Hi Michael Karlinsky, and Stick,
Thank you both for your input..."need more input"(Johnny5)
Thanks agine.
Hello Greg
Nope IE is built into the system - not removeable. Just use it for MS Updates and any sites that are so badly coded that they won't work with Firefox
Cheers - Gray
Ummm, well there are ways in win98 - tried it years back, but I found the system very wobbly as a result - bit pointless really.
Have a good look around the preferences, and you can right-click on the toolbar to customise. One nice feature is the ability to save all your regular website in one folder and then when you want open them go bookmarks/"folder name"/"open in tabs" which will then open all of your favourite sites at once, each in one tab - VERY handy.
Gray
Hello Greg
Think of Firefox as the main surfing browser, and IE just as a facility to update your win98 (actually I'm not sure for how longer MS will produce updates for win98 - seem to remember that it was near the end of its supported life)
With regard to Linux, the main thing you need to ask yourself is just how important games are to you, and before I get shot down in flames ladies and gents, please understand that I actually am a great advocate of Linux, but for the moment most of the good games (yes I know one or 2 have been ported to Linux) are still in windows.
Hardware support has come on in leaps and bounds in Linux, and there are several production packages in development - some very powerful even now (Gimp and OpenOffice come to mind). You can do a great deal more than just surf and e-mail and program in Linux these days.
However I love gaming, so for the time being I will always have Windows someplace. I have gone the dual-boot route, using Gentoo, SUSE and Ubuntu at various times, and they all worked, but as my Windows partition is NTFS, Linux cannot reliably write to it at the moment, so if I want to pass something from one to the other, it becomes a mission. I at one stage had a 5 gig Fat32 partition just for inter-system files transport to solve this problem. For simplicicty's sake I went back to Windows purely because I prefer one system on one PC, and didn't want to give up the gaming.
If you have not used Linux before, try one of the more user-friendly ones - SUSE is quite impressive - not fast but easy to install, but judging by my experience with SUSE 9.1 you will need all 5 CDs downloaded before you can do a decent install. Be warned I remember having to download a music-support package from the SUSE site once you have installed as I think they don't support MP3 playback by default - opensource remember, which uses OggVorbis music files. Try here
Hey Gray,
Installed Firefox...was wondering can I now remove IE from the system?
Greg,
"We'll start with the first part of the question: How do you delete Internet Explorer? Answer: you don't. There are ways to disable parts of it, and even remove other parts of it, but the fact remains that Internet Explorer is a key part of Windows itself. It cannot be completely removed, and still have Windows work." (emphasis mine) from this article on Ask Leo.
I agree - there ARE bit that can come out - but IE forms such a major part of the system that you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Hi Gray, & Michael,
Well so far I'm really enjoying Firefox...I do understand that IE is really bonded to the OS. And I'll stay with it.
In staying with the topic of this thread I think that the new Boinc may share something in common with the way Windows. Like Windblows Boinc is quite a bit larger then the old standard.
I frist used the new version on this machine when it had WindblowsXP Pro Under "Hyper Threading". The machine was proforming two WU's at a time. When I looked at my WU's, about a third of them had computational errors.
In Windblows98, the errors stop, but I sense that it was slower. So I returned to the older standerd no work errors, and it seems to be running like I first started.
Hi Gray, & Michael,
Well so far I'm really enjoying Firefox...I do understand that IE is really bonded to the OS. And I'll stay with it.
In staying with the topic of this thread I think that the new Boinc may share something in common with the way Windows. Like Windblows Boinc is quite a bit larger then the old standard.
I frist used the new version on this machine when it had WindblowsXP Pro Under "Hyper Threading". The machine was proforming two WU's at a time. When I looked at my WU's, about a third of them had computational errors.
In Windblows98, the errors stop, but I sense that it was slower. So I returned to the older standerd no work errors, and it seems to be running like I first started.
Hello Greg
Congrats on Firefox. You just need to look at the drop-down menu where Options can be located every now and again and then go to Privacy to clear cookies, cache, password - if you wish - and history. The reason I run Firefox RC3 is because this feature has been isolated and put into a set of short-cut-keys to do this quickly. Remember to add in the following setting: type "about:config" - minus quotation marks - in the address window and hit enter. This gives you access to hidden tweaks. Look for "network.enableIDN" (again minus quotation marks) and set that to FALSE by right clicking on the TRUE word.
