Hi, I've got a serious question for you guys: Would you say that "opensuse 10.x/ppc on an old g3 or g4 mac" is a good idea for someone who has NO computer experience at all, and is ... well, old. Background: A computer for my mom, to send mails and browse the web. She has no experience with computers at all, so no matter what i give her, i'll have to do support for it. And right now I might be able to wrestle an old mac (g3 or g4 i think) out of the greedy hands of my companies basement storeroom where it sits unused, collecting dust (and maybe worse). And since I have no clue about macos, it will most likely be running opensuse/ppc + KDE 3.5.x. Ist that a good idea, or am I digging my own grave here? bye, MH -- Die unaufgeforderte Zusendung einer Werbemail an Privatleute verstößt gegen §1 UWG und §823 I BGB (Beschluß des LG Berlin vom 2.8.1998 Az: 16 O 201/98). Jede kommerzielle Nutzung der übermittelten persönlichen Daten sowie deren Weitergabe an Dritte ist ausdrücklich untersagt!
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 10:02, Mathias Homann wrote:
Hi,
I've got a serious question for you guys:
Would you say that "opensuse 10.x/ppc on an old g3 or g4 mac" is a good idea for someone who has NO computer experience at all, and is ... well, old.
Background: A computer for my mom, to send mails and browse the web. She has no experience with computers at all, so no matter what i give her, i'll have to do support for it. And right now I might be able to wrestle an old mac (g3 or g4 i think) out of the greedy hands of my companies basement storeroom where it sits unused, collecting dust (and maybe worse). And since I have no clue about macos, it will most likely be running opensuse/ppc + KDE 3.5.x.
Ist that a good idea, or am I digging my own grave here?
bye, MH
Let me start off by saying I have minimal experience with the PPC end of SUSE... I would say, though, that its a great idea. Your mom probably won't deviate from what you tell her, ie: "Use KMail, Konquerer/Firefox, and DigiKam", so she probably won't run into oddities. I would recommend though, that you remove packages and daemons that are unnecessary for a base installation. KDE will appear very friendly and usable, but it also can be a resource hog on older machines, like any modern GUI. Removing some of the back end items that she has no use/need for will go a long way to giving her an enjoyable computing experience :) Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 10:21:39AM -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
Let me start off by saying I have minimal experience with the PPC end of SUSE...
The installation is less user friendly than on the mainstream architectures, but once that's done it's just another linux with KDE. What you may run into: - no flash, no realplayer, no acrobat (use kpdf), no java plugin - invest in a 2 or 3 button mouse (standard USB mice should work) - when you do telephone support, be aware that the keyboard looks differently ;-), and check if the keyboard shortcuts you want to be available (if any) do actually work. cheers, Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH
Hello, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:
- no flash, no realplayer, no acrobat (use kpdf), no java plugin
RealPlayer is there, so she can listen to MP3 :) roxen# pwd /srv/ftp/pub/suse/i386/10.1/SUSE-Linux10.1-Beta2-Extra/suse/ppc roxen# ls -l total 12250 -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 456 Jan 25 15:24 MD5SUMS -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 4676866 Jan 24 05:09 RealPlayer-10.0.5-11.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 96070 Jan 23 23:48 amarok-helix-1.3.8-5.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 42921 Jan 23 23:48 amarok-helix-backend-1.3.8-5.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 454423 Jan 24 20:10 kernel-default-nongpl-2.6.16_rc1_git3-4.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 4775970 Jan 23 01:13 opera-8.51-8.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 1282976 Jan 23 01:34 xv-3.10a-1080.ppc.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 659 50 1086847 Jan 23 01:34 xv-debuginfo-3.10a-1080.ppc.rpm Bye, -- CzP http://peter.czanik.hu/
Hello, Mathias Homann wrote:
Background: A computer for my mom, to send mails and browse the web.
It all depends on what pages does she want to browse. E-mail is no trouble at all (I use it daily), and web sites look the same as on other platforms, with some exceptions. But these exceptions might be problematic: there is no Flash and there is no Java browser plugin for Linux PPC. Bye, -- CzP http://peter.czanik.hu/
Am Mittwoch, 1. Februar 2006 16:35 schrieb Peter Czanik:
Hello,
Mathias Homann wrote:
Background: A computer for my mom, to send mails and browse the web.
It all depends on what pages does she want to browse. E-mail is no trouble at all (I use it daily), and web sites look the same as on other platforms, with some exceptions. But these exceptions might be problematic: there is no Flash and there is no Java browser plugin for Linux PPC. Bye,
truth be said, she doesnt know (yet) ;) fact is, I sweet-talked her into getting a 2mbit dsl line (yes she doesn't have a computer yet), with included VoIP flatrate so that she doesn't have to find the cheapest call-by-call long distance plan from the newspaper (where the listings are painfully inaccurate) anymore, which in fact IS cheaper than what she pays for phone fees right now... Now i though i could hook her up with a cheap box for browsing and email, because every time she needs a train schedule she calls me to look it up for her, and ever so often she hits a phone hotline where the IVR tells her to send an email... So right now i might be able to scrounge an old G4 mac (you know, the ones that look like the german playing card symbol "karo" from the side) at work, and because i couldn't help her at all with Mac OS, i thought OSS/ppc would be better. Which comes back to one basic question, does the apple airport module work on OSS/ppc, and can you do WPA with it? bye, MH -- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 07:27:10AM +0100, Mathias Homann wrote:
Which comes back to one basic question, does the apple airport module work on OSS/ppc, and can you do WPA with it?
Old airport cards should work I think, newer ones ("airport express") are WIP last I heard. For details I highly recommend the suse-ppc mailing list, subscribable at http://www.suse.com/en/private/support/online_help/mailinglists/ Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH
Sonja Krause-Harder
Old airport cards should work I think,
Yes, they do (modprobe airport), tested with 10.1 beta2 on an iBook (G3). -- Karl Eichwalder R&D / Documentation SUSE Linux Products GmbH Key fingerprint = B2A3 AF2F CFC8 40B1 67EA 475A 5903 A21B 06EB 882E
On Thursday 02 February 2006 11:43, Lothar Werzinger wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Wrong address. "To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org" Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:56 -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
On Thursday 02 February 2006 11:43, Lothar Werzinger wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Wrong address.
"To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org"
Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
How much easier can it be made, click on the link at the bottom of every email you get from the list. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
On Thursday 02 February 2006 12:15, Kenneth Schneider wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:56 -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
On Thursday 02 February 2006 11:43, Lothar Werzinger wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Wrong address.
"To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org"
Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
How much easier can it be made, click on the link at the bottom of every email you get from the list.
Which is why forums are easier! No unsubscribing! Sorry all, had to :D Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 12:23 -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
On Thursday 02 February 2006 12:15, Kenneth Schneider wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:56 -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
On Thursday 02 February 2006 11:43, Lothar Werzinger wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Wrong address.
"To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org"
Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
How much easier can it be made, click on the link at the bottom of every email you get from the list.
Which is why forums are easier! No unsubscribing!
Sorry all, had to :D
Might be easier to un-subscribe only because it is not necessary but it is much harder to see ALL of the questions asked. How many are asked that you never see that you might have been able to answer? Now is the time to drop all of the mailing lists Vs. forum debate BS and get this list back to the matter at hand which is helping people with problems with the new beta versions being released. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
Am Mittwoch, 1. Februar 2006 16:02 schrieb Mathias Homann:
Hi,
I've got a serious question for you guys:
Would you say that "opensuse 10.x/ppc on an old g3 or g4 mac" is a good idea for someone who has NO computer experience at all, and is ... well, old.
Background: A computer for my mom, to send mails and browse the web. She has no experience with computers at all, so no matter what i give her, i'll have to do support for it. And right now I might be able to wrestle an old mac (g3 or g4 i think) out of the greedy hands of my companies basement storeroom where it sits unused, collecting dust (and maybe worse). And since I have no clue about macos, it will most likely be running opensuse/ppc + KDE 3.5.x.
Ist that a good idea, or am I digging my own grave here?
_IF_ you want your mom using a computer then in my opinion a Linux-Computer will be the best choice. I don't know how opensuse runs on a Mac machine, but if it runs like on a PC i guess you'll have to do less support than ith another OS, because Linux appears much more "logical" to me it let's you decide what and how you want to install. I just installed opensuse on an old laptop for my 70 yrs young mother some weeks ago. Althoug I've made a quite full install I removed "everything" from the desktop, just leaving an icon for Kmail, Mozilla and OpenOffice-Writer. In Kmail I also removed all the icons from the menues she probably would not use. I can still bring them back if necessary. I explained only the "musts" and told her to use only the program icons and ignore the other menus. As you can see, I am still alive :-) Daniel
participants (8)
-
Daniel Bauer -
Joseph M. Gaffney -
Karl Eichwalder -
Kenneth Schneider -
Lothar Werzinger -
Mathias Homann -
Peter Czanik -
Sonja Krause-Harder