🚀 go-pugleaf

It's 17 Nov 97  18:11,
We'll return to shane.pearson@tafensw.edu.au and All's
discussion of Newbie questions.

 sh> I haven't got around to it yet, but after reading APC's Linux
 sh> articles, my yearning was refreshed.

 sh> I need some help deciding whether to buy Redhat or that other
 sh> one which I can't quite remember at the moment.

The general advice is that RedHat is the easiest for newcomers to
UNIX/Linux to setup.  After having installed Red Hat, I tend to agree,
it does indeed setup a working system out of the box. :-)  You'll also
see a few posts reccommending Debian for the hackers.  I haven't used it
myself, but heard nothing but good reports.

 sh> My PC is somewhat pathetic. And I have done some dodgy upgrading
 sh> to it and would like to know how successful I'll be getting
 sh> Linux to run on this...

 sh> * i486DX-33 ISA AMI BIOS motherboard purchased in '91.
 sh> Desoldered the 66.667MHz OscMod and replaced it with
 sh> an 80.000MHz. (Thanks RIE).

 sh> DX2-80 :), with the same heatsink, etc. And suprisingly
 sh> it works just as reliably as the 33 at 40MHz. I was told
 sh> clock doubled CPU's and the like can't be overclocked,
 sh> oh well.

I did get a DX4100 to go to 120, and it ran nicely.  However, one of the
regulators on the m/b needed a bit of heatsinking. :-)

<snip>

 sh> * 8Mb 70nS RAM. OK you can stop laughing now. :)

 sh> * Generic 2 serial, 1 parallel, 1 game port. 16450.

 sh> * Crappy KTX monitor.

It's plenty good enough for Linux.  Adding a little RAM would be
worthwhile, but Linux will run fine as it is.  I'm running Red Hat 4.2
on a 386 myself. :-)

 sh> Norton's NDIAG occasionally reports a few bad RAM address', but Win95
 sh> works pretty nicely. Is Linux very tolerant of problems like this?

Dunno, but if there's any data corruption, I'd expect at least the odd
app to die strangely occasionally. :-)  However, unless the affected
address contains kernel mode code, the system should keep running.

 sh> I think being a tinkerer at heart, Linux might be for me.

Join the club! :-)  You'll enjoy it then. :-)

... You can tell a real programmer by the keyboard dents in his forehead.
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