Re Windows BOINC - yes I think the sheer size IS an issue (at the very least for those of us on dial-up...), but as many with greater BOINC knowledge than I have mentioned, it might also be an incompatibility between the old Einstein and the new BOINC code someplace. Programing's not my forte however, so I'll just have my say and then leave the code to the experts !
...you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Gray
I can't say, regarding Linux. My (very) limited experience with it was over 2 years ago, when I sadly laid out good cash for Mandrake 7, I think. Ten days later, I still hadn't been able to even configure a dialup net connection. I don't ever want to have to be on such intimate terms with anything that doesn't involve sex, especially the innermost workings of an OS. Four years ago, I bought my first x86 PC, "sporting" WinME. Within 10 hours or less, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, upgrade, install hardware with easily-found drivers, install/uninstall software, configure GUI, play music, movies. I've since had a few days access to OS9 Mac, and the aforementioned nightmare with Mandrake (which, BTW, was reputed to be the most user-friendly distro at the time, the reason why I selected it), and neither of them was even close to being as intuitive as our much-detested Windows. Of course, WinME, being the unstable illegimate offspring of 98 that it was (and running on my shiny new HP/700Mhz Celeron/64MB RAM), crashed so often that when it was stolen 4 months later, after a fistful of re-installs (NOT restores), I almost considered it a blessing, except for the loss of the new 256MB stick of RAM which I'd just added.
I don't like to have to micromanage my rig. I've made the OS tweaks, eliminating eyecandy, unneeded services, have 3 hdds (2 80GB IDEs and a 250GB SATA), TONS of games, apps, and utilities. My Barton-core XP-M 2600 is clocked to within an eyelash of it's life, to ~2.55GHZ, crunches WUs in 17930-18030 sec, FX-53 or XP64 4000 neighborhood, on non-exotic aircooling, and if the rig locks up while it's crunching because I try to do too much sidework, or if it has a thermal shutdown, absolutely NO problem, because it just boots right back up, nothing broken, just as if nothing happened. God forbid I should have to reinstall the OS, as you like to do, Gray. I know that makes boot times super-quick and all, but what a pain to have to go back, get the updates, find the CDs to reinstall all drivers, not to mention all the games and other software to get their registry entries back on-track. We're talking a solid couple of days' work, no play. NoNoNoNo, not for me at all, lol. Gotta give the devil his due, much as I dislike M$ practices and Internet Deplorer especially, Willy Gatez and his gang have cobbled together an OS which simply does what I ask, easily. It .. just.. works.
(edited for zpellink and accuracy)
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
...you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Gray
I can't say, regarding Linux. My (very) limited experience with it was over 2 years ago, when I sadly laid out good cash for Mandrake 7, I think. Ten days later, I still hadn't been able to even configure a dialup net connection. I don't ever want to have to be on such intimate terms with anything that doesn't involve sex, especially the innermost workings of an OS. Four years ago, I bought my first x86 PC, "sporting" WinME. Within 10 hours or less, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, upgrade, install hardware with easily-found drivers, install/uninstall software, configure GUI, play music, movies. I've since had a few days access to OS9 Mac, and the aforementioned nightmare with Mandrake (which, BTW, was reputed to be the most user-friendly distro at the time, the reason why I selected it), and neither of them was even close to being as intuitive as our much-detested Windows. Of course, WinME, being the unstable illegimate offspring of 98 that it was (and running on my shiny new HP/700Mhz Celeron/64MB RAM), crashed so often that when it was stolen 4 months later, after a fistful of re-installs (NOT restores), I almost considered it a blessing, except for the loss of the new 256MB stick of RAM which I'd just added.
