[NCLUG] Help requested in learning Linux

[J. Paul Reed]

On Tue, 14 May 2002, Ken Haile wrote:

> Resources: I have 3 computers: 1) EISA 486/33 with 16 meg of Ram and a
> 210 meg hard drive, 2) ISA 486/50 with 16 meg of Ram and an approximate
> 500 meg hard drive and a 270 meg Syquest drive, and 3) Pentium 366 mHz
> with a 3.2 gig hard drive already half occupied with Windows programs
> (which I also use for my school assignments and so am reluctant to offer
> it as a sacrifice to my learning curves with Linux.)

My recommendation:

Buy another hard drive (as big as you can afford... 2 GB might be fine to
play around with) and use your P366 as a testbed; if you're worried about
munging up your Windows partition, unplug that hard drive while you're
playing just to be sure (although, if you're careful, both can coexist on
separate drives very easily).

I can count on both hands the number of people who've been turned off to
Linux because they've banged their head against the wall for days/weeks
trying to get RedHat 7.x to install on a 286 Compaq.

You couldn't run DOS 6.22 on a 286 Compaq... and if you wanted to get a
clear picture of the "Windows world" today, you wouldn't install DOS 6.22
anyway.

The point is Linux can deal with lower end hardware and give it extra
life... but save yourself time and frustration when you're learning by
installing a user friendly distro (which typically means they're less
flexible in the immediate term, and thus won't run on that doorstop you
have in the garage), and playing around with that.

Save the 486s for when you're comfortable enough to install Debian or
Gentoo, which WILL work on that 486 w/o problems, or some distro that
doesn't expect you'll have reasonably current hardware off the bat.

As for distros, I like RedHat... 7.3 has been a nice release so far.

I recommend Mandrake for beginners (it's what we install at fests out here
for new Poly students).

Later,
Paul
   --------------------------------------------------------------------
   J. Paul Reed              preed at sigkill.com || web.sigkill.com/preed
   Is there fire in your eyes, or the glow of machines?  Watch how your
   fingers burn over the keys. So sure what you do...
                                       -- Young Offender, Pet Shop Boys