ReFoRMaT

Holy moly! Hey, somethingotherthanwindows, get a life! I had (let me rephrase, HAVE) a sh*tty life. But I don't go around ripping off people or businesses. Suicide and whining is for cry babies and wimps! My main objective, besides staying alive, is help put Microslop out of business in whatever little ways I can. Bill and friends are greedy, dangerous and scary people. Has anybody not noticed the fingerprint/password hardware. That is the beginning of the end of 'free' anything. Holy 'future is now' scenario. Down right scary. Makes something's problems look miniscule, huh?

I think there is a problem with the NOvidia FX 5200 on the Via Appollo chipset because even the NOvidia/winbloze driver sets the agp speed to 2x and there is no way to change it (even an ATI card looked like h*ll @ 4x). So I am guessing there is nothing wrong with Suse or the driver, I just have a glichy video card on an oddball chipset. Redhat 9.0 gave me a nice blank screen when it tried out its driver on this machine. At least Suse has the decency to make nice with the 2D. I seem to wind up with junkers that have goofy chipsets. Had an 800MHz Athlon/slot A on an Irongate chipset (Via/AMD combo) once and it was a pain in the rumpuss room. The only thing good about it, it was an Asus board. Now the Mom-inlaw is using it for chat/email/browser (I used to be anti-Intel/Microslop, now I am just anti-Microslop). Some AMD cpu's might be fast but they run way too hot and I can 'trip' one up in a heart beat. AMD is always trying to keep up with Intel, so they are always pushing their chips almost to their limits, making them run hot. That's right, I am saying AMD sells cpu's pre-overclocked. What happens when you overclock an Intel? It gets hot! Go figure!

"The newest is not the best". You've got that right! Tested this weekend so far in order; Suse, Knoppix (from the cd just for a quick peek and yes you can install to the hdd) and Mandrake. Fedora2 and Knoppix (hdd install) are yet to come (on a spare hdd 'cause I don't want it wiping out my winbloze, not yet anyway). Well so far it is Suse ahead by a mile. The only major beef is it sets up my Nvidia Geforce fx5200 for 2D okay, as soon as you try to get the 3D working by update or nvid site driver, BIG TROUBLE!. Mandrake had no internet systray icon and insisted on a connect at boot setting (I think the firewall is buggy too). Suse found my Brother HL-1435 no problem, Mandrake 'saw' it but refused to let me set it up. Mandrake in KDE, would not give me the right refresh for my Optiquest Q71 (which is plug and play, Suse 'saw' it and set it up ok). Neither of them 'saw' my old Vivicam20 that is retired for webcam use on usb (they 'knew' the cam was there, just didn't want to set it up). Same for my AOpen FM56-PX modem. Hardware; P!!!733MHz on Apollo Pro 133A chipset, 512MB sdram, Nvidia Geforce fx5200/128MB, 80Gig Seagate (running at ata66) and a D-Link DFE-530TXS (which worked in both but both labled it Sundance somthing or other). Suse pros; excellent hardware detection and indepth settings (you can get lost for days). 'Pretty' desktop enviroment (KDE) and the setup/update tools are good. It also has a better partioner than Mandrakes, Mandrake's made me a little nervous. Felt more stable than Mandrake and 'burped' very little. Perfect for newbies. Decent execution and speed. Suse Cons; I was real p*ssed that they say on their site to update the Nvidia driver (through YOU-Your Online Update) and you should have no problems, yeah, right (managed to get Realplalyer 10 installed though). Then it rejected Nvidia's driver (insult to injury). Big download for extra software and patches, if you are on dialup, stay away. Mandrake Pros; I found the simplicity a bit refreshing but it was too simple in some 'key' areas like hardware management. The install was fairly fast and painless. The multimedia was 'better' (I use the term loosely) right out of the box. Mandrake Cons; Blah KDE desktop enviroment (less screen savers, etc.). Some of the utilities and programs were unco-operative. They bugged me to do a survey at the first boot desktop (cheezy). Poor or non-existent indicators of what it is doing (during update) and no summary. 'K' menu organization sucks. I can't see myself using this fulltime or paying $60 a year for support (the nerve). The Konquerer bookmarks were full of Mandrake sites (stinks of Microslop's Favorites right out of the box). In general, it felt stubborn, slow and flakey at times. In closing, I can see why Suse is becoming popular fast. I just hope they don't get too 'corporate' on us. I would buy Suse every couple of years if they cleaned up the bugs a little more.

One more thing (I don't shutup huh?). What is the most popular/best file system for ALL Linux, or at least for the most widely used? Also, I will be doing a 'quick' low level FoRMaT between inshtallz to avoid any disagreements between da flavours.