I don't like to have to micromanage my rig. I've made the OS tweaks, eliminating eyecandy, unneeded services, have 3 hdds (2 80GB IDEs and a 250GB SATA), TONS of games, apps, and utilities. My Barton-core XP-M 2600 is clocked to within an eyelash of it's life, to ~2.55GHZ, crunches WUs in 17030-18030 sec, FX-53 or XP64 4000 neighborhood, on non-exotic aircooling, and if the rig locks up while it's crunching because I try to do too much sidework, or if it has a thermal shutdown, absolutely NO problem, because it just boots right back up, nothing broken, just as if nothing happened. God forbid I should have to reinstall the OS, as you like to do, Gray. I know that makes boot times super-quick and all, but what a pain to have to go back, get the updates, find the CDs to reinstall all drivers, not to mention all the games and other software to get their registry entries back on-track. We're talking a solid couple of days' work, no play. NoNoNoNo, not for me at all, lol. Gotta give the devil his due, much as I dislike M$ practices and Internet Deplorer especially, Willy Gatez and his gang have cobbled together an OS which simply does what I ask, easily. It .. just.. works.
Hello Michael
Linux has come a long way since those days (grin) - but I still want to play my games and so forth. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you need to decide what you want to do.
At the moment everything works with Windows as it is the dominant desktop OS by far.
However if you want to surf, do e-mail, do office work such as spreadsheets and letters, code stuff, play basic games (not just solitare BTW, tho that is available too for those hard-core card players out there) and play music then Linux will do the job well, and you won't need an antivirus program. Linux installs such as SUSE come with a firewall built in, take around 30 minutes to install (and nowadays most normal hardware IS supported). The dial-up connection for SUSE took me as long as it does in XP. Gentoo Linux was equally simple, once I had KDE going - but I would NOT suggest that system for a PC newbie (lovely and fast tho') (big grin). let me put this another way: I would have no hassle with shoving SUSE on my Mom's PC. Without the root password, she cannot damage the box, which she certainly can do with win98 that is running now....
On the other hand, as long as I can afford an antivirus program, and adhere to basic security, such as firewalls and spyware hunters, along with a decent browser like Firefox, I feel quite happy in XP. My focus is games, BOINC and the resultant forums, e-mail, generalised surfing, doing some work on my new website and assorted tweaking. I AM somewhat worried as to what Ole Billy is going to get up to next however. His desire to make me do what HE wants rather than what I want is slowly starting to get to me - I may end up buying a PC for the games, which never goes onto the internetand then running Linux for the connectivity.
Gray, these days, one might as well get a console for the games - they're about as powerful as PCs, more so in many cases that the average PC, can do many non-game things, and there is a better selection of games, better controllers. I read an article just yesterday in one of my newsletters, debating whether PC gaming was about to become extinct! I'm not looking forward to that, but it's not the first time that trend has been discussed.
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
...you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Gray
I can't say, regarding Linux. My (very) limited experience with it was over 2 years ago, when I sadly laid out good cash for Mandrake 7, I think. Ten days later, I still hadn't been able to even configure a dialup net connection. I don't ever want to have to be on such intimate terms with anything that doesn't involve sex, especially the innermost workings of an OS. Four years ago, I bought my first x86 PC, "sporting" WinME. Within 10 hours or less, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, upgrade, install hardware with easily-found drivers, install/uninstall software, configure GUI, play music, movies. I've since had a few days access to OS9 Mac, and the aforementioned nightmare with Mandrake (which, BTW, was reputed to be the most user-friendly distro at the time, the reason why I selected it), and neither of them was even close to being as intuitive as our much-detested Windows. Of course, WinME, being the unstable illegimate offspring of 98 that it was (and running on my shiny new HP/700Mhz Celeron/64MB RAM), crashed so often that when it was stolen 4 months later, after a fistful of re-installs (NOT restores), I almost considered it a blessing, except for the loss of the new 256MB stick of RAM which I'd just added.
I don't like to have to micromanage my rig. I've made the OS tweaks, eliminating eyecandy, unneeded services, have 3 hdds (2 80GB IDEs and a 250GB SATA), TONS of games, apps, and utilities. My Barton-core XP-M 2600 is clocked to within an eyelash of it's life, to ~2.55GHZ, crunches WUs in 17030-18030 sec, FX-53 or XP64 4000 neighborhood, on non-exotic aircooling, and if the rig locks up while it's crunching because I try to do too much sidework, or if it has a thermal shutdown, absolutely NO problem, because it just boots right back up, nothing broken, just as if nothing happened. God forbid I should have to reinstall the OS, as you like to do, Gray. I know that makes boot times super-quick and all, but what a pain to have to go back, get the updates, find the CDs to reinstall all drivers, not to mention all the games and other software to get their registry entries back on-track. We're talking a solid couple of days' work, no play. NoNoNoNo, not for me at all, lol. Gotta give the devil his due, much as I dislike M$ practices and Internet Deplorer especially, Willy Gatez and his gang have cobbled together an OS which simply does what I ask, easily. It .. just.. works.
