If you enter "fire extinguisher" into Google, you will discover (among tons of stuff) that there is a program called, of course, Fire Extinguisher, which will let you use your email from the office, even if your company has firewalled it out. (It's not free. It's not even reasonable, in my opinion.) Then there is the UNIX fire extinguisher. You'll se it at http://www.cs.bris.as.uk/~henkm/extinguisher.html You may not agree with the poster's comment, however. Just something to lighten up a very serious (and usually very helpful) group! --doug
I've been an avid experimenter with Linux since 1997, having tried out Redhat 5.2 and 6.0 before finally settling with SuSE. I've purchased full versions of SuSE 6.3, 7.0 and 7.2 using these as workstations for word processing and limited spreadsheet data working. Last September I noticed that Linux was being offered at a community college in the town where I live. I signed up for the class. The text being used is, "Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 hours". It comes with a cd-rom that contains Mandrake 7.1 . This was the distribution which we used for the first 8 weeks. Each member of the class was given a 1.2 gb removable hard drive that docked with the college computers, onto these the students loaded Mandrake. A couple of students brought their own laptops, usually setup as dual Windows/Linux systems. I brought my ThinkPad 760ED set up as a dual Mandrake/Suse machine. For the first 2 months of the class the professor would use the Mandrake system as an example for the lessons that he taught. Mandrake worked fairly well for this; using vi to edit from the command line, basic file structure, etc. Last week we were given the option of installing the system of our choice...all of the students had seen my SuSE system running KDE2 with a nifty xplanet background, or the Gnome system and marveled at the new Nautilus window manager. So last week we had 12 installations of SuSE 7.2 going on. None of the installations finished in a working KDE desktop without a significant amount of package finageling. The only installation which could be done on these machines, (300mhz PentiumII w/128mb of ram) was the minimal one which dropped the operator into the alien landscape of "Windowmaker". Up until fitting my ThinkPad with a 9gb hard drive 6 months ago, I had been using SuSE 7.0 which offered the installer the option of KDE1 instead of KDE2. KDE1 uses significantly less HD space and can be run more efficiently on slower processors with less ram. I had assumed that this option were still available in 7.2 having noticed that in Yast2 under Misc, RC-Config Editor, KDE and KDE2 are offered as two separate desktop options in addition to Gnome. I had planned on suggesting this option to my fellow students so that they would be able to easily do an installation with room to spare for other applications. This option in Yast2 did not work. I also was not able to find a method to install KDE1 using the old standby Yast1. Is it possible to run KDE1 with SuSE 7.2? Is KDE1 included on one of the 7 cds that make up this distribution? If not why was it discontinued? Many Linux users are drawn to this system because it runs well on smaller and older machines. The software writers in Redmond seem to be working hand in glove with the hardware manufacturers so that each new update of Windows, each new release needs a slightly faster machine to run it. I would strongly suggest that SuSE consider including a **reasonable** minimal installation option. KDE1 runs along just fine on a 486 w/oem RAM. The majority of the students in the class, by the end of the 3 hour session, were finishing installations of Redhat, or were looking at the Mandrake website trying to find out if they could get a current release before next weeks class having given up on SuSE and the minimal Windowmaker GUI. Most of these students were the young ones; raised on Win95 and Win98 lockstep pablum. They are not bad students, or lazy computer science majors...it is just the way that they are. They appear to like the idea of running Linux on their older machines, but don't want to spend time fine tuning the installation. I'd suggest that the organizers of the SuSE distribution figure out how to attract this class of users, otherwise they will be buying their Linus from the Mandrakes and the Redhats. In short, 2 things... 1) I love SuSE Linux. I hope that SuSE maintains the spirit of internationalism that attracted me to them in the first place. 2) Is it possible to install KDE1 from the 7.2 distribution? If not, I'd strongly suggest including it in future distributions. P.S. ...3) What ever happened to SampLin? It was a kick ass little serial data acquisition program from eastern Europe.
On Tue, Nov 13, Glenn Hollowell wrote:
None of the installations finished in a working KDE desktop without a significant amount of package finageling. The only installation which could be done on these machines, (300mhz PentiumII w/128mb of ram) was the minimal one which dropped the operator into the alien landscape of "Windowmaker".
How much disk space did these machines have?
Up until fitting my ThinkPad with a 9gb hard drive 6 months ago, I had been using SuSE 7.0 which offered the installer the option of KDE1 instead of KDE2. KDE1 uses significantly less HD space and can be run more efficiently on slower processors with less ram. I had assumed that this option were still available in 7.2 having noticed that in Yast2 under Misc, RC-Config Editor, KDE and KDE2 are offered as two separate desktop options in addition to Gnome. I had planned on suggesting this option to my fellow students so that they would be able to easily do an installation with room to spare for other applications.
This option in Yast2 did not work. I also was not able to find a method to install KDE1 using the old standby Yast1.
Is it possible to run KDE1 with SuSE 7.2? Is KDE1 included on one of the 7 cds that make up this distribution? If not why was it discontinued?
No, SuSE Linux 7.2 did not include a "full" KDE1 environment. It only shipped with some KDE1 apps (which had not been ported to KDE2 yet but where considered useful) including the required libraries to run them inside of KDE2. The reason is simple: disk space constraints and the fact, that KDE1 is not maintained anymore.
Many Linux users are drawn to this system because it runs well on smaller and older machines. The software writers in Redmond seem to be working hand in glove with the hardware manufacturers so that each new update of Windows, each new release needs a slightly faster machine to run it.
