demonstrates yet again what an inadequate parent he was.

You call him a fine father?

Nah. I call him Needle-[censored] the Mosquito-[censored].

*innocent look*

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

"the black rose" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

David L. Johnson wrote:

[...]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You call him a fine father?

Nah. I call him Needle-[censored] the Mosquito-[censored].

*innocent look*

You refer to yourself as a mosquito? :-)

--

A: Top-posters.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

Frederic Briere said:

the black rose said:

What happened was, I put Linux on my laptop, after going 10 years
without Linux. And I realized just how much fun I have with the darned

Does that mean you have already tried Linux 10 years ago? (I'm not
entirely sure how to grok your sentence.) If so, what distro were you
using?

Yes, I started with Slackware and migrated to Red Hat.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

mean really? There's data scattered all over the hard drive, including
some that makes it look like the most I could get for a Linux partition
would be maybe 20 GB. That's ludicrous.

My, how far we've come to label 20GB as ludicrous...

You misunderstand, what I found ludricrous was that XP is using 15% of
the free space, but taking up all but 20 GB of the drive. I wouldn't be
half so annoyed if it confined its depredations to, say the first "half"
of the drive.

The laptop I just installed Linux on only has a 20 GB hard drive and 256
MB of ram. Only. *shakes head* Anybody here remember when major
universities didn't have that much on their mainframes?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So I rootled around online and ordered a new hard drive. If Linux has
to share a machine with XP, it'll probably be happier on its own hard drive.

Linux will be happy anywhere you put it.

(Home is where the root partition is.)

Hehe.

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

Patrick Lamb said:

the black rose said:

I just installed Mandrake 10 on my laptop, considering Fedora for the
kids' desktop (it has 2 hard drives and they want to play with it) and
really mulling over what I want to put on the new 2nd hard drive on my
desktop. Would you happen to know what distribution is best for a home
LAN with XP boxes on it -- one of which is physically connected to the
shared printer? Currently, my laptop can neither find the home network
nor the shared printer, although I can get to the internet with it.

Why not put the printer on a Linux box, and let the XP boxes print
through that? Works like a charm with XP -- 98 and earlier had some
issues using a networked printer.

Well, you'd think that would make sense, but what passes for logic
around here can't encompass the notion.

*grin*

BTW, from what I've been able to glean from other sources, Mandrake's
got issues with windows networks. I replaced Mandrake with a clean
install of Fedora, which at least knows the XP network is there. I
haven't figured out how to correctly configure SMB though, so it's still
inaccessible. But being aware of it is an improvement. Now if I can
just get the touchpad working properly.... *sigh*

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

the black rose said:

Patrick Lamb said:

the black rose said:

I just installed Mandrake 10 on my laptop, considering Fedora for the
kids' desktop (it has 2 hard drives and they want to play with it) and
really mulling over what I want to put on the new 2nd hard drive on my
desktop. Would you happen to know what distribution is best for a
home LAN with XP boxes on it -- one of which is physically connected
to the shared printer? Currently, my laptop can neither find the home
network nor the shared printer, although I can get to the internet
with it.

Why not put the printer on a Linux box, and let the XP boxes print
through that? Works like a charm with XP -- 98 and earlier had some
issues using a networked printer.

Well, you'd think that would make sense, but what passes for logic
around here can't encompass the notion.

*grin*

BTW, from what I've been able to glean from other sources, Mandrake's
got issues with windows networks. I replaced Mandrake with a clean
install of Fedora, which at least knows the XP network is there. I
haven't figured out how to correctly configure SMB though, so it's still
inaccessible. But being aware of it is an improvement. Now if I can
just get the touchpad working properly.... *sigh*

-km

All Linux has issues with Windows. I had a nice triple boot installation
about ten years ago, DOS/Win 3.1, OS/2, Linux of some sort, 1994 CD.
Then I pulled a classic stupid and tried to 'upgrade' to Windows 95.
Big mistake.
Without even asking me it decided that the other systems were disk
corruptions and started running chkdsk or scandisk and 'fixing' the
errors. Before I could stop it, CTRL, ALT, DEL didn't work so I had to
pull the power cord, everything was trashed on all 3 hard drives.
I have hated Microsoft ever since that issue with their arrogance at
destroying my hard work installing all of that.
I now have DOS/Win 3.1, Linux and Windows 2000 Pro, but the OS/2 bit
the dust and never did get recovered after the 95 fiasco.
What is eye opening is how fast some of the old DOS stuff runs on a
multi GHz machine with tons of memory. I can even run a 32 Meg ramdisk
and use it for a win 3.1 swapfile. With DOS my Athlon screams, with Windows
it crawls, and Linux is sort of in between.
Wow, that is way OT.
Bill Baka

