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Re: What am I doing wrong?

While dancing and signing to Enya's Carribean Blue, Roy Schestowitz,
exclaimed the following:

> __/ [Bobbie] on Sunday 08 January 2006 09:15 \__
> 
>> While dancing and signing to Enya's Carribean Blue, Roy Schestowitz,
>> exclaimed the following:
>> 
>>> __/ [Bobbie] on Sunday 08 January 2006 08:13 \__
>>> 
>>>> I must be doing something wrong.
>>>> I've just repaired an older iMac G3 266Mhz (it had a power supply
>>>> problem) and for the hell of it I decided to install Ubuntu.
>>>> So I downloaded Ubuntu, burnt it to a CDROM and then installed it onto
>>>> the iMac.
>>>> I must have done something wrong as Ubuntu installed without a hitch.
>>>> It reconized all of the hardware, partitioned the hard drive and set up
>>>> networking all on it's own. This just can't be right. I mean with all
>>>> that I've heard from the Windoze astroturfers Ubuntu shouldn't have
>>>> reconized any hardware, it should have fried the CPU, destroyed the video
>>>> monitor and knocked out the power in the local neighbourhood.
>>>> 
>>>> Talking about reconizing hardware and drivers, does anybody want the
>>>> Win95/98/98SE/ME drivers disks that came with the USB keyboard and USB
>>>> mouse. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use these for anything. I could
>>>> have sworn that Windows didn't need driver disks either. Oh well.
>>> 
>>> Is  it  really possible with Ubuntu?
>> 
>> It is.
>> The specs for this one are:
>> G3 Power PC @ 233 Mhz
>> 2 MB video RAM (you'll be limited to 16 bit colour depth)
>> 128 MB system RAM
>> 4 GB hard drive
>> 24X CDROM
>> 
>> Just make sure that you download the PPC (PowerPC) version. :-)
>> I've never owned an Apple product before and I've only had this iMac since
>> Wednesday. The power supply, which is made by the Korean company LG, had
>> more cold solder joints than good solder joints. So I spent a few hours
>> resoldering both the power supply module and the video module.
>> It came back to life on Friday and that's when I found that it only had OS
>> 8.
>> Quick check of the internet revealed that to boot from CDROM I'd need a
>> keyboard so that I could hold the 'c' key down as I powered up the unit.
>> A quick trip to Compusmart and I got a Logitech USB optical mouse for
>> $21.00 and a Microsoft USB keyboard for $29.00.
>> Took about 45 mins to do a complete install.
>> Now I just have to pick up a small router and I can get both of my
>> machines talking to each other and get the iMac onto the Internet.
>> 
>>> I have an iMac with similar specs  at
>>> work  and I have let it off the hook a month ago. It never gets used,  let
>>> alone  touched. I migrated all the mail (work stuff) to Thunderbird on the
>>> desktop nearby. It runs Ubuntu Linux. Maybe I can have both a Dell machine
>>> and an iMac side-by-side, both running Linux. Do you see the irony? Apple?
>>> Dell?  I'll  do it Monday. I've got a pile of Breezy, but I wonder  how
>>> Linux runs with one mouse button...
>> 
>> The mouse that I picked up at Compusmart is a three button mouse with the
>> scroll wheel. Maybe get yourself a new mouse and then you can use the one
>> button mouse as a door stop or a cat toy.
> 
> I  was about to do this first thing tomorrow morning, but it sounds like a
> bit of a chore and somewhat of an investment.

Well for me the iMac was free and electronics is a hobby. So the time
spent was a wash.

> The reward is a fairly slug-
> gish  machine  (from a relative perspective at least).

Yeah, for some reason the iMac doesn't seem as fast as my 1.2 Ghz AMD
Duron with 1GB of ram. But none the less Thunderbird and Evolution open up
quite quickly, OO takes a while to open but once it's up and running it's
fine. The iMac plays OGG's and MP3's and digitally extracted audio CD's
without any problem. So all in all, this is the perfect setup for a little
email/internet/music player. Forget about authoring video or ripping DVD's
on this unit.



> It  seems  somewhat
> pointless  as  there are two other machines in the office, which are  much
> stronger.

Well, if you've got no use for the unit why not give it away to a local
school. Might even be worth a tax receipt for you. Be sure to load Ubuntu
onto it first.

>  It is still exciting to see that Ubuntu is capable of  handling
> both  a 'foreign territory' and novelty hardware, much in contrary to  the
> next FUD campaign

Ubuntu did an admirable job. I had wanted to throw Suse onto it but the
thought of installing Suse onto a 4 Gig hard drive and running it on a
233Mhz processor sent shivers down my spine.

> 
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1908908,00.asp
> 
> Many thanks for the detailed explanation, which is likely to serve someone
> else since it's archived.
> 
> Roy

That's what it's all about. Pass the knowledge around and make the world a
better place.


-- 
Bobbie the Triple Killer is at http://members.shaw.ca/bobbie4/index.htm
Today's posting comes via the numbers 0 & 1, Suse 10.0 and Pan Newsreader.
http://www.opensuse.org/Download







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