Who wants to hear somethin' really stupid. I thought nobody was answering me until I saw the 'next page>>>'. *punches self in head* (these forum graphics are so cheesy huh? just kidding mod). Re: hard drives, go read this, I know it is slightly dated but still pretty valid: http://www.driveservice.com/bestwrst.htm Had a friend with a Maxtorrible blow up on him. You would think some peeps have valuable stuff on their hd's (nuttin but shear crap on mine), they would make 'em a little better. I am gunna go look at Xandros one more time before my burner cools off (heh heh).

Ahhhh, fah-ged-it. I downloaded and burned SuSE 9.1 personal (yes, I know, not much software and neutered in a few ways). I also downloaded and burned Mandrake 10.0 which is also slightly 'license challenged'. Now Fedora II is a different animal, now being raised in the wild by the same wolves that are scratching at the M$ door to eat Billy. Should be interesting cuz my first experience with RedHat 9 wasn't so great. Now if I can just find that spare HDD, I know it is around here somewhere. Don't wanna muck up winbloze just yet. Should be an interesting weekend, trying three new OS's (new to me anyway). One thing I can guarantee, I will be choosing PERSONAL DESKTOP this time, no matter what flavour of Linux. I am determined to find a good 'fit' and get off the winbloze 'hamster wheel'.

Thanks to everybody for their input on my question. Special note to zenarcher: GET RID OF THE WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DRIVE BEFORE IT DIES ON YOU! Saw one of only two and a half years moderate use slowly start to die. It didn't want to initialize (you could hear the head arm clack clacking) and mostly when it was 'cold'. Luckily I was able to get it initialized (and didn't dare shut down) hooked up to my system to Norton Ghost it over to another hard drive (a Seagate, will use 'em 'til they start makin' garbage or I'm dead). One more question, then I will shut up, I promise. I tried Mandrakemove last night and it found all the important hardware and set it up no prob'. The graphics were clean and crisp (KDE 3.somethin'), tried the OpenOffice (1.1) and it looked beautiful compared to the Redhat/gnome disaster which will lead to another question, sorry. Actually three, so sue me! 1) I have a Microslop optical mouse (worked with Mandrakemove but was real slow). Can you adjust the cursor speed in a full HDD install of Mandrake 10.0? 2) I use the Arial Black font for ALL of my business stationary (I have two very small businesses and a laser printer/brother HL-1435). Does anybody know if you can 'import' that font OR find it somewhere for OpenOffice? 3) Does a full install of Mandrake have PPPoe support? 4) ReFoRMaT has performed an illegal operation and hopes he won't be shut down (heh heh) with yet another question. Is there a Linux out there that can do all three of the above? 5) This question is just for fun. How many blue screens have you had over the years from M$ CRAP? Mine number, literally, in the thousands (and always at the most inoppertune time).

P.S. M$ peaked at 2k/service pack 2 which is what I am running now (everybody knows sp3 is loaded with XP style M$ spyware, actually, minor spying started with 95 but I don't wanna 'get started'). I want to make the switch and convince others to switch BEFORE 2k becomes obsolete. I am curious about Mandrake 10.0. The site says it is the most user friendly. Is it? Is KDE 2.6.x anygood? Anybody?

I feel for you dude. I did a little linux investigating (surfed/read), I downloaded Redhat 9.0, burned it (3 disks later), put my spare Deskstar (13GB) in and started the install (chose workstation). After all the file writing and self configuring, it comes up against my GeForce fx 5200/128MB (on a Via Apollo133A chipset/733 P!!!/512MB sdram). BAM!, screens goes black (Nvidia wrote into the winbloze driver, if it 'sees' my chipset, it defaults to 2X apg. I tried an ATI card but it looked like sh*t @ 4X agp). So, driven by curiostiy about the almighty and mysterious linux (which I want to switch to permanently, eventually...Billy IS the antichrist!), I dig out an old Matrox 200/agp. Bingo! RH 9.0 sees the card and before ya know it, I am in this very wierd and interesting place (gnome I think it was). OpenOffice worked but was distorting the size of fonts and makin' 'em fuzzy. Got on the internet extremely easy with the PPPoe configure tool. Mozilla worked pretty good. Maybe I shoulda tried KDE cause I found the graphics rough and distorted. Kinda scared me off. I am more than willing to give up some of the 'familiar comforts' of windoze for a nicer looking, slightly more user friendly linux. I think the cryptic file system and command structure/language is stopping alot of people from jumping off the 'fence' to the linux side. Maybe I am just another spoiled and lazy minion. Sad really.