Hello Michael
Linux has come a long way since those days (grin) - but I still want to play my games and so forth. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you need to decide what you want to do.
At the moment everything works with Windows as it is the dominant desktop OS by far.
However if you want to surf, do e-mail, do office work such as spreadsheets and letters, code stuff, play basic games (not just solitare BTW, tho that is available too for those hard-core card players out there) and play music then Linux will do the job well, and you won't need an antivirus program. Linux installs such as SUSE come with a firewall built in, take around 30 minutes to install (and nowadays most normal hardware IS supported). The dial-up connection for SUSE took me as long as it does in XP. Gentoo Linux was equally simple, once I had KDE going - but I would NOT suggest that system for a PC newbie (lovely and fast tho') (big grin). let me put this another way: I would have no hassle with shoving SUSE on my Mom's PC. Without the root password, she cannot damage the box, which she certainly can do with win98 that is running now....
On the other hand, as long as I can afford an antivirus program, and adhere to basic security, such as firewalls and spyware hunters, along with a decent browser like Firefox, I feel quite happy in XP. My focus is games, BOINC and the resultant forums, e-mail, generalised surfing, doing some work on my new website and assorted tweaking. I AM somewhat worried as to what Ole Billy is going to get up to next however. His desire to make me do what HE wants rather than what I want is slowly starting to get to me - I may end up buying a PC for the games, which never goes onto the internetand then running Linux for the connectivity.
Gray
Hi All,
I found a Linux distribution that is really cool and since I have bitching, moaning, and etc about Windblows Ihave been actively searching for a no brains distro that is a no brainer.
Well Slax works you will find it at " http://slax.linux-live.org/ ". Just download it...burn the iso image to a CD and your good to go. I want to try it on my old laptop to see what the lowest common denominator for the distribution.
Laptop is a Toshiba Satillite 1555CDS with an AMD 333MHz chip and 32Megs of ram.
...you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Gray
I can't say, regarding Linux. My (very) limited experience with it was over 2 years ago, when I sadly laid out good cash for Mandrake 7, I think. Ten days later, I still hadn't been able to even configure a dialup net connection. I don't ever want to have to be on such intimate terms with anything that doesn't involve sex, especially the innermost workings of an OS. Four years ago, I bought my first x86 PC, "sporting" WinME. Within 10 hours or less, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, upgrade, install hardware with easily-found drivers, install/uninstall software, configure GUI, play music, movies. I've since had a few days access to OS9 Mac, and the aforementioned nightmare with Mandrake (which, BTW, was reputed to be the most user-friendly distro at the time, the reason why I selected it), and neither of them was even close to being as intuitive as our much-detested Windows. Of course, WinME, being the unstable illegimate offspring of 98 that it was (and running on my shiny new HP/700Mhz Celeron/64MB RAM), crashed so often that when it was stolen 4 months later, after a fistful of re-installs (NOT restores), I almost considered it a blessing, except for the loss of the new 256MB stick of RAM which I'd just added.
I don't like to have to micromanage my rig. I've made the OS tweaks, eliminating eyecandy, unneeded services, have 3 hdds (2 80GB IDEs and a 250GB SATA), TONS of games, apps, and utilities. My Barton-core XP-M 2600 is clocked to within an eyelash of it's life, to ~2.55GHZ, crunches WUs in 17030-18030 sec, FX-53 or XP64 4000 neighborhood, on non-exotic aircooling, and if the rig locks up while it's crunching because I try to do too much sidework, or if it has a thermal shutdown, absolutely NO problem, because it just boots right back up, nothing broken, just as if nothing happened. God forbid I should have to reinstall the OS, as you like to do, Gray. I know that makes boot times super-quick and all, but what a pain to have to go back, get the updates, find the CDs to reinstall all drivers, not to mention all the games and other software to get their registry entries back on-track. We're talking a solid couple of days' work, no play. NoNoNoNo, not for me at all, lol. Gotta give the devil his due, much as I dislike M$ practices and Internet Deplorer especially, Willy Gatez and his gang have cobbled together an OS which simply does what I ask, easily. It .. just.. works.
