On 04-Jul-01 Ruleng@aol.com wrote:
Hello Everyone. My name is Norman Rule as you see. I am 70 years old, and use a Dan computer which had an i486 DX-33, since enhanced to 133Mh with an Evergreen upgrade. I have two hard disks with a total of about 650 Mb, but as yet no functional CDROM drive. I use MSDOS 6.2, enhanced with 4DOS, and I have Windows for Workgroups, which I only use for programs that demand it. I would like to try Linux as an alternative to examine its possibilities, and from reading believe my system will suffice. However, I decided to start off by trying the Italian small offering called Mulinux. I have been able to start this system either from my hard drive, or from a Boot+Root+Usr 1.772 Mb floppy. My problem is that there are several add-ons that one should be able to introduce with such titles as X11, GCC, VNC, TEX, etc. I have had continuous failure to add these, and since I only have 3 hours a month on the Net from AOL I feel that I cannot spend too much time trying to download different material in a blind attempt to solve my problems. There seem to be no useful documents to help ones first efforts. If anyone has the experience of Mulinux and the time to help me I would be very grateful. By the way, I dabble in Assembly Language and have one or two questions on that if there is anyone out there who would have time to help me. I do have a 40X CDROM drive but so far have not been able to get that to function either. I get the message that an appropriate driver cannot be found. I realise that this group is primarily interested in Linux, so I would ask for any help with that first, please. Sincere regards, Norman G. Rule
I have never heard of Mu Linux I currently use SUSE 7.0 but have heard SUSE 7.2 is very good, Most of the major distributions all include X11 gcc tex and the like (I dont know what vnc is! (is it virtual network computer?)) I should get either a standardish distribution py perchesing it or come to a linux meet and we have some new Mandrake demo distributions we could give you.
I feel you will have a hard job running the most graphics intensive desktops under linux but my main maschine is a pentium 200 MMX with 64 MB of memory and it serves as a development maschine. Although I am thinking of upgrading as I want to run some stuff thats just to slow atm.
I should start with a distribution we have all heard off and then go on from thier.
I also suggest you contact NTL to both reduce your phone costs and connect to the internet for free 24hrs a day.
Owen