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Re: And another happy family, courtesy of Linux ...

__/ [ William Poaster ] on Friday 01 September 2006 12:50 \__

> This message was posted on Usenet, NOT JLAforums, & on  Fri, 01 Sep 2006
> 06:31:04 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
>> __/ [ Richard Rasker ] on Friday 01 September 2006 01:11 \__
>> 
>>> Another night, another Linux install - but somehow, this one was a bit
>>> special. Some context: I had a customer over for some simple repair
>>> work, and as I fixed her TV while she waited, she mentioned that the
>>> family computer had rather terminally (as in: won't boot) succumbed to
>>> malware once again, and asked if I could fix that too.
>>> 
>>> Turns out she was talking about a seven year old Compaq with an AMD
>>> Athlon 650 MHz, only 128MB of RAM and equally ancient video and sound
>>> cards. They had already tried reinstalling Windows 98, but the Compaq
>>> "Quick Restore Disk" crapped out after the first two screens with the
>>> cryptic and totally useless message "Compaq Quick Restore Error 812:14 -
>>> Contact Your Dealer". Attempts to install from a full W98SE install CD
>>> all failed because half the hardware drivers were nowhere to be found.
>>> There were no CD's, naturally, because everything was supposed to be
>>> loaded from the restore disk; the Internet turned up more dead links
>>> than live ones, and after two days(!) of trying and endless rebooting,
>>> they gave up.
>>> 
>>> Problem was, they're not the most wealthy people, to put it mildly, and
>>> didn't have three hundred euros to spare for a new machine, let alone
>>> double that amount for Windows, MS Office and all the other
>>> applications.
>>> 
>>> I offered to install Linux, but when I heard about the system specs, I
>>> thought running KDE would be a *big* problem. Especially the mere 128MB
>>> of RAM was quite worrisome. I almost gave up in advance, but then
>>> decided to give it a try anyway - nothing ventured, nothing gained, and
>>> these people were really up a certain creek without a certain implement.
>>> As I started the install, I warned them that both the installation and
>>> the machine itself would very probably run very slow, because of lack of
>>> memory. Luckily, hard disk space was less of a problem.
>>> 
>>> But then, to my surprise, the installation was all done in 45 minutes -
>>> and imagine my even bigger surprise when I found that KDE was working
>>> just fine - and that even OpenOffice took perhaps 15 seconds to start,
>>> and then worked just as snappy as ever. I called up the hardware list,
>>> and double checked that yes, indeed, there was only 128MB of RAM in this
>>> machine. But it works just fine! OK, things get quickly bogged down with
>>> e.g. OO.o, Mozilla, and Kaffeine running at the same time - but if you
>>> refrain from carelessly starting several concurrent applications, the
>>> machine was perhaps not the fastest horse in the race, but certainly
>>> workable. After the install, I spent another hour or two fine tuning the
>>> configuration, installing some handy bits, and doing a Quick Tour to get
>>> them up to speed.
>>> 
>>> You should have seen the faces of these people: all big eyes and open
>>> mouths, for two hours solid ... "What, no driver disks needed?" "Huh, it
>>> found and configured the printer all by itself?" "AND the network card?"
>>> "Even the old scanner??? That thing has been dead for years, and now it
>>> works!" "OpenOffice can use Microsoft .doc by default? So I don't need
>>> MS Office?" "What, I can just plug in my MP3 player and drag the songs
>>> anywhere I want? Hey mom, look! Even the camera works in one go! We
>>> don't have to use that other stupid software any more!" "OK, but there's
>>> no MSN on this thing, or is there? There is??? Damn, this is cool!" "But
>>> where's the antivirus? Whaddyamean, we don't need it? You must be
>>> kidding ... no, you're not?"
>>> And so on and so on ... I patiently demonstrated everything and answered
>>> all their questions - all but te final one: "But why do people keep
>>> paying for Windows when you can get all this for free?" This turned out
>>> to be the only question I couldn't answer in a satisfactory manner ...
>> 
>> I run KDE (SUSE 9.3) with just 256 MB or RAM. Most of the time, only three
>> quarters of the RAM is being used. No disk space either (I always see the
>> meters at the bottom).
> 
> At present, most of my machines have 1GB RAM, & a couple with 512MB RAM.
> On the test machine (512MB) I once accidentally did an installation of
> Ubuntu & forgot the swap space! I only found out after I'd run it for a
> while, & was checking notes I'd made about the partition setup.
> I then checked the System > Monitor > Memory, & found that the application
> data was only using around 45% of the RAM! I have a small swap space on my
> 1gig machines, & just checking this one (Running SuSE 10.1) with OOo,
> GAIM, Pan & Firefox open, it shows:-
> Total Memory: 604MB
> Free Physical Memory: 94.56MB
> Free Swap space: 100% free
> 
> I may set up SusE 10.1 on a test machine *without* any swap space, & see
> what happens...

I'm at home at the moment (lunch break). SuSE 9.3, KDE 3.4, 8 virtual
desktops with quite a bit going on (including AmaroK 1.2 which is a resource
hog). Meter shows:

Memory 61% free
Swap: 90% Free

I only have 256 MB on this box which only cost 165 quid a year ago (SUSE was
included). I find it stunning that much of the world still uses Windows and
'Windows-ready' hardware. As an article that I read earlier says: Windows is
like the AOL of software. I am assuming that you know AOL's strategies as
well as destiny (20% drop last month).

Best wishes,

Roy


-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz      |    X-No-Archive: No. Stand behind what you say
http://Schestowitz.com  |    SuSE Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
  1:05pm  up 43 days  1:17,  5 users,  load average: 0.04, 0.22, 0.30
      http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project

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