The PC is portmapping the universe...

[Van]

cparker wrote: "Linux is so much easier... yeah I know folks are afraid of it..."

Talk about irony. It seems like only yesterday I was hearing how Linux required a tech to install, yadayadayada....

You still need a tech to install it, I've tried installing ubuntu with its install helper and it was asking me for hardware details I had no way of knowing. When it becomes as easy to install as a mac or windows os then it'll be more widely accepted but until then its still for the more geeky than geek to tinker with.

 

[14karat]

Really haven't messed with Ubuntu much. I did load it as a 3rd boot option for a while, but finally just reclaimed the space.
We use RedHat (now moving to Oracle) at work, so at home I opt for Fedora.
Not sure what hardware options you are speaking of that it asked for, but I have had issues in the past with different video cards... seems to be the biggest problem with the installs (aside from a 'WinModem'!) I know that it takes a while for the Linux drivers to be released for new hardware... mostly because the hardware makers are slow to release the hardware details to the support groups (or in some cases, never release them...)
The nature of the beast, I guess.
Oddly we've had issues lately at work with Windows installs on the newer hardware.
The Windows support folk here have been having lots of fun.
As for my stuff at home, I guess you could call it experience or just luck, but I've had a pretty solid config that I've stuck with now for 3 years with no issues...
---
Oh, also, as far as antiquated stuff... the first typesetter I used (back when I worked in a local newspaper) output to yellow paper tape... no monitor.
Tape was taken from the terminal and manually ran through a film processor.
Once you had the film output, you had to either manually cut in the corrections, or just retype the whole thing and hope you didn't make more mistakes...
DOH!!
And if there are any folks out there that worked in newspapers waaaay back when (if you can honestly relate to the terms 'Upper Case' and 'Lower Case' without using Google to know what I'm talking about)... I still, to this day (well once-in-a-while), run a Chandler & Price handclapper (dated 1892) in my dad's print shop... mostly for numbering carbonless jobs now since everything else is offset and digital.
Dad was a Linotype mechanic back in his day. No, I'm not that old, but he is...

 

[navychop]

Linotype! Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. I remember working on one, but I sure can't remember where.

And I haven't a clue what happened to the Wang mini-computers we once had in the Navy.

 

[14karat]

Dad's still got his Linotype tech book. He told me that the inventor, Mergen..whatever his name was... (google it...) died a nutcase.
After seeing how the thing actually worked, I could probably understand...
There is a limit to be had with only mechanics...

 

[Foxbat]

Ahh... The days when "Cut and Paste" referred to an actual physical act, usually with an X-Acto knife and hot wax.

 

[Van]

It was asking for information about the hard drive wich I didnt know, I believe it was something about the platters and something about another device that I dont remember. The biggest problem I had was never being able to get it off the computer and when ever I would boot up the pc would ask me if I wanted to use ubuntu or windows.

 

[14karat]

Ahhh... that was Grub (boot loader) doing it's thing. It can be done away with fairly easy, but I can understand the frustration if you've never dealt with it before...
Odd that it would ask about the HD specs. It's been quite a while (read - several years) since I've had to pass any of those in an installation...
I may grab a copy of Ubuntu just to see how it compares to Fedora now...

 

[cparker]

...I may grab a copy of Ubuntu just to see how it compares to Fedora now...

Kinda funny. I used Redhat a long time ago and then Fedora. It was still kinda geeky back when I used either of those. And recently I installed Fedora again to see if it had changed much... I removed it after about a week of fiddling with it. I use Ubuntu. And honestly.... even though I work with computers all day long... I use Ubuntu because it's easy.

Van, I'm not sure what it was asking you about hard drives and platters.... maybe partitions? Like... where to you want this installed? That does require a little reading before hand if you're going to keep it on the machine. You don't want it to wipe your windows install. I started out with 2 hard drives and had one for windows and one for Ubuntu. So I just told the installer to use the second hard drive, accepted defaults, and away we went. The Ubuntu installer sees that Windows partition and sets it up with GRUB so you can choose which one you want. If you delete the Ubuntu partition, you still have GRUB bootloader as it was probably installed into the Master Boot record of the boot hard drive.