Well, the same is true for KDE or GNOME - both evolve over time and new functionality/eyecandy requires more resources. If you need to run Linux or Windows on an older System, you may have to make some tradeoffs and stick with an older version.
I would strongly suggest that SuSE consider including a **reasonable** minimal installation option. KDE1 runs along just fine on a 486 w/oem RAM.
But it is a dead end because it is not maintained anymore. If you need a nice looking desktop with low memory footprint, have a look at "XFCE", which is included in SuSE Linux as well.
The majority of the students in the class, by the end of the 3 hour session, were finishing installations of Redhat, or were looking at the Mandrake website trying to find out if they could get a current release before next weeks class having given up on SuSE and the minimal Windowmaker GUI. Most of these students were the young ones; raised on Win95 and Win98 lockstep pablum. They are not bad students, or lazy computer science majors...it is just the way that they are. They appear to like the idea of running Linux on their older machines, but don't want to spend time fine tuning the installation. I'd suggest that the organizers of the SuSE distribution figure out how to attract this class of users, otherwise they will be buying their Linus from the Mandrakes and the Redhats.
I still don't see the reason, why the installation of KDE2 failed. What exactly was the problem? Not enough disk space?
In short, 2 things... 1) I love SuSE Linux. I hope that SuSE maintains the spirit of internationalism that attracted me to them in the first place.
Thank you - we try hard :)
2) Is it possible to install KDE1 from the 7.2 distribution? If not, I'd strongly suggest including it in future distributions.
Sorry, but this is not going to happen. Do you ask Microsoft to still include Windows 3.11 in their Windows XP boxes? Bye, LenZ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lenz Grimmer SuSE GmbH mailto:grimmer@suse.de Schanzaeckerstr. 10 http://www.suse.de/~grimmer/ 90443 Nuernberg, Germany The wise learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
How much disk space did these machines have?
I believe 1.2 gigabytes per removeable HD.
.....I would strongly suggest that SuSE consider including a
**reasonable**
minimal installation option. KDE1 runs along just fine on a 486 w/oem RAM.
But it is a dead end because it is not maintained anymore. If you need a nice looking desktop with low memory footprint, have a look at "XFCE", which is included in SuSE Linux as well.
But is XFCE agressively maintained? Wouldn't it be possible to include a nice stable version of KDE1 that is maintained at a minimal level just as XFCE is?
I still don't see the reason, why the installation of KDE2 failed. What exactly was the problem? Not enough disk space?
Not enough disk space. One student managed to eek out an installation by going through and manually culling out packages to the point where a KDE2 installation could be made.
In short, 2 things... 1) I love SuSE Linux. I hope that SuSE maintains the spirit of internationalism that attracted me to them in the first place.
Thank you - we try hard :)
2) Is it possible to install KDE1 from the 7.2 distribution? If not, I'd strongly suggest including it in future distributions.
Sorry, but this is not going to happen. Do you ask Microsoft to still include Windows 3.11 in their Windows XP boxes?
That is exactly my point. Microsoft is a driving force in the consumerization of PC Hardware. One of the core arguements frequently made for switching to Linux systems is that it does run well on older machines. This is one reason why it has taken hold internationally and in developing remote regions...places that do not have access to the latest hardware from Intel or AMD can still have reasonably well running machines. Windows 3.1 was primitive even when it was new. It was the best that was available then. Now we have more and better programmers who can write code that runs smooter on these machines. I'm just suggesting including a minimal KDE1 installation option for end users who have less than the recommended 1.5gb, or 64 mb ram. Possibly at the expense of one of the other non-Gnome/KDE GUIs that are the current minimum system GUI defaults. Thanks again for a great distribution. Glenn
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--- Glenn Hollowell
But is XFCE agressively maintained?
Yes.
Wouldn't it be possible to include a nice stable version of KDE1 that is maintained at a minimal level just as XFCE is?
No. Which part of "dead" do you not understand? <best John Cleese:> This project is deceased. It is an ex-project. This project is no more. I suppose you could dig around in some older SuSE disks, install some whacked-out compatibility libraries, and use older SuSE RPMs of KDE, but why? Get a decent window manager and lose the bloat.
I'm just suggesting including a minimal KDE1 installation option for end users who have less than the recommended 1.5gb, or 64 mb ram.
With such "minimal" system constraints, I'm afraid that keeping up with the SuSE's is not a valid option. Drop in SuSE 6.4, get the security updates, and leave it alone. SuSE may not be an ideal distribution for you, either. On my box at home, I have the entirety of XFree86-4.1.0, the core of KDE 2.2(.1?), lots of development tools and libraries (LOTS!), a recent glibc and Linux-2.4.13. My disk consumption (minus /home, /usr/local, and /usr/src) is less than 500MB; my distribution is Debian. It doesn't have the polish that SuSE has (not by a LONG shot), but the Debian developers have a penchant for only installing what you need to install when you need to install it, as opposed to SuSE's appearant philosophy of "Give it to 'em, just in case they need it." And as good as YOU is, it's only the tip of the iceberg for package maintenence... I don't want to detract from SuSE's business, nor degrade the excellent work that they do, but I think it's time that you start exploring other options. ===== -- -=|JP|=- Hit me! - http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/ Jon Pennington | Debian 2.3 -o) cowboydren @ yahoo . com | Auto Enthusiast /\\ Kansas City, MO, USA | ICQ UIN 69 67 29 31 _\_V __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com
participants (4)
-
Doug McGarrett -
Glenn Hollowell -
Jon Pennington -
Lenz Grimmer