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Grex > Micros > #199: FreeBSD, Linux, or other PC Unixes? |  |
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| 20 new of 257 responses total. |
scott
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response 238 of 257:
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Feb 6 13:57 UTC 2000 |
A new CD-ROM will be cheaper than more disk. ;)
At the moment I'm stuck deciding whether I should just buy something a bit
newer than ol' faithful P133.
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gull
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response 239 of 257:
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Feb 6 20:45 UTC 2000 |
I have a K5-133 that serves my purposes quite well. Of course, most of its
components are somewhat newer than the motherboard. (I can rarely afford to
replace a whole computer, so I tend to upgrade piecemeal. I find that to
usually be less disruptive for my purposes anyway.)
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scott
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response 240 of 257:
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Feb 6 23:26 UTC 2000 |
D'oh! There was a nice 540 MB disk lying around at work, but it must have
gone into a PC already.
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scott
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response 241 of 257:
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Feb 8 14:38 UTC 2000 |
We just got a brand new and empty server at work, so I brought in the Caldera
CDs and installed Linux on the new machine. Very slick, and YES, the keyboard
shortcuts in X work!!!! I'm probably going to just go and buy a new CD drive
for my home machine rather than try to force it.
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mcnally
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response 242 of 257:
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Feb 8 16:22 UTC 2000 |
which keyboard shortcuts would those be?
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scott
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response 243 of 257:
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Feb 8 19:05 UTC 2000 |
Basically, you don't need a mouse at all if keyboard shortcuts are properly
done. I was very happy to see that the KDE desktop that Caldera has seems
to cover everything, even being able to pop open the min/max/size/move menu
on each window.
It's one reason I hadn't gotten into Linux before, the need to be grabbing
a mouse more often than I like.
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orinoco
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response 244 of 257:
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Feb 8 21:21 UTC 2000 |
<raises eyebrow>
Wouldn't that be more of a problem with Windows? says the guy who's barely
used either....
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mcnally
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response 245 of 257:
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Feb 8 21:51 UTC 2000 |
Windows actually has pretty decent support for keyboard operation..
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mwg
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response 246 of 257:
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Feb 8 21:56 UTC 2000 |
re#241: You could just borrow an IDE drive from someone long enough to
get the install done, then fix for the old CD drive. (A fan of making
anything that still works do so, that's me.)
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scott
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response 247 of 257:
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Feb 8 22:58 UTC 2000 |
I went and bought a huge new drive because it looked like I'd want it (and
drives being cheap enough these days). I'm not sure how to prod the Lizard
installer into reading from a hard disk. Anyway, I sent the CD question into
Caldera, and I'm not in a huge rush.
Hey, if I was borrowing drive, why not just borrow an appropriate CD drive?
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mcnally
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response 248 of 257:
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Feb 8 23:26 UTC 2000 |
I believe that's what he meant.. Borrow an IDE CD-ROM drive..
They've started making them since the glory days of that old
Sony you're using.. ;-)
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scott
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response 249 of 257:
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Feb 9 02:36 UTC 2000 |
I'm still agonizing over whether to fork out the money for a CD-RW for $200.
I'm sure not going to pay $50 for a new CD reader.
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mcnally
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response 250 of 257:
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Feb 9 04:18 UTC 2000 |
you should be able to get a DVD-ROM drive (drive only, no MPEG decoder card)
for not much more than that $50. but if you're paying $50 for a new CD-ROM
these days you're paying too much (by a factor of two, almost..)
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scott
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response 251 of 257:
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Feb 9 12:30 UTC 2000 |
Dunno. $50 seemed to be the starting price in the stores I visited yesterday.
Nice drives, I guess, with ability to deal with all manner of CD-RW and such
at purportedly high speeds. I'm starting to lean towards getting the damn
CD-RW drive. I'll need some kind of backup with better capacity than Zip
disks, and RW media is now down to $3-4.
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drew
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response 252 of 257:
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Feb 10 03:31 UTC 2000 |
The advice on the net is not to use a CDRW drive for reading CDs, as it wears
out quicker that way, and CD readers can be had cheap - at least in principle.
Occasionally Best Buy has a sale/rebate offer wherein the CDROM can be had
for $20 - occasionally $10 - after rebate. Or else try going to computer
shows.
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mcnally
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response 253 of 257:
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Feb 10 06:00 UTC 2000 |
Advice on the net is often not worth much more than you pay for it..
How quick is "quicker" [sic], anyway?
Anyway, Scott's already got a CDROM drive that he can continue using --
once he installs Linux from a more modern CD-reading device (such as the
CD-RW) and builds a new kernel..
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scott
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response 254 of 257:
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Feb 10 12:28 UTC 2000 |
Ha! Caldera tech support came through. The ultramodern "Lizard" install
couldn't handle it, but the older "Lisa" install could be prodded into
recognizing my vintage CD-ROM drive. I ended up missing out on some of the
nicer parts of graphical install and autoconfig, but I'm pretty sure I can
get what I need done without too much hassle.
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mwg
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response 255 of 257:
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Feb 10 17:13 UTC 2000 |
Re#248: Yep, bad wording on my part, I meant borrow an IDE CD-ROM drive.
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gull
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response 256 of 257:
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Feb 10 20:25 UTC 2000 |
By the time you wear out a CD-RW drive reading CDs with it, it'll probably
be obsolete anyway. I don't see why they'd wear out quicker than CD-ROM
drives, and I have some of those that are ten years old that still work. A
"real" CD-ROM drive will probably have faster throughput, though. CD-ROM
drives out to 32x can be had for under $50, and most writers seem to be 12x
or less. On the other hand, the only difference I've ever noticed between
8x and 32x, really, is that the 32x drives are much noisier.
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pfv
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response 257 of 257:
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Feb 10 21:06 UTC 2000 |
Yah, the "fast" drives sound like a lost turbine, looking for
an aircraft to eat.
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