To remove GRUB you just boot your Windows CD and choose to REPAIR an existing installation. It will rewrite the MBR with the windows bootloader and then GRUB is gone as well. I think there's even an option to JUST do that. It doesn't mess with your windows install and start it over from scratch again. Just fixes teh MBR and overwrites GRUB.

Obtain a bootable Windows XP CD, and use it to boot.
wait for all the MS messages until you get the first prompt.
Choose R to repair an existing installation.
It will search and prompt for the Windows installation, probably showing:
1) C:\WINDOWS
Choose 1, and it asks for the Admin password. (If you never set one just hit Enter) then you should get a prompt:
C:\WINDOWS>
Now do this:
C:\WINDOWS> CD ..
C:\> FIXBOOT C:
C:\> FIXMBR
C:\> BOOTCFG /rebuild

After the BOOTCFG, it asked me if I wanted to add the Installation it found, and to be safe I answered "Y".
But the original boot.ini was intact, so that was actually not necessary - I had two entries in boot.ini after that, but that's an easy fix after you restart Windows

 

[14karat]

I used Mandrake for a couple of years before we started using RedHat at work. That's when I switched to Fedora at home just so I wouldn't have alot of surprises. And, like anything else, it took a bit of getting used to.
I know to anyone coming from a Windows environment that the plethora of Linux distributions out there can be mind boggling, getting around hardware issues, then you've got the Gnome/KDE decision... It does take a while to get your hands around it...
BUT - when (or if) you finally get it right:
[14karat@tinytim] uptime
16:36:22 up 380 days, 20:41, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.09, 0.10

 

[Van]

Noy meaning to hijack the thread further but what would be good to put on an imac gen 2?

 

[14karat]

Honestly, I'll be the first to admit that I know NIL about a Mac, I've just never been around one... I do know they've had some serious CPU power in them in the past...
I'm thinking you mean what Linux distro will work on the iMac? Wasn't YellowDog geared toward PPC? If the G2 is a PPC... this is really getting out of my field...
I know it runs on the PS3 cell processor (and as soon as I get the DVD drive fixed on mine I'm giving it a try)...
Anyway, it's here if you want more info... Terra Soft -- Linux for PowerStation, Playstation, PS3, QS22, Apple PowerPC, and IBM, AMCC, and Freescale Power architecture chips.

 

[Van]

Im giving ubuntu a try by using wubi as the parent, next will be the imac with wich ever will work best on it.

 

[KHJ0728]

Interrupt and DMA Jumpers

I am responding to the poster talking about interrupt and DMA jumpers. we may not be talking about the same thing but if its what i am talking about then it was a pain. I am 21 and my first computer was in 1996 when i was about 8 or 9. It came with Windows 95. I really had no clue what i was doing and the darn thing crashed and had to be reinstalled almost every 3 or 4 months. Every time i reinstalled it would take care of most of the hardware like it was supposed to but there was always a bus or some piece of hardware where an interrupt or a dma jumper or an irq number was always conflicting with another device and wouldnt function properly. I cant count the amount of times i just playing around would mess around with that stuff and configure it until the two devices played nice with each other. Had no clue what i was dealing with until ive gotten into college for computers now and they talked about that stuff and people my age around me had never heard of it and i got to proclaim "I was screwing up my computer and having to fix that when i was 8"

 

[14karat]

KHJ0728, not sure if you mean fiddling with the settings in Device Mgr or on the hardware itself.
Back before plug and pray was conceived every expansion card in a PC was configured using hardware jumpers. Some cards replaced the jumpers with DIP switches which made things easier since you could use a ballpoint pen to make the changes rather than a pair of needle-nose pliers and take a chance on dropping a jumper and having to chase it out of the case.
In '87 I built a 286SX (NO not a 386SX- yes there REALLY was such a thing) machine as a server (had a monster 20MB hard drive! Remember MFMs?) and networked 6 other PCs (IBM PC-XTs) via serial ports. We added 3 dual serial cards in the 286 and had to make them all play nicely together (and they ran at 115K baud!), which required some pretty unique IRQ configurations... this was with IBM DOS (3.36 if memory serves - I know 4 was a POS.)
Keep in mind, there was no Windows OS... and we let the cat take care of the mouse...
..."I was screwing up my computer and having to fix that when i was 8"...
You should do well - experience is the best teacher!