Subj : Re: unixs on a 386 To : Charles Angelich From : Russell Tiedt Date : Fri Nov 30 2001 01:55 pm Hi Charles, CA>>> Not sure I understand this reference. LINUX is not a CA>>> person and cares little about you, me, or anything else. CA>>> ;-) RT>> Well you paragraph prior to that seemed to imply that RT>> warranty/lack of warranty was somehow coupled/connected to RT>> Linux, unless I misunderstood you. CA> You misunderstood. I was referring to a warranty on each piece CA> of hardware and that they would work in unison to perform the CA> required task(s). Any reasonably compatable piece of hardware works in my experience, tho the poor/cheap types did not and still do not perform to spec. You Yanks have a saying, or a few in this regard. You get what you pay for, nothing more nor less, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. From my point of veiw, you get results depending on the amount off effort you put into your task at hand, whether it be building a box or installing and running an OS. You are not going to get more out of it than you put in. If you are not prepared to put any effort in, then don't be supprised when you don't get satisfactory results returned. Choice is yours. RT>>>> Besides, in this neck off the woods, back then one only RT>>>> ever read of the above systems in imported computer RT>>>> journals, or magazines if you will. CA>>> Yes Gateway and Dell grew to be major players but began by CA>>> doing mail-order only sales. RT>>>> You built your own boxes or had a dealer build them for RT>>>> you, or you didn't buy computers, those where your RT>>>> choices. CA> Or mail order, yes. No, not an option those days. CA>>> In the USA this would describe the situation prior to IBM CA>>> entering the market with the PC and Radio Shack's TRS80. CA>>> From that time onward custom building was optional and not CA>>> really encouraged here anymore by any business. RT>> Bad pox to them! CA> Where I am I would not want people buying pieces of a computer CA> thinking they could bring it back to me if they couldn't make CA> it work. I would have to check each returned part for damage CA> and would go bankrupt in the process. Helps if you know who you are dealing with I suppose. CA>>> "Worked great" and "most stable box" does not describe CA>>> something that deserved to no longer exist. I find this CA>>> abandonment a bit confusing. RT>> Do you value your time? CA> Not in the way others seem to value theirs, no. Your problem, not mine. RT>> or don't you understand the term productivity? CA> "Worked great" and "most stable box" seems it would also allow CA> the user to be productive? Would you understand that a 386 can be productive, that a 486 can be more productive and a 1.5 GHz box even more productive in the same time span. Time, is of value here, as it apparently is not with you. RT>> or does the term competetiveness not mean anything to you. CA> Competitive doesn't mean very much to me, no. Quality means CA> more to me than competition. It's one of my flaws. :-\ Well with a faster machine one can continue to deliver quality work, while drinking less cups of coffee while waiting for it to finish the current task and allowing you to continue with the next. RT>> At that stage I did a lot of graphics work, a faster RT>> machine mean't I could do an extra assignment every day, RT>> and spend less time while doing so. My time is valubale to RT>> me, if not to others. CA> As it should, there is not an unlimited supply. By impication above you have stated otherwise, as I doudt you are immortal. RT>> Does the above make sense to you or not. CA> I understand the drain graphics imposes on computers. I also CA> have noticed that newer graphics apps seldom try to maintain CA> the same user interface even when they are authored by the same CA> company. They move entire menus, menu items, rename menu items, CA> and make up some of them as they go along. So what does that mean other than needing to continue your dilegence of getting the most out of what you have available. CA> I have not found a graphics app on an Intel machine that seemed CA> to be written with productivity in mind. Until recently there wheren't any Intel plaforms capable of doing / competing with other platforms in the graphics arena, never mind the software, the only advantage Intel platform had was it was CHEAPER by a lage margin. RT>>>> Really, you keep disparaging those who claim to have run CA> Anything I could write, taken out of context, could alter into CA> an entirely different subject. True, and you seem to be able to help that along admirably as well. CA> I was discussing the type of 386 hardware that a person might CA> have in their home when they read "Sure LINUX can install on a CA> 386". Well, it sure installed and ran very well on the 386 box I have previously described, which was the system I had at home. There was no way I was going to be allowed to experiment with it at work then, tho I can and do get away with installing Linux on "work" boxes at the present time. CA> People who decide beforehand to try an install on a 386 and CA> seek out one that has enough memory, large enough hard drive, CA> and a CD reader are not the same person who just happens to CA> have an old one in their home. CA> Read backwards for about a week in the LINUX echo and you will CA> find replies to someone who want to put LINUX on his XT. At CA> least one reply lists URLs to mini-linux without bothering to CA> mention XT's don't execute LINUX. The bulk of the