Hello Michael
Linux has come a long way since those days (grin) - but I still want to play my games and so forth. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you need to decide what you want to do.
At the moment everything works with Windows as it is the dominant desktop OS by far.
However if you want to surf, do e-mail, do office work such as spreadsheets and letters, code stuff, play basic games (not just solitare BTW, tho that is available too for those hard-core card players out there) and play music then Linux will do the job well, and you won't need an antivirus program. Linux installs such as SUSE come with a firewall built in, take around 30 minutes to install (and nowadays most normal hardware IS supported). The dial-up connection for SUSE took me as long as it does in XP. Gentoo Linux was equally simple, once I had KDE going - but I would NOT suggest that system for a PC newbie (lovely and fast tho') (big grin). let me put this another way: I would have no hassle with shoving SUSE on my Mom's PC. Without the root password, she cannot damage the box, which she certainly can do with win98 that is running now....
On the other hand, as long as I can afford an antivirus program, and adhere to basic security, such as firewalls and spyware hunters, along with a decent browser like Firefox, I feel quite happy in XP. My focus is games, BOINC and the resultant forums, e-mail, generalised surfing, doing some work on my new website and assorted tweaking. I AM somewhat worried as to what Ole Billy is going to get up to next however. His desire to make me do what HE wants rather than what I want is slowly starting to get to me - I may end up buying a PC for the games, which never goes onto the internetand then running Linux for the connectivity.
Gray
Hi All,
I found a Linux distribution that is really cool and since I have bitching, moaning, and etc about Windblows Ihave been actively searching for a no brains distro that is a no brainer.
Well Slax works you will find it at " http://slax.linux-live.org/ ". Just download it...burn the iso image to a CD and your good to go. I want to try it on my old laptop to see what the lowest common denominator for the distribution.
Laptop is a Toshiba Satillite 1555CDS with an AMD 333MHz chip and 32Megs of ram.
Hello Greg
You should be very happy with the new system - only possible fly in the soup: I remember having serious issues getting my old internal winmodem going under Linux - I eventually went out and got a serial external, and when I did go back to XP eventually I kept it, 'cos it worked so well, even when cruching. 'Course, having an external modem kinda nullifies one of the advantages of a laptop :)
depending on where you live, you should be able to get wireless internet tho - unless you live in South Africa where the one Telco has no competition and can charge what it likes.
Hey Gray and everyone,
Well I don't see to much of a problem... this Slax version is booted from a CD, and there is no need for a harddrive. I could rewrite the config files so that the setting could be saved to a drive...but this is a way of surfing since the CD can nolonger be written to there is no chance of corruption.
This is a way to learn Linux and some of the more common app's without fear. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get it on to a thumb drive and boot the system. With the thumb drive the system will be more dynamic, and real. That is when I'll create an account for going on the internet.
For now I'll just try to get comfortable with linux commands and how things work.
RE: RE: RE: Hi Michael
)
Hello Greg
Think of Firefox as the main surfing browser, and IE just as a facility to update your win98 (actually I'm not sure for how longer MS will produce updates for win98 - seem to remember that it was near the end of its supported life)
With regard to Linux, the main thing you need to ask yourself is just how important games are to you, and before I get shot down in flames ladies and gents, please understand that I actually am a great advocate of Linux, but for the moment most of the good games (yes I know one or 2 have been ported to Linux) are still in windows.
Hardware support has come on in leaps and bounds in Linux, and there are several production packages in development - some very powerful even now (Gimp and OpenOffice come to mind). You can do a great deal more than just surf and e-mail and program in Linux these days.
However I love gaming, so for the time being I will always have Windows someplace. I have gone the dual-boot route, using Gentoo, SUSE and Ubuntu at various times, and they all worked, but as my Windows partition is NTFS, Linux cannot reliably write to it at the moment, so if I want to pass something from one to the other, it becomes a mission. I at one stage had a 5 gig Fat32 partition just for inter-system files transport to solve this problem. For simplicicty's sake I went back to Windows purely because I prefer one system on one PC, and didn't want to give up the gaming.
If you have not used Linux before, try one of the more user-friendly ones - SUSE is quite impressive - not fast but easy to install, but judging by my experience with SUSE 9.1 you will need all 5 CDs downloaded before you can do a decent install. Be warned I remember having to download a music-support package from the SUSE site once you have installed as I think they don't support MP3 playback by default - opensource remember, which uses OggVorbis music files. Try here
http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org
if you want to give it a shot and have either patient or adsl connection.
Hope this is of help
Gray
RE: RE: Hey
)
Hello Michael
I agree - there ARE bit that can come out - but IE forms such a major part of the system that you might just as well go over to Linux and be done with it - at least then (hardware permitting) you will be free of IE and have a seriously stable system
Gray
Hi Gray, & Michael, Well so
)
Hi Gray, & Michael,
Well so far I'm really enjoying Firefox...I do understand that IE is really bonded to the OS. And I'll stay with it.
In staying with the topic of this thread I think that the new Boinc may share something in common with the way Windows. Like Windblows Boinc is quite a bit larger then the old standard.
I frist used the new version on this machine when it had WindblowsXP Pro Under "Hyper Threading". The machine was proforming two WU's at a time. When I looked at my WU's, about a third of them had computational errors.
In Windblows98, the errors stop, but I sense that it was slower. So I returned to the older standerd no work errors, and it seems to be running like I first started.
Greg
RE: Hi Gray, &
)
Hello Greg
Congrats on Firefox. You just need to look at the drop-down menu where Options can be located every now and again and then go to Privacy to clear cookies, cache, password - if you wish - and history. The reason I run Firefox RC3 is because this feature has been isolated and put into a set of short-cut-keys to do this quickly. Remember to add in the following setting: type "about:config" - minus quotation marks - in the address window and hit enter. This gives you access to hidden tweaks. Look for "network.enableIDN" (again minus quotation marks) and set that to FALSE by right clicking on the TRUE word.
Re Windows BOINC - yes I think the sheer size IS an issue (at the very least for those of us on dial-up...), but as many with greater BOINC knowledge than I have mentioned, it might also be an incompatibility between the old Einstein and the new BOINC code someplace. Programing's not my forte however, so I'll just have my say and then leave the code to the experts !
Cheers - Gray
RE: ...you might just as
)
I can't say, regarding Linux. My (very) limited experience with it was over 2 years ago, when I sadly laid out good cash for Mandrake 7, I think. Ten days later, I still hadn't been able to even configure a dialup net connection. I don't ever want to have to be on such intimate terms with anything that doesn't involve sex, especially the innermost workings of an OS. Four years ago, I bought my first x86 PC, "sporting" WinME. Within 10 hours or less, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, upgrade, install hardware with easily-found drivers, install/uninstall software, configure GUI, play music, movies. I've since had a few days access to OS9 Mac, and the aforementioned nightmare with Mandrake (which, BTW, was reputed to be the most user-friendly distro at the time, the reason why I selected it), and neither of them was even close to being as intuitive as our much-detested Windows. Of course, WinME, being the unstable illegimate offspring of 98 that it was (and running on my shiny new HP/700Mhz Celeron/64MB RAM), crashed so often that when it was stolen 4 months later, after a fistful of re-installs (NOT restores), I almost considered it a blessing, except for the loss of the new 256MB stick of RAM which I'd just added.
I don't like to have to micromanage my rig. I've made the OS tweaks, eliminating eyecandy, unneeded services, have 3 hdds (2 80GB IDEs and a 250GB SATA), TONS of games, apps, and utilities. My Barton-core XP-M 2600 is clocked to within an eyelash of it's life, to ~2.55GHZ, crunches WUs in 17930-18030 sec, FX-53 or XP64 4000 neighborhood, on non-exotic aircooling, and if the rig locks up while it's crunching because I try to do too much sidework, or if it has a thermal shutdown, absolutely NO problem, because it just boots right back up, nothing broken, just as if nothing happened. God forbid I should have to reinstall the OS, as you like to do, Gray. I know that makes boot times super-quick and all, but what a pain to have to go back, get the updates, find the CDs to reinstall all drivers, not to mention all the games and other software to get their registry entries back on-track. We're talking a solid couple of days' work, no play. NoNoNoNo, not for me at all, lol. Gotta give the devil his due, much as I dislike M$ practices and Internet Deplorer especially, Willy Gatez and his gang have cobbled together an OS which simply does what I ask, easily. It .. just.. works.
(edited for zpellink and accuracy)
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
RE: RE: ...you might just
)
Hello Michael
Linux has come a long way since those days (grin) - but I still want to play my games and so forth. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you need to decide what you want to do.
At the moment everything works with Windows as it is the dominant desktop OS by far.
However if you want to surf, do e-mail, do office work such as spreadsheets and letters, code stuff, play basic games (not just solitare BTW, tho that is available too for those hard-core card players out there) and play music then Linux will do the job well, and you won't need an antivirus program. Linux installs such as SUSE come with a firewall built in, take around 30 minutes to install (and nowadays most normal hardware IS supported). The dial-up connection for SUSE took me as long as it does in XP. Gentoo Linux was equally simple, once I had KDE going - but I would NOT suggest that system for a PC newbie (lovely and fast tho') (big grin). let me put this another way: I would have no hassle with shoving SUSE on my Mom's PC. Without the root password, she cannot damage the box, which she certainly can do with win98 that is running now....
On the other hand, as long as I can afford an antivirus program, and adhere to basic security, such as firewalls and spyware hunters, along with a decent browser like Firefox, I feel quite happy in XP. My focus is games, BOINC and the resultant forums, e-mail, generalised surfing, doing some work on my new website and assorted tweaking. I AM somewhat worried as to what Ole Billy is going to get up to next however. His desire to make me do what HE wants rather than what I want is slowly starting to get to me - I may end up buying a PC for the games, which never goes onto the internetand then running Linux for the connectivity.
Gray
Gray, these days, one might
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Gray, these days, one might as well get a console for the games - they're about as powerful as PCs, more so in many cases that the average PC, can do many non-game things, and there is a better selection of games, better controllers. I read an article just yesterday in one of my newsletters, debating whether PC gaming was about to become extinct! I'm not looking forward to that, but it's not the first time that trend has been discussed.
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
RE: RE: RE: ...you
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Hi All,
I found a Linux distribution that is really cool and since I have bitching, moaning, and etc about Windblows Ihave been actively searching for a no brains distro that is a no brainer.
Well Slax works you will find it at " http://slax.linux-live.org/ ". Just download it...burn the iso image to a CD and your good to go. I want to try it on my old laptop to see what the lowest common denominator for the distribution.
Laptop is a Toshiba Satillite 1555CDS with an AMD 333MHz chip and 32Megs of ram.
Greg
RE: RE: RE: RE: ...yo
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Hello Greg
You should be very happy with the new system - only possible fly in the soup: I remember having serious issues getting my old internal winmodem going under Linux - I eventually went out and got a serial external, and when I did go back to XP eventually I kept it, 'cos it worked so well, even when cruching. 'Course, having an external modem kinda nullifies one of the advantages of a laptop :)
depending on where you live, you should be able to get wireless internet tho - unless you live in South Africa where the one Telco has no competition and can charge what it likes.
Good luck, and remember not to surf as Root...
Gray
(edit) you might want to have a look at Kubuntu, or Ubuntu both from the same group here http://www.kubuntu.org/index.php and here http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
Hey Gray and everyone, Well I
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Hey Gray and everyone,
Well I don't see to much of a problem... this Slax version is booted from a CD, and there is no need for a harddrive. I could rewrite the config files so that the setting could be saved to a drive...but this is a way of surfing since the CD can nolonger be written to there is no chance of corruption.
This is a way to learn Linux and some of the more common app's without fear. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get it on to a thumb drive and boot the system. With the thumb drive the system will be more dynamic, and real. That is when I'll create an account for going on the internet.
For now I'll just try to get comfortable with linux commands and how things work.
Greg