[geeks] Desktops

[Mike Hebel]

Ryn wrote:
> 
> Anyone completely  moved away from Winbloze? I am debating ousting
> Win2k and converting to Gnome on Linux.

As a person just forced to do the switch - why in the $DIETY didn't I do
it sooner?

My 1998 10-gig Maxtor hard drive blew two days ago.  Losing about two
years of just downloaded stuff and a double-buttload of I.E.
"Favorites".

I find oddly that I don't miss them.

Now I'm running on a 1.2gig and a 700meg in my PII-350 with SUSE 7.1
with a 2.4 default kernel.  The machine performs much better.

As for the advice.  Choose a fairly current distribution with some 2.4
or better kernel and look _carefully_ at what kind of hardware is in
your machine.  My Creative Labs Modem Blaster PCI is supposed to be
supported under 2.4 kernels with HCF drivers but it doesn't work.  (I
have the joy of retro-connecting with my old external 33.6 modem.)

Then there's the ever present issue of connecting to other things in
your house - for instance I still can't get CUPS to print to the Windows
Postcript laser on my wife's machine and my scanner currently doesn't
work yet.  Again, hardware issues - they come up with any operating
system.

It just occurred to me - I no longer have any windows desktop of my own
except my gaming machine. Cool!  Next stop - RAM for the Sparc 5 and a
configured/netbooted Javastation!

Mike Hebel

(Got the brick BTW - Joshua)