replies and CA> side-discussions posted there as we speak are really not CA> helping a newbie who doesn't know when they are omitting CA> important data from the discussion(s). People like the idea of Linux, and don't want to use anything else, if tthey can run Linux on there XT, as Linux (in standard form) never ever ran on anything below a 386, they cannot, there are other *nix system that they can try and see if that floats their boat. CA>>> I've even read through the bulk of that boring tedious CA>>> sourceforg.net website and it's related links. Try that CA>>> for self-flagulation. Try just the `poplular' so-called CA>>> mini-LINUX mentioned frequently in echo messages. ELKS, CA>>> mulinux, monkey-linux, doslinux, etc. and see what is CA>>> required and what is really there. RT>> All the bog standard Linux versions that where current at RT>> the time worked, I personally installed Slackware, RedHat RT>> and Debian in that order on my i386DX33. CA> I believe you if you say you did you did. I've just eaten CA> dinner, and am feeling passive. ;-) Glad to hear it. They also all came on one CD-ROM set I imported from the USA from a company called Info-Magic, so I was free to try them. CA> Makes me wonder why, if it was as you say, there are so many CA> mini-linux projects attempting to get it onto a 386 that are CA> not completed as yet and seem to be having problems finishing CA> what they set out to do? Are they not being told where to find CA> a working version or are they just insane zealot geeks? They found they had no reason to re-invent the wheeel maybe? CA> I cannot prove you wrong. I assume these systems no longer CA> exist? Unfortunately not, but should you aquire such a system, feel free to bring it around and I will install Linux on it for you. RT>> Seems that the dealers flog you crowd a great deal of RT>> dumped goods there or what, maybe the crowd I deal with are RT>> as picky as myself what I spend my money on. CA> Packard Bell used to be popular in stores here if that tells CA> you anything. Yeah, if you give me one, I'll sell it, that is if it is worth selling, or give it to someone who is capable of looking after it, so that I do not need to support it. RT>> Never combined any parts from different distro's, I might RT>> be patient, but I am not totally stupid either, and any one RT>> who puts bits and pieces together from various distros has RT>> as much sense as someone who willy-nilly combines bits of RT>> WIN3.1, WIN95, and WINNT and expexts it to work. CA>>> Nothing to be ashamed of - most would brag. Like I have stated elsewhere, I value my time, I have nothing to be ashamed of, niether do I have time to build an OS to run on some wayout piece of hardware. CA>>> But - not appropriate to tell a newbie "Sure LINUX CA>>> installs on an 80386". This is misleading in the extreme CA>>> IMO. Every time I say to a "newbie" that Linux will run on a 386, I go to the trouble of defining the system that I used, tho I have a very strong suspicion, Linux could be made to run on even "lesser" 386'es, I have not done it, so cannot vouch for the lesser 386'es. CA> --8<--cut RT>> All I had to do was put an "append" line into "lilo.conf" RT>> for Linux to be able to see and use the CD-ROM (2x) RT>> attached to a Media Vision PAS16 Spectrum sound card. This RT>> was documented in the SCSI How-To. CA> I was under the impression most sound card CD drives were CA> IDE? No idea, the Media Vision ProAudio Spectrum has a Trantor SCSI build in. RT>> Lot of them do, bog standard Distro's. Looking for hybrids- RT>> what are they? CA> Either Maurice or Pascal in the LINUX echo could tell you about CA> hyrbrid versions of LINUX better than I ever could. They build their own special purpose distro's, so would I, if my time allowed. Hybrib to me implies matching two or more things/items similar enough to be usable and the results in my experience are seldom usable, never mind satisfactory. CA>>> If you can't find even one in the entire Internet or on CA>>> FIDO or usenet how would you convince yourself that no one CA>>> lied, no one exaggerated? Would you think yourself just a CA>>> fool who cannot find the obvious? RT>> If so many others did it and you cannot, mayhap you lack RT>> the motivation or competence to do so. From my point of RT>> view no other reasons exist. CA> There are other reasons and I did list them. Again, your choice. CA> --8<--cut CA>>> The 80386 you describe would've been considered "server CA>>> class" hardware, not a typical purchase. RT>> Round here it was a typical purchase, anything less was RT>> considered not worth bothering with. CA> I guess I would have to ask where `around here' is? Same as my origin line shows, the city of Bloemfontein, the province (state) of the Free State, in South Africa. RT>>>> Mmmm... helps when you have decent drivers for all the RT>>>> hardware you have in a box, really. CA>>> Up to a point, yes. The existence of Plug-N-Play has CA>>> encouraged the manufacture of questionable hardware CA>>> because the OS "finds" the driver for you. Winmodems CA>>> would've failed in the market place without support from CA>>> Plug-N-Play IMO. RT>> You mean without MS Windows surely? CA> No, I don't and don't call me Shirley. ;-) Shirley? CA> Rockwell tried to sell similar modems to DOS users earlier. Mmm.... well once again, you get what you pay for, nothing more, and not a whit less. Russell --- Msged/NT TE 05 * Origin: Rusty's BBS - Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa (5:7105/1) .