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

the black rose said:

Frederic Briere said:

the black rose <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Does that mean you have already tried Linux 10 years ago? (I'm not
entirely sure how to grok your sentence.) If so, what distro were you
using?

Yes, I started with Slackware and migrated to Red Hat.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

mean really? There's data scattered all over the hard drive, including
some that makes it look like the most I could get for a Linux partition
would be maybe 20 GB. That's ludicrous.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My, how far we've come to label 20GB as ludicrous...

You misunderstand, what I found ludricrous was that XP is using 15% of
the free space, but taking up all but 20 GB of the drive. I wouldn't be
half so annoyed if it confined its depredations to, say the first "half"
of the drive.

The laptop I just installed Linux on only has a 20 GB hard drive and 256
MB of ram. Only. *shakes head* Anybody here remember when major
universities didn't have that much on their mainframes?

I still run Linux machines with 500M drives and 16M of RAM. Of course
my latest server will be running MisterHouse and Asterisk so I have
1.5GHz, 30G drive with 512M of RAM. I may get a better motherboard
(problems with this one). Also I'll probably keep the CPU near 60%
busy (Home Automation can do that).

Having said that I regularly work on ucontrollers with 2K of ROM and
~100 bytes of RAM. Sometimes I splurge and get the newere 64K of Flash
and 2K of RAM. I still run a VAX (200M drive, 32M RAM). I have other
odds and ends from 1978 to the present. This stuff is way cool and I
can program it all (on my Linux environment).

--
Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry [email hidden]
http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/ (Text only)
http://hcs.sourceforge.net/ (HCS II)
http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog

the black rose said:

Patrick Lamb said:

Why not put the printer on a Linux box, and let the XP boxes print
through that? Works like a charm with XP -- 98 and earlier had some
issues using a networked printer.

BTW, from what I've been able to glean from other sources, Mandrake's
got issues with windows networks. I replaced Mandrake with a clean
install of Fedora, which at least knows the XP network is there. I
haven't figured out how to correctly configure SMB though, so it's still
inaccessible. But being aware of it is an improvement. Now if I can
just get the touchpad working properly.... *sigh*

Samba's great once it's working, but the nice thing about XP is that
is recognizes lpd printers. I don't think any other version of
Windoze actually works with a network lpd printer. Open up your
printer daemon on Linux to your internal net, nail down its IP
address, and tell the XP boxes to print to the lpd port on that
address.

Maybe next year I'll get Samba running right...

Pat

Email address works as is.

Patrick Lamb said:

the black rose said:

BTW, from what I've been able to glean from other sources, Mandrake's
got issues with windows networks. I replaced Mandrake with a clean
install of Fedora, which at least knows the XP network is there. I
haven't figured out how to correctly configure SMB though, so it's still
inaccessible. But being aware of it is an improvement. Now if I can
just get the touchpad working properly.... *sigh*

Samba's great once it's working, but the nice thing about XP is that
is recognizes lpd printers. I don't think any other version of
Windoze actually works with a network lpd printer. Open up your
printer daemon on Linux to your internal net, nail down its IP
address, and tell the XP boxes to print to the lpd port on that
address.

We got file-sharing working last night. There were two issues -- the
default security settings on the Linux box were cranked up too high, and
the Linux box still called itself localhost, which each XP box objected
to because each of them were quite certain that THEY were localhost.

So that's sorted.

Printing still doesn't work. That *might* be a driver issue, but the
Linux box complains that it can't connect to the printer. The XP box
the printer is physically connected to doesn't show the job in the print
queue though, so I don't know what's going on. It's worth trying to
find an updated printer driver though.

If all else fails, I can copy the file I want printed to the samba share
and print it directly from the XP box. *shrug* Sneaker-net strikes
again....

-km

--
Only cowards fight kids -- unidentified Moscow protester
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts