Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1587 mails)

[kingr@xxxxxxxxxx (Richard King)]

Hi Samy:

I'm already thinking along the lines you suggest.  I've also just inherited
two 486 dx2 66mHz servers with about 16 Gb of scsi drive on each.  From my
NT workstation, using Samba,  I can access the drives on the server from NT
so fast  you'd think they were local drives.......  I was also impressed by
the fact that a relative newbie like myself - who has never even seen a scsi
drive/adapter before - could get the system all setup and running with very
few problems (using Redhat 5)  I suspect SuSE would be as easy, with the
added advantage of YaST to 'hold my hand' and enable me to do an even better
job. (Formatting and partitioning of the 4 HD's  took a while - but the
system and all the applications installed in about 15 Minutes!! )

What about the idea of using old PC's as terminals to run Applixware, say,
from a server...?  Could a 386 be fast enough as an X terminal?  I imagine
the server have to be something faster than the above?

 We're tripping over all our  old 386's...   In the African context, a lot
of our partner broadcasters in the surrounding countries have very few
computer resources - The Zambian Broadcasting Corporation has two 486's -
one of which  is connected to the Internet (and is locked in the Director
Generals office!)  Malawi Broadcasting Corporation has no pc's at all.

We'd really like to get these guys into a position where they can do simple
audio recording/editing on a PC then exchange files - either Real Audio or
Mpeg3 - with us over the Internet.  If this sort of thing was practical on
386's and 486's, then we'd be a lot more likely to be able to accomodate
them at low cost.  (With the average exchange rate-to the Dollar these days,
a reasonable Pentium system is likely to cost about as much as a luxury
house in Lusaka )

Even without a GUI, Linux should be useable for sampling and encoding audio,
and transfers via FTP could be automated very easily.   (I'm busy
experimenting - and would welcome any suggestions re. Linux audio software)

Incidentally - you'd laugh if you ever saw the demo's I give to some
'professional broadcasters...'  I had two from Norway the other day - I was
telling them how you can use an ordinary PC, a cheap soundcard and Cool-edit
to do "professional quality audio" - they thought I was a total A***hole....
(it was written all across their faces!) until we took them into the studio,
and on our R1 000 000-00 system played them a file that one of our
Journalists had recorded and edited at home on his 200 mHz P1 "Chinese
Special" , then uploaded via HTTP using Genesis and an HTML form on our
webpages.  They listened to the stuff and were struck dumb - they couldn't
fault it! Tee Hee....!  (Quite made my day....!)

Richard King
<A HREF="http://www.channelafrica.org";><A HREF="http://www.channelafrica.org</A">http://www.channelafrica.org</A</A>>

-----Original Message-----
From: Samy Elashmawy <samelash@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: suse-linux-e@xxxxxxxx <suse-linux-e@xxxxxxxx>
Date: 28 November 1998 05:19
Subject: Re: [SuSE Linux] Help in Norfolk, Va

>
>>perhaps can't really get themselves into quite the same trouble as with
>>Windows....  ?  Or should I wait another year or two....?
>>
>
>At least they won't be able to load those pesky games.
>
>I would sugest you go for it on a trial basis with a few users who you feel
>can pretty nmuch leqarn on there own , and who wont need 24/7 handholding.
>or you could go as far as puting two boxes on there desk. Linux runs nicly
>on old hardware , you must have some setting somewhere , just try to add as
>much ram , However with xwindows you will want something more powerfull
>than a 486 , go for pentuims and just add more ram.
>
>I have two cpus in the office , the third and fourth sort of fell by the
>wayside , It seams that once a year while I am overseas , Windows screws up
>, and needs to be reinstalled. I am currently working on setting up a
>server here with linux on it for the data. next as soon as I sort out the
>software issues , i will add/convert to linux. With the dual boot feature ,
>I can run both , and slowly move the apps over to linux.
>
>I set up an old 486/66 with 8m of ram as a samba server , and was shocked
>at how well it preformed. It was chioking on win 3.1 , but runs linux very
>nicely , However I wouoldent dream of running xwindows on it , So I'll make
>use of it elswere.
>
>Bottom line , linux takes more time to set up , but you end up with better
>stability . Give it a try.
>-
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