Re: Re: When[emc]Spehro

>Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 19:27:51 -0600
> From: "Derek B." <hightechsystems@...>
>Subject: Re: When[emc]Spehro
> From: "Derek B." <hightechsystems@...>
>Subject: Re: When[emc]Spehro
>
>Any help or thoughts would greatly be appreciated I am new to linux but
>a have many years building computers(dos/widozxx).

The short version of the "Idiot's guide to installing and running Linux for
Windozxx gurus" might read DON'T. This would seem to be particularly
applicable to someone who has become accustomed to the speed of "home.com"
but that's just envy. (Longer version follows)

A neighbor kid called and asked if I'd help him install linux 'cause he was
sick of windows. He'd taken a year's course for certification on windows
98 and thought this ought to be a snap. So he brought his old compaq with
the 500 M harddrive, an Evergreen upgrade processor, massive video card,
and CD burner and piled it on the bench near one of mine. By the time he
got it set up he was on his third Mountain Dew.

My mandrake seems to install fairly well if you let it, but he picked the
expert mode and after about five tries, and some more caffeine was ready to
climb walls.

The fact seemed to come very clear to me that his windows approach -- dump
and reload, was counterproductive. He'd get it going and immediately start
futzing with the two competing video drivers and the display would
disappear. Reload, complain because the CD burner would install linux but
wouldn't work once linux was up. (Mandrake has a procedure for configuring
burners but you do it after the install) -- Reload.

During the three days that his computer sat on my bench, I saw a least a
dozen perfectly good working systems but it never took him long to trash
�em. Every time that he asked about something or another, I'd get down a
book or two, develop a list of possible causes and fixes, search the net a
bit, and then begin to make suggestions. Some educators call it modeling
but I'm not sure he got the message.

IMO Linux requires caffeine depravation and a rather slow, studied
approach. It is a system that you build on rather than destroy and reload.
I'd recommend putting it on a second computer. It works on old ones but
skip that customized Compaq Prolinea. Put your linux machine someplace
that you can walk away from without feeling computer withdrawal.

Or as a second possibility put it on its own hard drive but then you have
to learn a little more about LILO and be sure you have working boot
floppies for both linux and windows.

Ray